1 00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:33,520 You can expect a wide variety 2 00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:36,759 of topics and opinions and questions and 3 00:00:36,840 --> 00:00:40,200 concerns and ideas every month that we gather. 4 00:00:41,200 --> 00:00:44,359 We do record record these meetings and we post them on our website 5 00:00:44,399 --> 00:00:47,159 for those who want to access them later. 6 00:00:47,159 --> 00:00:50,560 The video doesn't include the time we spend in breakout rooms, 7 00:00:50,560 --> 00:00:53,920 but it does include video from the time when we're also together. 8 00:00:53,920 --> 00:00:55,920 So welcome. 9 00:00:55,920 --> 00:00:57,479 We're so glad you're here. 10 00:00:57,479 --> 00:00:59,719 My name is Lauren Wyeth. 11 00:00:59,759 --> 00:01:03,719 I'm one of your cohosts for this conversation each month. 12 00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:07,319 My pronouns are she or they, and I'm 13 00:01:07,319 --> 00:01:10,680 a white person with blondish brown, curlyish 14 00:01:10,680 --> 00:01:14,519 shoulder length hair with tortoise shell glasses, 15 00:01:14,519 --> 00:01:19,239 with a shirt that, wow, really I could be like kind of blending into my background tonight. 16 00:01:19,239 --> 00:01:21,239 I didn't really notice that. 17 00:01:21,239 --> 00:01:22,319 It's kind of a mauve and 18 00:01:22,319 --> 00:01:25,519 green plaid, and I've got a 19 00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:27,879 mauve colored wall behind me. 20 00:01:27,879 --> 00:01:31,239 And I serve on your Mid America 21 00:01:31,239 --> 00:01:35,439 region staff team as a congregational life consultant 22 00:01:35,439 --> 00:01:39,079 for the UUA and as the Faith Development specialist for our 23 00:01:39,120 --> 00:01:42,239 region, and I come to you from Minneapolis, Minnesota 24 00:01:42,879 --> 00:01:46,239 the home of the Anishinabe and the Dakota peoples. 25 00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:51,640 Tonight's gathering is an opportunity for 26 00:01:51,640 --> 00:01:56,719 us all to practice some of the key leadership skills that are essential for these times. 27 00:01:56,760 --> 00:02:00,280 So we ask that you lean into those skills in your interactions 28 00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:03,519 with one another this evening, and we suggest the 29 00:02:03,519 --> 00:02:06,200 following group norms, which you'll find 30 00:02:06,599 --> 00:02:08,599 in the chat. 31 00:02:08,599 --> 00:02:11,159 We suggest that you take care of yourself 32 00:02:11,159 --> 00:02:13,919 and extend grace to others as they do the same. 33 00:02:13,919 --> 00:02:17,319 We invite you to share by choice and 34 00:02:17,319 --> 00:02:20,319 want you to know that it's always okay to pass or pause 35 00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:24,759 We ask you to be thoughtful about sharing the time, 36 00:02:24,759 --> 00:02:28,120 speaking from your own experience, expecting 37 00:02:28,120 --> 00:02:33,039 multiple perspectives, pausing for repair when needed. 38 00:02:33,840 --> 00:02:36,879 and we ask that we all set the intention of making room 39 00:02:36,879 --> 00:02:42,439 for joy, for laughter, curiosity, growth, sadness, and silence. 40 00:02:42,479 --> 00:02:45,960 When we're together, we honor confidentiality, 41 00:02:45,960 --> 00:02:48,960 particularly with what is shared in breakout groups. 42 00:02:49,439 --> 00:02:52,439 Here's a bit more information 43 00:02:52,439 --> 00:02:55,439 to let you know what to expect in our time together. 44 00:02:55,439 --> 00:02:59,400 Our tech host is Ritoo Chaturvedi, 45 00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:02,560 and she will be dropping things into the chat for us and is available 46 00:03:02,560 --> 00:03:06,080 if you're having any tech troubles, you can message her directly. 47 00:03:06,479 --> 00:03:09,879 Thanks, Ritoo, for all of that support that you offer us. 48 00:03:09,879 --> 00:03:13,759 My colleague, QuianaDenae Perkins is our co-host, 49 00:03:13,800 --> 00:03:16,360 and the three of us will be with you every month. 