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Dear UUCC Beloveds,
You may recall that my first interim appraisal (in February 2025) included enlivening the Conflict Management Ministry as one of the goals for the interim period. The Board agreed with me, and Covenant and Conflict Management became a priority goal for the 2025-26 fiscal year. At the time, I noted a missing piece related to the 2019 congregational conflict: the building of trust moving forward. The conflict itself had been processed, but the systems that were created to hold the community in future conflicts are not well understood or actively functioning.
This means that when recent conversations regarding UUCC’s staffing footprint and budget caused some conflict within the congregation, we were not well-equipped to respond as a community. In the past few weeks, we have experienced old patterns of conflict being reinforced and acted out within the system, including polarization, personal attacks, ultimatums, and defensiveness. The Board and the Executive Team have responded to every bit of feedback we have received regarding the changes in staff footprint, and I would like to offer my gratitude to all of you who engaged in conversation in good faith, whether we were able to come to agreement or not. I am still available to talk through any questions or concerns you may have.
That said, starting immediately, I will be focusing on rebuilding the infrastructure of covenant and conflict management, particularly UUCC’s Covenant of Right Relations, the foundation for our relationships as a congregation.
Ultimately, there will be a standing committee to educate and engage the congregation in conflict management strategies as well as to help congregants work through conflicts. In the short term, the Transition Team will hold space for questions and engagement with the covenant while I work with a small group of folks to recruit and equip committee members.
Remember that for Unitarian Universalist congregations, our covenants are the foundational structure that undergirds our communities. They are the promises that bind us together. Each one of us freely chooses to enter into the covenant when we join the community as members. And the community itself is part of the promise. We do not make our promises to God or before God. We are not held accountable by some external force. We make our promises to and with this community. And entering into a covenant makes us accountable to one another.
To live a covenant together, we must be compassionate enough to speak difficult truths, vulnerable enough to listen to those truths, and strong enough to work through them together. We must balance the needs of the one with the needs of the many. Our covenants invite us to authenticity and resilience, and they call us into a broader, deeper, and wider practice of our shared faith.
So, in these days before the annual meeting on Sunday, June 7, I invite you to review your Covenant of Right Relations and to remember that we are all here in service to your mission – with the goal of working together to make this congregation the best it can be.
With gratitude,
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