UUA’s Southern Region Has a Plan – Elders in Action

By Kirk Bogue, Southern Region Communications Task Force

The Elder Model is part of The Work of growing Unitarian Universalism that the UUA’s Southern Region began earnestly in December 2010. UUA Southern Region district boards, working with UUA Trustees, UUA Administration, and professional staff deemed then that there needed to be a more effective way to serve member congregations and covenanted communities, the larger UU faith, and the world around us than the current district structure. It was then that they aligned and committed to The Work they would undertake to implement more effective and impactful ways of being together. The Elder Model is one component of The Work envisioned to be implemented with formal support from congregations at District Annual Assemblies across the Southern Region in April 2015. 

Imagine that your congregation begins formally recognizing Elders in your congregation and that it supports some of them to serve beyond your congregation’s walls as Regional Elders.  The Congregational Elders you support could be youth, young adults, or people of any other age. Elders are trusted and influential members of your congregation, who are able to articulate and teach the UU faith, have demonstrated that they understand and embody the shared covenant of the UU faith, and are able to call people back to covenant. Regional Elders are Congregational Elders sponsored by their congregation to serve the larger UUA more broadly - they stay in right relations with their home congregation, live UU values daily, and have a good relationship with other UU congregations or covenanted UU communities their congregation collaborates with. Their role is to serve the faith in a regional capacity, to represent the larger UUA at events to include building dedications, ordinations, installations, anniversaries, or other events that could occur. Additionally, they’d join one strong body of Regional Elders of all ministry types, such as ministers, professional staff and lay leaders.  It’s expected that Elders would both understand and appreciate the honor and responsibility conveyed to them. 

If there were a sermon just prior to a ceremony in which a congregation formalized its support of particular members as Elders, it would likely discuss the spiritual and practical responsibilities a UU congregation has to develop and recognize leaders within its own walls and to sponsor some of them to serve their faith beyond the boundaries of the congregation.  The message about this sacred responsibility would be simple. “It’s not enough that a congregation’s only involvement with other congregations is with The UUA when a vote is held at its annual General Assembly. The world will have more love, peace and justice when congregations work collaboratively with each other on selected causes where the combined force of their effort can make a colossal difference.”

If the application of the Unitarian Universalism is essential to lifting up and solving complex issues society faces, doesn’t our faith call us individually and collectively to bring that kind of leadership and organization to bear? 

The Southern Region Communications Task Force includes Margie Manning (Florida District), Carrie Stewart (SWUUC), Kirk Bogue (MidSouth), and Chris Reid (Florida), working in shared ministry with Kathy McGowan (Congregational Life Staff member), and Christine Purcell (Communications/IT Specialist).

Maggie Lovins on Covenant and Shared Ministry

by Margie Manning, Southern Region Communications Task Force

There is beauty in living in covenant. That’s a key message shared by Maggie Lovins, UUA Southern Region Congregational Life staff member.

Congregations are never alone and are always better together, Lovins tells those she works with. Living that concept plays a role in creating beloved community.

“I would like for everyone to have some kind of experience of transcendence – it could be personal, it could be communal, for instance participation in a Pride March – where the work of our human hands becomes more important than we are,” she said.

Deep conversations around covenant have been among the most exciting things Lovins said have occurred since she joined the Southern Region staff on Aug. 1, 2013. Prior to that, she served as an active lay leader, including working as a Smart Church Consultant and serving on the MidSouth District Board. In her home church in Pensacola, she was administrator for quite a few years, and also Children’s Religious Education Coordinator and Volunteer Coordinator.

Lovins, who has a wide, engaging smile, a frank manner of speaking and boundless energy, said she loves her job, because she gets to live her call. “I believe my ministry is with lay leaders and religious professionals and helping them to be the best UU’s they can be,” said Lovins, who is enrolled in Starr King's Masters of Divinity program.

One of the biggest challenges Lovins deals with is conversation around religious terms, while some people have shied away from for a long time. She believes talking about words such as covenant – what the word meant historically and what it has come to mean – and owning those terms is important and builds relationships among UU’s.