50 00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:19,360 This month's guest facilitator is our colleague 51 00:03:19,360 --> 00:03:22,639 from the UUA's MidAmerica staff team, the Reverend 52 00:03:22,680 --> 00:03:26,280 Dr. Matthew Johnson, who will introduce himself later in the program 53 00:03:26,879 --> 00:03:30,360 And our guest speakers this evening are the Reverend Sara LaWall 54 00:03:30,360 --> 00:03:34,599 of Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Idaho and 55 00:03:34,599 --> 00:03:37,960 the Reverend Gretchen Haley of Foothills Unitarian 56 00:03:37,960 --> 00:03:40,840 Church in Fort Collins, Colorado. 57 00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:43,879 These change makers will share their stories and 58 00:03:43,919 --> 00:03:48,000 learnings about the nature, sustainability, and joy 59 00:03:48,280 --> 00:03:51,080 of what they call change leadership. 60 00:03:51,120 --> 00:03:53,759 And you'll be invited into the conversation. 61 00:03:55,680 --> 00:03:57,680 I pass it over to you, QuianaDenae. 62 00:03:57,680 --> 00:04:00,360 Hi, y'all. 63 00:04:00,360 --> 00:04:04,199 As soon as I clicked on the little thing, my words went away, so I apologize. 64 00:04:04,199 --> 00:04:06,199 My name is QuianaDenae. 65 00:04:06,199 --> 00:04:08,039 It's always both parts. 66 00:04:08,039 --> 00:04:09,360 My pronouns are she and her. 67 00:04:09,360 --> 00:04:12,120 I am an African American or black woman with 68 00:04:12,120 --> 00:04:15,840 colorful glasses and my hair slicked back, but on 69 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:20,160 my shoulders, you'll see my locks and I have on a black zip up jacket. 70 00:04:21,120 --> 00:04:24,360 I am I serve the congregational 71 00:04:24,360 --> 00:04:27,879 life staff of the MidAmerica region, and I support our small 72 00:04:27,879 --> 00:04:30,079 congregations as a primary contact. 73 00:04:30,120 --> 00:04:34,959 And I'm physically in Ann Arbor, Michigan, about 30 minutes south of Detroit. 74 00:04:35,560 --> 00:04:38,560 Before we dive into our program, we want to give you 75 00:04:38,560 --> 00:04:41,199 a sense of this evening's agenda. 76 00:04:41,199 --> 00:04:46,120 Coming up next, will take a few minutes to light our chalice and ground ourselves. 77 00:04:46,120 --> 00:04:49,639 Then we'll take some time to reflect on what's happening in our own congregations 78 00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:53,079 before introducing, sorry, before introducing 79 00:04:53,079 --> 00:04:55,240 ourselves in small breakout groups 80 00:04:55,920 --> 00:04:58,920 When we come back together, we will hear from our 81 00:04:58,920 --> 00:05:00,959 guests for about a half an hour. 82 00:05:00,959 --> 00:05:05,759 Following their presentation, we'll have a chance to process in the breakout group 83 00:05:06,480 --> 00:05:08,480 I'm Matthew Johnson. 84 00:05:08,480 --> 00:05:10,279 He/Him pronouns. 85 00:05:10,279 --> 00:05:12,759 I'm a middle-aged white man with glasses and a gray and brown 86 00:05:12,759 --> 00:05:17,600 beard, a blue and white shirt, and some pictures of some of my pilgrimages behind me. 87 00:05:17,639 --> 00:05:19,639 I'm'm based in Rockford, Illinois. 88 00:05:19,639 --> 00:05:23,680 I serve the Mid-America staff as a congregational life consultant serving our pastoral sized congregations 89 00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:27,639 And I was part of the facilitator team for a wave cohort. 90 00:05:27,639 --> 00:05:31,160 The wave cohorts are opportunities for Unitarian Universalists 91 00:05:31,199 --> 00:05:34,120 to have conversations about how we're meeting the moment together. 92 00:05:34,120 --> 00:05:38,800 There was a bunch in the fall or in the spring, some presentations are General assembly. 93 00:05:38,800 --> 00:05:40,800 There's been some this fall. 94 00:05:40,800 --> 00:05:43,639 There'll be some more this spring. and more at next this coming year is General Assembly. 95 00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:45,759 Conversations about what is the moment 96 00:05:46,240 --> 00:05:49,040 what our values are at stake, and how do we respond? 97 00:05:49,079 --> 00:05:52,240 So working with other folks in congregational life, 98 00:05:52,240 --> 00:05:58,160 we had a cohort that was thinking about change, about normalizing change. 99 00:05:58,199 --> 00:06:00,199 And what we did 100 00:06:00,199 --> 00:06:03,480 because this moment requires for us to think about, how do we do change? 101 00:06:03,480 --> 00:06:05,480 How do we sustain change? 