UUA Programs & Services: Social Justice

Social Justice

Social Justice Empowerment Program Handbook
Table of Contents

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Social Justice Empowerment Handbook

CHAPTER 4: HOW TO STRUCTURE SOCIAL JUSTICE
IN LOCAL CONGREGATIONS

This section provides information on how to structure the social justice program in a local congregation. The material covers:

Structuring Social Justice Programs in Small Congregations and Fellowships
Effective Committees and Task Groups

STRUCTURING SOCIAL JUSTICE PROGRAMS
IN SMALL CONGREGATIONS AND FELLOWSHIPS

The size of a congregation has a lot to do with how you can structure a program. There is a difference between structuring a program in a small congregation and a mid-size or large congregation. In a small congregation you organize through a social justice committee. In a mid-size or large congregation, the ideal way to work is through a task group and a coordinating committee.

There are 780 fellowships and congregations that have less than 150 members. The total number of Unitarian Universalist congregations is 1,055.

Fellowships and small congregations do not have a large number of people or a sizable budget for their program. But they do have certain strengths that they can build on to do effective social justice ministry. These strengths include:

A strong feeling of family and community

A short chain of command

Ease of Communication

Often located in communities where they can provide important leadership

Fellowships and small congregations also have particular challenges as they carry out their social justice programs. These challenges are:

Often there is no committee, or the existing committee is small.

Since there are so few people on the committee the members can get burned out easily.

Personality clashes in the committee or in the congregation can be particularly harmful.

The congregation’s budget often contains no money for the social justice program.

Members of the congregation may be providing leadership to the social change groups in the community and as a result may not have time for church projects.

Sometimes groups exist in conservative communities where it is difficult to take a stand on a controversial issue.

Often there is no building to provide a community identity.

In spite of these obstacles small congregations have been able to do some significant programming. Following are some examples:

Unitarian Universalist Society of the Palisades in Englewood, NJ

This congregation has approximately 30 members. The congregation sponsored a fundraising event for a project to end hunger. The members of the congregation joined with other UU congregations in New Jersey. They reserved a large hall at a school. They invited the Jubilee Singers, a gospel group from All Souls Church in Washington, DC. The event was successful; they raised $10,000.

First Universalist Church of Yarmouth, ME

This congregation has a membership of approximately 150.

Members of the congregation’s social justice committee approached the board of trustees about picking a unifying issue to work on. Together they agreed to focus on the issue of the environment.

As a result, some of the Sunday services during the year were focused on environmental themes. The social justice committee worked with members of the religious education committee to develop some curriculum materials for children on environmentalism. All the members of the church had a chance to participate in a recycling project.

Blue Hills Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Rice Lake, WI

The Religious Education Director uses the Study Guides for the General Resolutions passed by the UUA General Assembly as a way of generating reflection and action.

Harrisonburg Unitarian Universalists in Harrisonburg, VA

This congregation of 62 members takes the third Sunday and creates an intergenerational program on social issues. For example, they might have all of the adults and children participate in a project to clean up a park.

When developing a social justice program in a small church or fellowship remember to involve the whole congregation and pick one or two-focus area. Small groups can’t support a whole network of task groups like a larger congregation can. But hopefully they can pick one or two issues that can receive broad support from the members of the group.

STRUCTURING SOCIAL JUSTICE PROGRAMS
IN MIDDLE SIZE AND LARGE CONGREGATIONS

Mid-size congregations have between 150 and 600 members. Large congregations have more than 600 members.

Mid-size and large congregation, which have strong social justice programs, carry out their programs through task groups. By using task groups a congregations can have a number of substantial ongoing projects.

Task groups are necessary because it’s difficult for a social justice committee to manage several projects at the same time. There isn’t enough time in a monthly meeting to do all the committee business and also develop in-depth projects. Typically we see a pattern where ten people come to the meeting with ten issues. During the meeting each person tries to persuade the other people to work on their issue. But the group can never achieve a consensus. At the end of the meeting everyone goes home frustrated. At the next meeting they repeat the same cycle.

The best way to start task forces is to identify those issues about which people are deeply concerned. The reason for this is that people will act on issues they feel strongly about. UUs are having a lot of success organizing people around women’s issues, environmental issues, and peace issues about which because these are issues our people care deeply about.

COORDINATING THE TASK GROUPS

Once members of a congregation have taken the steps to set up the task groups then they must develop a way to coordinate these groups and develop an overall program. So they set up a coordinating group or a council.

In some situations the task groups meet together once a month. Such is the case with the Unitarian Universalist Community Church in Park Forest, IL. This congregation has task forces called Hunger and Homeless Housing, Peace and World Affairs, Women’s Issues, and Ecology. The task forces have a joint meeting the last Sunday of each month at a 9:30 a.m. adult forum. They share the news of their activities and host speakers on other social justice issues. During this meeting people are also encouraged to write letters to legislators.

Other congregations structure their coordinating so that the task group leaders meet only four or five times a year. For example, First Unitarian Society in Chicago, IL has a social justice council. The council consists of a regular liaison from each task force, denominational groups, larger community groups, and three at-large representatives. The councils meet at least quarterly. The council proposes policies and task forces to the Trustees; establishes priorities and goals regarding social justice; and initiates, facilitates, and coordinates activities consistent with its goals.

One of the most effective ways of coordinating the task groups comes to us from the Allen Avenue congregation in Portland, ME. One evening a month all the task forces are brought together. For the first twenty minutes everyone meets to discuss issues like funding, recruiting, and developing publicity. They take only one issue a month to discuss. Then the task groups go to separate meeting rooms for an hour and a half to work on their social justice issues. At the end of the meeting the task group members come back together to share with the other people what they talked about and ways that others can help them with their projects. The advantages of this model are: all the members of the task forces meet together instead of just the leaders of the task force; participants still get to focus on their projects because they break into separate groups; members of task force groups have a face to face opportunity to stay informed about what other task groups are doing.

There is no "best way" to coordinate task groups. You will need to experiment to see what works for you in your situation. You will have to decide if you want your coordinating group to meet monthly, every other month, or three or four times a year. And you will need to determine if you want to have all the task group members meet together, as they do at Allen Avenue, or just the leaders of the task groups.

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