UUA Programs & Services: Social Justice

Social Justice

Social Justice Empowerment Program Handbook
Table of Contents

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Social Justice Empowerment Handbook

CHAPTER 8: WAYS OF GETTING PEOPLE INVOLVED
IN SOCIAL JUSTICE PROGRAMS

Leaders of social justice programs in local congregations are looking for ways to get people involved in their committees, task groups, and projects. Below are some suggestions:

Infuse social justice into the total life of the congregation by making it part of worship, education, and a caring community.

By making social justice a part of the congregation’s other programs we build bridges between the social justice program and these areas. This process helps more members of the congregation become aware of what the social justice people are doing and generates more support from all the members of the congregation for the work.

Use processes that involve the whole congregation in choosing issues to work on.

The Rochester model (which comes from the First Unitarian Church of Rochester NY) provides a way of getting the whole congregation involved in selecting and developing social justice issues to be worked on. When people are involved in picking the issues they are more willing to do something about them.

Make use of task groups.

Forming task groups enables a congregation to do several projects at the same time. Every time you start a task group around an emerging issue you provide an opportunity for new people to become involved.

For example, the All Souls Church in New York City has task groups on hunger, homelessness, A.I.D.S., and children. Every time they start a new task force they get dozens of new people involved.

Develop good public relations.

Effective publicity keeps people informed about what is happening in your program and shows them ways they can get involved.

The committee and the task forces need to communicate to members of the congregation what they are trying to accomplish in their programs. Publicity is important in recruiting volunteers and in keeping people informed about what is happening. Ways of publicizing the work of the committee include:

Newsletter: Ideally social justice leaders would put a story in every newsletter about some aspect of the social justice program. Articles can cover projects being carried out by the task groups, activities in the community that members are involved with, denominational social justice programs, and current events.

Bulletin boards: These can be used to display meeting notices, information concerning current projects, and pictures of the committee members.

Pamphlet rack: Brochures, pamphlets, and flyers can be put in the pamphlet rack.

Literature and letter writing table: Many social justice committees set up tables during the Sunday morning coffee hour to distribute information about the congregation’s social justice programs. Letter writing is an easy way of getting people involved in a task that is an effective way to influence legislators.

Announcements in the Sunday Service: Congregations handle announcements during the worship service in a wide variety of ways. Announcements are more effective when they are targeted on a few issues instead of a large number of them. One possibility is to pick one or two major projects during a month and focus the announcements on them. It helps to supplement the verbal presentation with an insert in the order of service.

Conducting forums or educational programs: When you publicize an event like a forum you have a good opportunity to publicize your overall program as well.

Publicity in the Community: Your social justice program and the congregation are also helped by publicity in the community. Sometimes it is difficult to get stories written in major metropolitan newspapers. But local and neighborhood papers are often eager to get material about local actions and projects. You can even take steps to establish a relationship with a reporter from a local paper and feed stories to that person. If you supply pictures, then the paper should be even more interested in printing the story.

Use an effective recruitment strategy to select people for your committee and task forces.

In the spring committees and task groups usually recruit new members for the fall.

Be intentional about developing a strategy for recruitment to get new people involved in the program. Too often people put an announcement in the newsletter and then wonder why they don’t get a response. In order to get good quality people to serve on the social justice committee or task groups, you need to develop an effective recruitment strategy.

One approach to recruiting is:

Have committee (or task group) members think about how many people they need to recruit for the coming year.
Have the group brainstorm the names of people they think would be good additions to the committee (it’s helpful to consider the skills and resources such folks would bring to your work.) If you need three people, make a list of six, figuring that you can get half the group to say yes.
Rank order the candidates.
Assign committee members to make personal contact with your potential recruits.

Face to face contact is the most effective way to do recruiting. One suggestion is to arrange for a special time to get together with the person. It might be a luncheon, or another social occasion. Then you can take a whole hour to explain what your program is and why you would like that person to be involved in it. Be specific about what you want that person to do. The person you are recruiting can ask questions and get the information they need to determine if they want to make a commitment to your project. Or, you may discover that the person is interested in a different project!

Another way of recruiting is sending a representative of the social justice program to orientation sessions for new members. There you can identify new church members interested in social justice issues and inform them of the congregation's social justice programs.

Developing brochures on the history of social justice in the life of the church and on the current social justice activities is also useful. They can be put out at the social justice table, put in literature racks, and handed out at new member meetings.