102 00:06:05,480 --> 00:06:06,720 How do we overcome obstacles? 103 00:06:06,720 --> 00:06:08,160 Because we need to be changing. 104 00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:12,480 And so what we did is we heard stories from people that have been leading and managing change 105 00:06:13,199 --> 00:06:15,600 and trying to shape change in ways that are productive. 106 00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:17,920 We'd had an event on Saturday. 107 00:06:17,920 --> 00:06:21,160 We had six folks share stories about the change that 108 00:06:21,160 --> 00:06:24,160 they've been leading in their congregations or institutions. 109 00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:27,439 After we'd had a couple of sessions together with those change manakers 110 00:06:27,480 --> 00:06:32,680 to talk about theories of change and help them reflect on why are they doing what they're doing? 111 00:06:32,680 --> 00:06:34,680 Often we're in the midst of doing the thing. 112 00:06:34,680 --> 00:06:36,279 And so is that balcony moment to think about it? 113 00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:39,839 And we got two of those folks to share their their stories with you tonight, 114 00:06:39,839 --> 00:06:42,879 as a sort of a sample of the program that we had on Saturday. 115 00:06:42,879 --> 00:06:46,120 And so I want to introduce my colleagues, the Reverend Gretchen 116 00:06:46,120 --> 00:06:49,480 Haley, who serves as senior Minister at Foothills Unitarian Church 117 00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:53,079 in Fort Collins, Colorado, and has been there, I think this is maybe year 118 00:06:53,079 --> 00:06:56,360 11, if I'm counting right, or something along those lines, Gretchen. 119 00:06:56,399 --> 00:06:58,399 She can tell you about that. 120 00:06:58,399 --> 00:07:00,000 14, Holy smokes. 121 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:01,800 But as senior minister, you're right. 122 00:07:01,800 --> 00:07:03,680 Okay. 123 00:07:03,680 --> 00:07:04,519 That's what it is. 124 00:07:04,519 --> 00:07:05,360 Yeah. 125 00:07:05,360 --> 00:07:05,720 I'm going to tell her story of change. 126 00:07:05,720 --> 00:07:08,759 And then we're going to hear from the Reverend Sara LaWall, who serves our church in Boise, 127 00:07:08,759 --> 00:07:13,120 Idaho, who is in year 10, and has been leading change in that church and 128 00:07:13,120 --> 00:07:15,639 as they reflect on, how has that change worked? 129 00:07:15,639 --> 00:07:17,639 What have it changes they're making 130 00:07:17,639 --> 00:07:19,240 And then we'll have some conversation about it. 131 00:07:19,240 --> 00:07:21,240 So I'm going to turn it over first to Gretchen. 132 00:07:23,319 --> 00:07:25,319 All right. 133 00:07:25,319 --> 00:07:26,000 Hi. 134 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:26,360 Oh., hello. 135 00:07:26,360 --> 00:07:27,879 Somebody spotted spotlighted me for me. 136 00:07:27,879 --> 00:07:29,879 Thank you. 137 00:07:29,879 --> 00:07:33,879 I am smack in middle age. 138 00:07:33,879 --> 00:07:37,639 I am a white woman with right now, I'm wearing glasses. 139 00:07:37,680 --> 00:07:41,319 I'm concerned about the glaring light behind me 140 00:07:42,040 --> 00:07:44,800 but otherwise, I'm in the horrible, shadowy dark. 141 00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:46,839 I'm wearing a red sweater. 142 00:07:46,839 --> 00:07:49,519 I have a mullet. 143 00:07:49,560 --> 00:07:51,600 That's all a good description. 144 00:07:51,600 --> 00:07:56,079 I'm in the middle of a board meeting stepping out for this, so I'm really glad to be with all of you. 145 00:07:56,079 --> 00:07:59,439 I'm going to now move into a little presentation. 146 00:07:59,439 --> 00:08:01,439 I'm going to set a timer. 147 00:08:01,439 --> 00:08:05,399 I'm probably going to run out of my time, so I'm just going to get as far through this as I can 148 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:10,000 And then the presentation will be sent to you. 149 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:13,000 So whenever I 150 00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:16,399 don't get to, you'll have it and I'm happy to connect with you on 151 00:08:16,439 --> 00:08:18,600 any questions that you have. 152 00:08:18,600 --> 00:08:22,319 I'm really, I'm just always happy to talk about leading change in our congregations 153 00:08:22,839 --> 00:08:28,000 It's one of my favorite topics, so let's share. 