Being part of the Congregational Life staff team is a source of great strength, because her colleagues and her share frequent phone calls or gather at their online “water cooler” to discuss issues. While they are geographically separated, the system works because of their covenant with one another.

“When we struggle and fall down we get back up and lift each other up when that happens,” she said. “We want to see each other succeed because we are all working toward the same thing.”

Working toward the same goal – to heal and soothe hurt people and hurting places – with other staff members and with lay leaders is Lovins’ definition of shared ministry. “Shared ministry to me is we are all part of the whole. Some people have to lead, some people have to follow, but everyone has a piece of the ministry,” she said. “Evangelizing the South for Unitarian Universalism is a 24/7 job and I need all the help I can get in that.”

Southern Region Consolidation Plans Take Shape

By Margie Manning and Kathy McGowan, Southern Region Communications Task Force

Last month, the UUA Southern Region moved closer to consolidation among the four Districts after several days of meetings in Austin, Texas.

Congregations throughout the region will be asked to dissolve District governance at Annual Assemblies, April 17-April 19, 2015. The goal is to grow Unitarian Universalism in the Southern Region, by developing more relationships across geographic lines, allowing UU’s to learn from each other and better collaborate on issues of importance.

Working in covenant at the meeting in Austin, Executive Lead Rev. Kenn Hurto, Congregational Life and administrative staff, and the presidents of the four Districts talked about their visions for regional operations after the April votes. Also present were Rev. Scott Tayler, UUA Director of Congregational Life, and Vail Weller and Norrie Gall, UUA Stewardship & Development.

A multi-district task force is ascertaining the legal and financial issues that must be addressed in order for District governance to be dissolved. During the Austin meeting, Rev. Hurto and Rev. Tayler discussed a proposal to have the Southern Region become a “branch office” or “field ministries office” of Congregational Life, while also protecting regional assets.

Clusters and Elders are key parts of the structures that are emerging as the Region moves toward consolidation.

Congregational Life staff members have begun identifying the services they can provide to clusters of congregations that share a common geography, common interests or are working on common issues.

A multi-district task force is fine-tuning a plan to set up a structure that will ensure there is an active group of Elders (both lay leaders and religious professionals) who, in concert with Congregational Life staff, can serve and grow the faith by working with congregations and clusters.

Our elected leaders feel that regional consolidation is the best way forward, keeping in mind the vision of the Orlando Platform that recognizes duplication in governance, a thirst for more covenantal relationships, and a hunger to grow our faith. We ask you to stay informed about this work through communications on the Southern Region newsletter and website, and discuss it with your congregation and cluster.

The Southern Region Communications Task Force includes Margie Manning (Florida
District), Carrie Stewart (SWUUC), Kirk Bogue (MidSouth), and Chris Reid (Florida),
working in shared ministry with Kathy McGowan
(Congregational Life Staff member), and Christine Purcell (IT Specialist).

GIFT Deepens Congregational Connections

by Margie Manning, Southern Region Communications Task Force

With congregations in the UUA Southern Region moving towards stronger relationships and greater interdependence, we’ve also put in place a funding model that mirrors the covenantal nature of our faith.

GIFT – or Generously Investing For Tomorrow – is in its second year, and increasingly congregations are seeing this program as a way to deepen our connections with each other, with the region and with the UUA.

GIFT takes us out of a transactional relationship between congregations and the UUA, said Bill Clontz, UUA Stewardship Consultant. The Annual Program Fund and former District dues were based on per capita contributions and could feel like a head tax or a poll tax, while GIFT “gets out of the head count business and on a level plane,” Clontz said.

Under GIFT, a full ask is 7 percent of the actual operating expenditures of a congregation. While APF was a set number, based on membership, GIFT takes into account budget changes; if revenue falls, spending is likely to drop as well, and the percentage of that allocated for GIFT would decline.

“GIFT is the financial version of a potluck dinner,” Clontz said. “Everyone brings what they can.”

In the first year of GIFT, for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2014, contributions were $1.75 million, compared to $1.95 million in the prior fiscal year, when collections were based on APF and District dues. Regional and UUA executives had anticipated a drop-off in the initial year of the program, and the UUA provided the Southern Region with a $75,000 subsidy to offset the impact.