Offer a diversity of program opportunities that provide different ways for people to be involved.

A congregation's social justice program should be broad in scope because people do social justice in different ways based on their personality, temperament, interests, abilities, and values. We provide more opportunities for people to be involved when we create programs oriented around these different needs. Another reason is that we need to choose a style that fits the demands of a situation.

Methodist minister Thomas Price wrote an article entitled "The Four Types of Social Concern" which helps us to understand the different ways we can respond to social issues. I have added a fifth approach – that of advocacy.

The five types of social action are:

SERVICE: The purpose of social service is to meet the needs of persons in distress:.

Examples: collecting money, donating food or clothing, tutoring, sheltering the homeless, child care programs, programs and homes for senior citizens, youth clubs, scouts, food programs, hospitals.
Strengths: It is doing something in the present. Hungry people are fed; homeless people are housed.

Weaknesses: Relieving the symptoms does not always solve the problem. Little impact on public policy, which produces far more hunger and homelessness.
EDUCATION: The purpose of social education is to teach people about the importance of a social issue. The goal is to inform people about the aspects of the issues and also interpret the issue within the context of liberal religious values.

Examples: public meetings, workshops, resolutions, drama, worship services and sermons, public forums.

Strengths: People's consciousness is raised.

Weaknesses: Talking about a problem may become a substitute for doing something about it.

WITNESS: The purpose of social witness is to make public by word or deed the convictions of an individual or organization regarding a particular issue.

Examples: participating in demonstrations, vigils and marches, letters to the editor, passing resolutions, communicating to the wider community through press releases and/or press conferences, organizing petition campaigns, changing your life style.

Strengths: People in the community know where you stand on a given issue.

Weaknesses: Tempation to believe that speaking out will in itself solve the problem.

ADVOCACY: The purpose of advocacy is to work through the legislative process to impact on public policy.

Examples: visiting elected representatives in a delegation, writing letters to elected officials, giving testimony at public hearings.

Strengths: Public policy is, to some extent, affected.

Weaknesses: Taking stands on controversial issues can split a congregation.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING: The purpose of community organizing is to participate in the process by which decisions are made in places of power. The focus is on the power of institutional structures and how that power is used for good or evil. This approach is based on the recognition that individuals have little power to change their situations without the strength of groups who know how to organize and influence power.

Examples: developing a strong organization, influencing policy and decision-makers, empowering people so they can achieve self-determination

Strengths: Oppressive systems are transformed.

Weaknesses: There is a danger in choosing a goal so large that achieving it is impossible. This approach may involve more political struggle than many members of a congregation feel comfortable with.

It is important to remember these five approaches when trying to get people involved in social justice programs. Recognize that members of the congregation have different styles and temperaments when it comes to doing social justice ministry. One person may feel comfortable doing hands on direct service while another may have the energy to change the system through advocacy and community organizing. There should be room for both types of people in our congregations and our work.

We like to pride ourselves on our theological diversity. We say that our congregations provide a religious home for people with very different theologies: theists, humanists, pagans, Christians, Jews and so on. Hopefully we can have the same kind of tolerance/acceptance for our different social justice styles.

These five approaches to doing social justice ministry do not exist in isolation from one another. Rather, they are complementary. Ideally we would have programs in our congregations on specific issues which would include all five approaches.

Such is the case in the Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus, OH. This congregation has a multi-faceted program to empower homeless people.

In the service component, individuals go through an eight-week training program to develop a personal relationship with a homeless person living in one of two local shelters. These volunteers serve as sounding boards and advocate for people at government and social welfare agencies. Members of the congregation also provide money, food, and clothing.

In the educational part of the program, forums on homelessness are held for members of the congregation and the wider community. Guest speakers do sermons on the topic. Announcements are made in the church service and articles are put in the congregation's newsletter.

With regard to witnessing, members of the congregation participate in rallies to save the general assistance program. They do press releases providing information about the problem of homelessness and what their congregation is doing about it.

In terms of advocacy, church members lobby elected officials about this issue. This was especially true when members of the City Council needed to find extra money to keep one of the shelters open.

With regard to community organizing, the congregation's program is linked to two coalitions working to end homelessness: the Hunger and Development Coalition of Central Ohio, and the Housing Coalition - Ohio.

As a result of these programs, several homeless people have found jobs and homes to live in.

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