154 00:08:37,120 --> 00:08:39,120 All right. 155 00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:39,799 Am I am I doing okay? 156 00:08:39,799 --> 00:08:41,799 Yay, okay. 157 00:08:41,799 --> 00:08:43,799 Great. 158 00:08:43,799 --> 00:08:47,759 So I'm going to talk about the last decade or so of 159 00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:53,279 changing culture and mission and engagement here at Foothills. 160 00:08:53,279 --> 00:08:56,320 So those, there's other things I'm going to talk 161 00:08:56,320 --> 00:08:59,000 about broadly, but those are the categories. 162 00:08:59,039 --> 00:09:02,399 So starting with, I just want to summarize 163 00:09:02,399 --> 00:09:06,480 the kinds of changes we've had, and then I'm going to talk a little bit about kind of from my 164 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:10,120 in the middle of it 165 00:09:10,120 --> 00:09:14,559 all perspective, what I think helped with these changes. 166 00:09:14,559 --> 00:09:17,559 So we've been through pretty much change on every 167 00:09:17,559 --> 00:09:22,000 front in the congregation since in the last 10 years. 168 00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:24,679 So we've seen a huge change in our 169 00:09:25,720 --> 00:09:28,759 attendance and engagement about 10 years ago, 170 00:09:28,799 --> 00:09:32,320 we were ranging about 200 people on every Sunday to 171 00:09:32,320 --> 00:09:36,080 averaging to about 500 or so 172 00:09:36,120 --> 00:09:38,399 every Sunday this year. 173 00:09:38,399 --> 00:09:41,399 We went from a church that had, we had no small 174 00:09:41,399 --> 00:09:44,879 groups to right now we average about 400 175 00:09:44,879 --> 00:09:47,440 or more people attend a group 176 00:09:47,759 --> 00:09:49,759 every month. 177 00:09:49,759 --> 00:09:53,519 There are certain months where that's not true, but that's like on average. 178 00:09:53,519 --> 00:09:56,639 Every night at church, I'm here at church 179 00:09:56,639 --> 00:09:59,320 right now and it is active and busy. 180 00:09:59,320 --> 00:10:04,039 I like, I think there's like 12 different groups happening tonight. 181 00:10:04,919 --> 00:10:07,240 So that's very common. 182 00:10:07,240 --> 00:10:10,600 We also went through part of, 183 00:10:10,600 --> 00:10:15,639 I'm going to talk about this, like what really helped was a big missional change. 184 00:10:15,639 --> 00:10:18,639 When I got here, there was an unclear generic 185 00:10:18,639 --> 00:10:22,639 mission that probably matched other people's UU churches in the 1990s 186 00:10:22,960 --> 00:10:26,080 that no one could repeat and that was not 187 00:10:26,080 --> 00:10:30,200 organizing to something was very specific orienting, and aligning. 188 00:10:30,240 --> 00:10:34,240 We passed it in 2016 right before Trump was elected the first time. 189 00:10:34,240 --> 00:10:37,639 We are kind of, the summary phrase is unleashing 190 00:10:37,679 --> 00:10:40,120 courageous love in Northern Colorado 191 00:10:40,720 --> 00:10:44,120 That has been, it is completely, it orients 192 00:10:44,159 --> 00:10:48,480 everything that we do at church. 193 00:10:48,480 --> 00:10:52,440 We also went through a huge culture change over these years. 194 00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:54,440 We 195 00:10:54,440 --> 00:10:56,679 went from what I'd described as as 196 00:10:56,679 --> 00:11:00,320 culture of scarcity, where you're like, look, you're 197 00:11:00,360 --> 00:11:05,080 like, everything feels like there's not enough and there's not going to be enough to something of abundance. 198 00:11:05,080 --> 00:11:08,200 We went from 10 years ago, we had a budget of 199 00:11:08,200 --> 00:11:11,799 about $500,000 a year to this year 200 00:11:11,799 --> 00:11:14,360 We were at about $1.4 million. 201 00:11:14,399 --> 00:11:17,440 I didn't say the last time, but I want to highlight some of 202 00:11:17,440 --> 00:11:20,840 that is just from like the way people have been asked to give. 203 00:11:20,879 --> 00:11:22,879 So the average pledge 204 00:11:22,879 --> 00:11:25,720 was about, I don't know, $1,000 205 00:11:25,720 --> 00:11:29,480 and now it's more like $2,300 a household. 