In the first year, congregations that contributed a minimum of 5 percent of their actual operating expenditures were considered Honor congregations; that will shift in the current year, with 6 percent contributors receiving the Honor designation but 7 percent remaining the full ask.

One significant outcome from the first year of GIFT – there were more than 500 additional members reported to the UUA from congregations in the Southern Region than in 2013, according to the Stewardship & Development Office.

With the former APF/District dues system, there could be a temptation to fudge the numbers, setting up an oppositional relationship, Clontz said. In contrast, GIFT is covenantal.

“It reminds us that the UUA is us, we support it,” Clontz said. “It’s caused a lot of congregations to ask a fundamental question – what’s the point of being in the UUA, what do we get out of it, what happens to the money.”

To address that question, the UUA has developed an extensive report on what accrues from membership in the association [LINK: http://www.uua.org/giving/apf/stewardship/185486.shtml] . “No one thinks you will need a mediator or have a shooting in your church, but the UUA provides help when you need it,” Clontz said.

And while it’s perfectly acceptable to ask what a congregation gets for its money, that’s only half the question. “There’s lots of things we could not do as individual congregations,” Clontz said. “The UUA and Region work on national and international levels and we give them the resources to do our work.”

Clontz cited the hundreds of people from 30 UU congregations who responded to a call and showed up wearing their yellow ‘Standing on the Side of Love’ T-shirts as the U.S. Supreme Court convened for the session to consider the Marriage Equality Act. “We can be 1,000 individual congregations, little candles in the dark, or we can be a connected grid.”

The Southern Region Communications Task Force includes Margie Manning (Florida
 District), Carrie Stewart (SWUUC), Kirk Bogue (MidSouth), and Chris Reid (Florida),
 working in shared ministry with Kathy McGowan (Congregational Life Staff), and Christine Purcell (IT Specialist).

Kathy McGowan: Together With You and Me, She’ll Build a Land

by Kirk Bogue, SR Communications Ministry

It’s no secret to those who know Kathy McGowan or have a congregation that has benefited from her involvement; she is all about relationship.  Prior to joining the UUA Southern Region Congregational Life Team in January 2013, and certainly since then, Kathy is among those spreading the word, instilling the practice and nurturing the spirit of Interdependence -  the concept that we are better working together than we are when we work alone. That was clear on a mid-August morning as she shared her views of our Unitarian Universalist faith and her role helping lay leaders and congregations strengthen their impact.  Somewhere during a 45 minute conversation with Kathy as she strolls through a North Carolina Farmer’s Market you might just begin to feel you’re at church.  Kathy has a passion and a message that can’t help but inspire you to bring more love and justice to a world that sorely needs more of both.

“Unitarian Universalism has a unique way of changing the world.  Each congregation, through their own Unitarian Universalist lens and their own unique mission, contributes to that”, expressed Kathy.  Along with other Congregational Life staff, Kathy upholds the notion that a congregation is an individual’s place to try to set an example, to be a model for how living together well works.  She adds, “This is where you live through the trials and honesty of how it really is, where you put values before the end product and then take that out into the world.” Then she reflects proudly on her collaboration with the UUA’s Faith Development  Office and a large North Carolina congregation to help it determine where on the continuum of its journey it is and where to go next.  Working with a large group to help them find their unique power is extremely rewarding and satisfying to Kathy. In her eyes, such success is all about the relationship connectedness that enables transformative collaboration to occur.

Such work is what teamwork on the Southern Region Congregational Life Team is all about.  Kathy explains, “We’re always working harder to be a better example for the world, it’s the most important thing our Southern Region staff team does.  We’re focusing on the core of our faith, which is relationship.  Unitarian Universalism as a faith is innovative at doing this. Getting along with people with diverse views is what we all are doing and need to do more of.” Kathy’s mom was a choir director and both parents were involved in Community Theater, so collaboration was part of her life growing up.  Whether it was the director looking out for the big picture, or the actor getting their part just right, or the costume designer focused on how everyone looked, it took the collaboration of all involved to create a successful performance. Bringing that to her adult life and adding in her penchant for humor translates to a natural gift of connecting and teamwork that Kathy brings to those she helps while she has fun doing so. “Getting people to water is harder than getting them to drink”, she says.  “I want them to have that special feeling of being part of something so much bigger.  Connectedness is essential so that.”

