From Orlando to The Mountain: Southern Region Collaboration and Transformation
The four UUA districts of the Southern Region met at The Mountain in September, 2013. There they created and announced plans (Mountain Meeting - Sept 2013) to further the goals and aspirations articulated in The Orlando Platform, which the same organizations (along with UUA Trustees, UUA Administration and UUA professional staff) jointly created at a meeting in Orlando, FL, in December, 2010. This is one article in a series that pertains to this transformative work to grow the impact of our faith in our UUA’s Southern Region.
The article below is adapted from a presentation by Kirk Bogue, President of the Mid-South District, to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Montgomery, Montgomery, AL, on February 2, 2014, after they warmly hosted the Mid-South District Board Meeting.
I bring a warm welcome and much gratitude to be here with you. I am like you, our staff and fellow board members in that I carry the light of the flaming chalice in me as I participate in the work of our faith.
My hope is that in a few minutes you will be more aware and comfortable with words like “regionalization,” “elders” and “clusters,” as they are all about creating more light from flaming chalices - here, in other congregations, and in between.
If you could look at earth from high in the sky…imagine that you could see the light from flames in our chalices…you’d would see them around our district and region…a few in Mississippi, some in Arkansas, Florida, South Carolina, in Alabama, one right here in Montgomery. In the past you might see a flame moving from one to another…picture that as our District Executive…visiting congregations, helping with training or a transition. Occasionally you might see light from many places converging in fall or spring for a district event.
Now envision more light moving among and between more places… those might be elders – leaders in our faith, from congregations like yours serving beyond your walls with your blessing, in a shared ministry with staff or consultants, extending the hand of support to more congregations when the need is there, helping there be more service than staff / consultantscan provide alone.
Imagine more connectedness of congregations coming together with each other…we would call those clusters for the moment, to jointly take on challenges or opportunities to bring more effectiveness to themselves and more love to a world that needs more peace and justice. Clusters, a form of small group ministry for congregations, reflect that we are stronger togetherthan alone. And now imagine the lights that don’t move - those of congregations, these become brighter and more prevalent across the landscape because there are new ones and the existing ones have grown stronger through connection and development. If you go back to our perch in the sky, you may now see enough lights that it looks like a web - an interconnected web.
Creating and nurturing and relying on that interdependence is what we mean when we say “Regionalization.”
You should know that I came from a congregation that used to wonder why we paid dues to the UUA or the district. The UUA was known either as Boston, or “them”! It took me awhile as a Unitarian Universalist to understand that we are a covenantal faith and what that can mean. Thinking about others in my association with disdain or lack of trust certainly doesn’t reflect “being in covenant” to me.
I hadn’t thought about work at the district level until I was asked to serve. It was there, working with other districts, our district staff, UUA staff and our UUA trustees that I realized two things: the first was how disconnected things were at times, and the second, how much we all wanted to change that. And so our “regionalization” work began to envision a new way. Over three plus years now the following is happening:
First, it is no longer “them” or “The UUA”, it is “Our UUA”! This is our association and we all (ministers, staff, congregations, UUs) need to claim it, support it and nurture it. We can’t just live our seven principles in our local lives; we need to live them across our faith, including our association.
We don’t believe there should be governance in two places; it isn’t healthy to have district policies conflict with UUA Ends (also known as goals). There is a structure for governing our faith through UUA trustees and we should make that work through shared ministry as it relates to governance. Let’s turn the duplicative effort and confusion that causes into alignment and more feet on the ground making a bigger impact.
Instead of all the checks and balances of power, and the shared management and control of staff silos with the Director of Congregational Life, let’s trust, empower and partner with each other; let there be a single management point for staff for their clarity, for their development and for their effectiveness, and let them become a true team where their talents and strengths can be truly leveraged to support us.
Fiscal inequity in how we make payments to the UUA and how money gets distributed back to districts isn’t equitable; let’s change that, too.
Instead of monitoring staff, let’s spread the impact by ministry alongside them, and instead of being custodians of money, let’s focus more on being custodians of congregational connections. After all, relationships –how we interact and connect – how we interdepend on each other – that’s our most important asset.
During this time that we have worked in covenant with other districts, staff, trustees and UUA administration – which we now include in the word “staff” when we say that, we declared that the UUA goals, those which we already help create through trustees, are our goals, too, and that we will align with them in serving our congregations.
We have formed a strong partnership, one with trust and empowerment, with several in UUA Administration, most notably Scott Tayler, the new Director of Congregational Life. He is excellent at vision and planning and he has truly helped us discern the separation between governance and doing the “operations” or work of our faith. We feel heard, respected and looked out for because he is inclusive and demonstrates accountability.
Staff members from four districts in our region (SED, FLD, SWUUC, and MSD) have formed an integrated team, working together and leveraging strengths, the result of which is a new level of relationship building, training, workshops, leadership development and support.
We’ve implemented a one ask, one unified budget plan for fiscal equity across the region – you should know that as GIFT (Generously Investing for Tomorrow), which started last year in our region as a pilot for the rest of the UUA – just one of the many ways our region is a leader.
We are forming multi-district councils in our region to more efficiently manage money/assets, to partner with the Director of Congregational Life and staff, to put more energy into expanding the impact of lay leadership and connecting congregations.
Though we don’t see there is much for district boards to govern, they are not going to be dissolved at this time. We will use part of that structure to better connect congregations with district and regional leaders as well as trustees.
We are at a point to realize one part of our dreams a few years ago - how do we get lay leaders who spend time on duplicative governance work out on the street growing our faith.
So where do congregations come in? It has been harder than I thought over the past few years to adequately represent congregations I was elected to serve. Part of the reason was the system, and part is your role.
Part of our covenant is that people who represent you be connected with you. It was hard to do that initially, in large part because of the time required on other tasks. Given the work I mentioned above, your district leaders now have the time and we do have the action item to develop connection to each congregation we serve. We developed our plan for that just yesterday.
Where we have tried to be connected with congregations directly, I will share that effort has been challenging. Part of our covenant to each other is that we be accessible. By accessible, I mean that a congregation’s contact information is current at the UUA or on their websites. And part of our covenant is that congregations send leaders to the places where connections and learning can occur. It will always be “we” and “them” until we all show up to connect and make it “us”. So I urge you in your congregations to find a way to make that happen.
From my place in high in the sky, I am seeing the interdependent web of our faith across our region show more movement, be in more places and shine brighter. I’ve never been more excited about our faith. I congratulate you for the work you are doing here, as from where I sit, the light in Montgomery is also growing stronger!
Kirk Bogue
President, Mid-South District
Member, Communication Task Force on behalf of the Southern Region Leadership