206 00:11:29,519 --> 00:11:35,559 Also, just in this past year even, we went from 20 people in our upper 207 00:11:36,759 --> 00:11:40,000 households in our upper levels of giving, which is we 208 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:43,120 consider $5,000 or more a year to this year. 209 00:11:43,120 --> 00:11:46,360 We have 65 households in that amount. 210 00:11:46,360 --> 00:11:50,120 So just people really switched how they think about giving. 211 00:11:50,159 --> 00:11:52,159 We also went from volunteers. 212 00:11:52,159 --> 00:11:55,080 And when I got here, the story was like, oh, we, you know, 213 00:11:55,080 --> 00:11:58,320 it's like basically the same 30 people, even though we're a large church, the same 214 00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:01,679 people do everything to more than 250 people 215 00:12:01,679 --> 00:12:03,720 regularly are volunteering. 216 00:12:03,720 --> 00:12:05,720 We just did an analysis of it. 217 00:12:05,720 --> 00:12:07,960 And it is that's not just like, oh, over the course of a 218 00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:11,679 year, that many people volunteer, it is there regularly volunteering 219 00:12:12,240 --> 00:12:15,480 Also, during this time, we went from a place of the 220 00:12:15,480 --> 00:12:18,759 church feeling optional to like 221 00:12:18,759 --> 00:12:22,360 to people's lives, to feeling like it's critical and centering in their lives. 222 00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:25,480 And and part of that relates to the next one, 223 00:12:25,480 --> 00:12:28,960 which is a shift from relationships that feel transactional 224 00:12:29,679 --> 00:12:32,919 like a kind of consumer orientation to church, 225 00:12:32,919 --> 00:12:38,120 to a deep understanding and orientation of covenant, of relationships that are covenantal. 226 00:12:38,159 --> 00:12:40,240 I'm going to talk more about that in a sec. 227 00:12:40,240 --> 00:12:44,000 We also went through a huge governance change. 228 00:12:44,639 --> 00:12:49,000 When I got here, sometimes I thought it was like built for a pastoral size congregation. 229 00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:51,000 We had 600 members at the time. 230 00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:53,960 So, but it was kind of a program management 231 00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:57,600 board with very informal and non-accountable power 232 00:12:58,679 --> 00:13:01,320 if that makes sense to, 233 00:13:01,320 --> 00:13:06,039 and really, like, I often describe it as like, there was no governance. 234 00:13:06,039 --> 00:13:09,039 And they'd been trying, people had been trying so 235 00:13:09,039 --> 00:13:13,720 hard to try to figure out how to have a governance structure that worked 236 00:13:14,519 --> 00:13:17,639 And finally, in the last 10 years, we've been able to 237 00:13:17,639 --> 00:13:21,519 move to a policy-based governance that has very clear lines of accountability. 238 00:13:21,519 --> 00:13:24,519 The last that I identify as a systems change. 239 00:13:24,519 --> 00:13:26,519 We went from like very 240 00:13:27,600 --> 00:13:32,080 like, no systems and that weren't aligned, and they were undeveloped. 241 00:13:32,080 --> 00:13:34,080 We had no technology. 242 00:13:34,080 --> 00:13:35,799 The former senior minister who was serving when I got here. 243 00:13:35,799 --> 00:13:37,799 He never even owned a cell phone. 244 00:13:37,799 --> 00:13:41,360 It took till 2017 to be able to use Google Dos here. 245 00:13:41,399 --> 00:13:44,519 Like really, we had no technology to now, we have 246 00:13:44,519 --> 00:13:50,399 very aligned, agile, and the most technology, like probably, like, we're very 247 00:13:50,679 --> 00:13:55,399 engaged in the use of technology to make our systems work. 248 00:13:55,440 --> 00:13:58,120 And then we're really oriented towards growth and scale. 249 00:13:58,120 --> 00:14:00,279 So this is like a lot of change. 250 00:14:00,279 --> 00:14:03,559 And 10 years is maybe feels like, maybe a long time, 251 00:14:03,600 --> 00:14:07,240 but also not that long in congregational life. 252 00:14:07,240 --> 00:14:10,360 And so these are some of my theories as to why 253 00:14:10,720 --> 00:14:15,159 that has worked and what helped them. 254 00:14:15,159 --> 00:14:19,000 These changes take. 255 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:22,000 Because like I said, some of them, they'd been trying 256 00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:26,960 to do for a while and hadn't been able to get the momentum. 