Since relationship is all about connectedness, Kathy discussed the role worship and celebration play in strengthening Unitarian Universalists relationships among the Unitarian Universalist faithful.  “Worship should be where we lift up what is most important; aspirational and worthy of our gratitude.  Finding moments that are worthy and then putting them together thoughtfully is important”, she says.  She continues, “Stop at real moments, stop and acknowledge the holy moments, self-reflect on what we did. Let’s stop and breathe and hold each other’s hand to connect.” On the role of celebration, Kathy emphasized her thought that we as Unitarian Universalists need to learn to celebrate better than we do.  “As predominantly middle class white people living in the United States, we are product, task and goal oriented.  We forget that joy is a value, we forget to live adding joy to our life.”   She believes that joyous events help people move forward, though she cautions, “Before we can celebrate, we need to do the hard work of achieving authentic trust.  That is what we are doing and what needs to be built.”  She clarifies, “You don’t want to have false celebrations emanating from obligation; you want the kind founded on true relationship and connectedness.”

Kathy was momentarily quiet when asked if she would share a defining moment or two from her life that has contributed to who she is or what she does to serve Unitarian Universalism. Eventually she shared, “There are spiritual dimensions to defining moments that are personal, that feel like they are yours.  It happens to her when she goes into a large church with a large pipe organ and they are singing one of her songs; taking in “We’ll Build a Land” in such a setting is connectedness to Kathy.  “You can’t exactly take it home, but you can’t leave it behind.  It gives hope and confidence.  It tells me we can become more relevant and important.”

Districts Create Southern Region Leadership Development Fund, September2014

by Margie Manning, Southern Region Communications Ministry

Leaders inspire and guide. While some are born leaders, many others learn leadership skills through purposeful development initiatives. Several studies have shown that leadership development matters and investments made in leadership development pay off in terms of strong organizations.


A fund to support leadership development throughout the UUA Southern Region has been established with the transfer of money in funds previously managed by the Florida and the MidSouth Districts.

The votes by the two District boards are an important step toward full regional consolidation. Our region already operates under one consolidated budget, approved at District Annual Assemblies in April and effective July 1, 2014. We continue to move towards dissolving District governance and building a Region of interconnected congregations and clusters, with Congregational Life staff working region-wide in a shared ministry model with Elders and lay leaders, and with appropriate fiscal oversight. Creating a single fund for leadership development region-wide furthers those goals.

The newly established Southern Region Leadership Development Fund was seeded with approximately $32,600. About $23,932 previously was in the Florida Fund Endowment. The new fund also includes most of the $6,747 that was in the MidSouth UP! Program Fund, and $1,912 that was in the MidSouth’s Rome, Ga. Dissolution Fund.

The Florida Foundation was started several years ago as a way to increase District staff, by building an investment large enough to fund an additional staff member with the interest from the fund, without touching the principal, according to Al Tweedy, treasurer of the Florida District. However, the number of major contributors was small and the amount never came close to its objective.

“The Florida District Board was faced with the necessity of moving these funds somewhere before the District could be dissolved. The current Florida board felt that the funds should be moved where the original intent of the Foundation would continue,” Tweedy said. “Since the ‘serving hands’
of the District will now be the Elders, and the Elders will need to be trained before they can serve, it was felt that providing funds to deserving Elder candidates who could not afford to attend the necessary training was a logical extension of the original purpose of the funds.”

The Florida District Board vote, on July 11, was contingent upon staff contacting those who could be identified as contributors to the Endowment and ascertaining that the move is in keeping with their wishes. That staff effort is underway.

A couple of weeks later, the MidSouth Board voted to merge the Rome, Ga. Dissolution Fund and most of the UP! Program Funds with the Florida funds already transferred to the Southern Region for leadership development. A portion of the UP! Program Funds were set aside for small congregations.