257 00:14:27,519 --> 00:14:30,639 My first theory that we talk about here is 258 00:14:30,639 --> 00:14:35,080 to teach people to want something they don't yet know they're longing for. 259 00:14:35,080 --> 00:14:39,879 By that, I like, I think a lot of us are 260 00:14:40,720 --> 00:14:43,759 you think, oh, well, let's just ask people what they want, then 261 00:14:43,799 --> 00:14:45,960 they'll be more likely to do it. 262 00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:49,080 And I almost always, 263 00:14:49,080 --> 00:14:52,559 in my experience between people come in, they say they want community, 264 00:14:52,559 --> 00:14:55,840 but what I understand and we've tried to embody here is that 265 00:14:55,840 --> 00:14:58,039 they mean something deeper, they can't get articulate. 266 00:14:58,480 --> 00:15:01,759 This is from an evangelical framework I 267 00:15:01,799 --> 00:15:04,960 read at one point, but I think it really applies to us, too, which is 268 00:15:04,960 --> 00:15:07,639 that they want belonging, they want to belong. 269 00:15:07,679 --> 00:15:10,799 They want to have significance, they want their life to have meaning and 270 00:15:10,799 --> 00:15:15,000 purpose, and they want transcendence and experience of feeling like something's greater than themselves. 271 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:20,919 So we also teach that community itself is not convenient. 272 00:15:20,919 --> 00:15:23,919 So people want community, they'll 273 00:15:23,919 --> 00:15:26,600 say something easy, I'm really busy. 274 00:15:26,639 --> 00:15:30,240 And so we say the kind of community they're after is not convenient. 275 00:15:30,240 --> 00:15:32,679 So we just keep imagining they want something more 276 00:15:33,039 --> 00:15:35,039 than what they're saying. 277 00:15:35,039 --> 00:15:39,840 With that said, in order to help people feel like they could try something, they aren't sure they want. 278 00:15:39,840 --> 00:15:42,159 We treat everything like an experiment. 279 00:15:42,159 --> 00:15:46,039 So nothing we've done has been proposed as a permanent change. 280 00:15:46,080 --> 00:15:48,080 We're just going to trade it out. 281 00:15:48,080 --> 00:15:49,279 We can always adjust. 282 00:15:49,279 --> 00:15:50,399 We can go back. 283 00:15:50,399 --> 00:15:52,759 And alongside that, we also always think that 284 00:15:52,799 --> 00:15:55,080 we start as we're going to continue. 285 00:15:55,080 --> 00:15:58,120 So like, if the goal ultimately 286 00:15:58,120 --> 00:16:02,600 is to give people small groups, which it was originally, but they always were like, oh, that's too hard. 287 00:16:02,639 --> 00:16:04,639 I don't know if I like small groups. 288 00:16:04,639 --> 00:16:05,960 I don't know if that's too touchy feely. 289 00:16:05,960 --> 00:16:10,240 We just instead started to give them experiences of small groups every time we had a meeting. 290 00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:13,000 And then suddenly they were asking if we could have small groups. 291 00:16:13,720 --> 00:16:16,720 If the goal was faith formation, like from a 292 00:16:16,720 --> 00:16:20,480 congregational perspective, then every time I lit a chalice in a meeting, every 293 00:16:20,519 --> 00:16:23,879 time the staff does, every time a leader does, we try to say, tell people 294 00:16:23,879 --> 00:16:27,639 the story of who we were, who we are, who we're becoming. 295 00:16:27,639 --> 00:16:30,399 So there's always an opportunity to form in community. 296 00:16:31,240 --> 00:16:34,240 The other big trick 297 00:16:34,240 --> 00:16:37,480 on teaching people to want something they don't yet know is to 298 00:16:37,480 --> 00:16:40,879 go find other congregations to do field trips together. 299 00:16:40,919 --> 00:16:44,279 It's so fun to go on field trips to other churches. and 300 00:16:44,279 --> 00:16:48,240 especially those that feel very alive and that are growing and to stop 301 00:16:48,240 --> 00:16:50,519 worrying about the theology of those places 302 00:16:51,240 --> 00:16:54,279 because I think we have so much to learn from 303 00:16:54,279 --> 00:16:57,679 places that feel alive and to not get caught 304 00:16:57,720 --> 00:17:02,919 on whether we agree with their theology or not, there's lots of good ideas wrapped up in 305 00:17:03,720 --> 00:17:06,400 bad theology wrapped up in good ideas. 