"When the MidSouth Board voted to combine our funds with the Florida funds for Leadership Development, we modified the motion to be sure that small congregations were represented,” said DeAnn Petersen, MidSouth President. “With many small, lay-led congregations in MSD, we felt that assuring that small congregations can send leaders to regional training was in the full spirit of the UP! and Rome funds. We are excited that having a regional fund will really help us build strong leaders throughout the region."

Rev. Kenn Hurto, Southern Region Lead Executive, said it will be up to a Fiduciary Oversight Committee, composed of the treasurers of the four Districts, to develop procedures for disbursement of the funds. We’re excited to raise up our faith in building capacity of our UU leadership  by developing Elders.

The Southern Region Communications Ministry includes Margie Manning (Florida
District), Carrie Stewart (SWUUC), Kirk Bogue (MidSouth), and Chris Reid (Florida),
working in shared ministry with Connie Goodbread and Kathy McGowan
(Congregational Life Staff members), and Christine Purcell (IT Specialist).

World Cafe Exercise from Joint Annual Assemblies, April 2014

World Café serves up UU stew:
A Message from the District Presidents of the Southern Region

Hundreds of UUs in the Southern Region put on their chef hats in late April to fine-tune a recipe for healthy, vibrant Unitarian Universalist congregations. Those who participated in the World Café exercise held at the annual assemblies for the Southern Region Districts determined the basic ingredients are in place to create a tasty UU stew, but it could be further refined with a few additional seasonings, and a bigger portion of covenant to bind the ingredients together.

We started with the assumption that five ingredients are needed to create congregations at which members work together, actively being generous with Unitarian Universalism and positively changing our communities and our world. Those ingredients are:

• a common vision for a better world
• mutual accountability to each other to achieve that common vision
• commitment to active shared ministry in our work
• engaging in productive ideological conversation regarding our goals and the means to achieve them
• covenantal behavior with each other, among our congregations, and across our association that fosters trust and leads to empowering each other

Participants split into groups to discuss the recipe and each group had a chance to suggest ways to add more spice. There were hundreds of comments offered. Here's a summary.

A commitment to a common vision is one ingredient we embody well. The world would miss our voice if it were not there, participants agreed, although there are opportunities to create even greater alignment. A unified voice can create those opportunities. Covenant is another ingredient that's key, because it enables us to commit together and have deep discussions, but we have work to do to define what covenant is and to build stronger covenants as we work through changes.

We need heaping spoonfuls more of several ingredients, including active shared ministry, greater connections, confidence in our theology and covenantal behavior. The ideas offered suggest our members need to be more engaged both in their own congregations and in our communities, share resources and ideas more freely, and take more personal responsibility for growing our faith.

The ingredients we are missing generally focus on how we get our work done. We need better ways to incorporate our diverse visions and resolve conflicts. Instead of congregations working in silos, we need to make resources accessible so they can work together. Let's create processes that raise awareness of opportunities for change and ensure we have all the right people at the table. Our shared spiritual practices could include forming groups that would bring in more people in our communities. Our connections with others must be done in the spirit of covenant, and that applies not only to external connections. There were comments that more trust is needed between the UUA and congregants.

While the concept of covenant threaded through each discussion, participants agreed we need to do a better job of defining it. We're not talking about a disruptive behavior tool or an agreement based on fear, but rather creating trusting bonds that embrace accountability and commitment, that assume good intentions and are focused on shared goals. Covenant in this sense is not a contract but a promise that comes from the heart.

Just as a good stew blends the flavors from each ingredient into a unique concoction, our ingredients can meld to create strong congregations that make a difference in the lives of individuals, our communities and our world. Let's build on our strengths, incorporate new flavors, and get on with the work of cooking up a stronger Unitarian Universalism in the Southern Region.

In faith,

DeAnn Peterson, Mid-South District
Denise Rimes, Southeast District
Margie Manning, Florida District
Mark Anderson, Southwestern Conference

For more information on the outcomes from the World Café exercise, click here.