306 00:17:06,400 --> 00:17:09,759 Finally is the idea that everything 307 00:17:09,759 --> 00:17:13,160 we think are of is what's successful is just 308 00:17:13,200 --> 00:17:17,400 the it's a John Dewey concept, if you know his theory of learning, 309 00:17:17,400 --> 00:17:20,880 which is that successful learning is when somebody wants more learning 310 00:17:21,519 --> 00:17:25,000 So that's how we treat everything is that we 311 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:28,640 want to leave people in a place where they want more of 312 00:17:28,680 --> 00:17:31,599 something rather than where they are like, okay, well, that was a nice thing. 313 00:17:31,599 --> 00:17:33,599 Check. 314 00:17:33,599 --> 00:17:36,480 So that's how we gauge whether a thing was successful. 315 00:17:36,960 --> 00:17:40,680 The second big idea of theories of how 316 00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:44,559 the change works is just to think of covenant as both the path 317 00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:48,000 and the destination. 318 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:50,480 So it's where it's the path we're 319 00:17:50,519 --> 00:17:54,880 traveling together, it's how we do everything together, and it's where we're going. 320 00:17:54,880 --> 00:17:58,240 So a few elements of that that I'd name is the 321 00:17:58,240 --> 00:18:02,599 first, this is like the most important is to think of trust as like our currency. 322 00:18:03,279 --> 00:18:06,920 Which trust is a fundamental element of covenant that 323 00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:10,960 I've said a million times and it's like the most important 324 00:18:10,960 --> 00:18:16,759 mantra that helps me reground and when things get anxious is to trust the people 325 00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:20,559 they are worthy of your trust. Trust the congregation. 326 00:18:20,559 --> 00:18:22,559 They are worthy of your trust. 327 00:18:22,559 --> 00:18:25,319 And that works because of that framework from 328 00:18:25,319 --> 00:18:29,799 Adrian Marie Brown, who said that trust the people and they become trustworthy. 329 00:18:30,519 --> 00:18:33,799 There's a lot more to say about that, but you get the idea. 330 00:18:33,839 --> 00:18:38,319 That fits with in covenant, everything is about partnership. 331 00:18:38,319 --> 00:18:40,720 Covenant is a way of being in partnership. 332 00:18:40,720 --> 00:18:42,720 So we treat partnership as 333 00:18:43,119 --> 00:18:45,119 fundamental. 334 00:18:45,119 --> 00:18:47,680 So when we hire or recruit people, we're looking for partners 335 00:18:47,680 --> 00:18:51,519 in the mission, people who, so when I say recruit, 336 00:18:51,519 --> 00:18:54,799 like volunteers, people who share our dream that 337 00:18:54,839 --> 00:18:59,200 like we, we think partnership matters more than any particular governance 338 00:18:59,200 --> 00:19:04,599 rules, partnership matters more than any particular job description or skills you might bring 339 00:19:05,039 --> 00:19:07,039 partnership. 340 00:19:07,039 --> 00:19:09,079 I mean, like in the congregation that you need to be working 341 00:19:09,119 --> 00:19:13,079 across with multiple people in partnership and partnership 342 00:19:13,079 --> 00:19:16,480 with people, like if you're working outside of the congregation, we're 343 00:19:16,480 --> 00:19:18,880 always looking for for who is the organizational partner. 344 00:19:18,880 --> 00:19:21,920 We never act if there isn't a partner and if there 345 00:19:21,960 --> 00:19:24,279 aren't partners, it's probably not time to do the thing 346 00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:26,960 So just period. 347 00:19:26,960 --> 00:19:30,039 And then when in a covenant, 348 00:19:30,039 --> 00:19:33,400 we understand that falling short is a given, 349 00:19:33,400 --> 00:19:38,079 because the promises of a covenant are always too big to live up to. 350 00:19:38,079 --> 00:19:41,240 So if we're not falling short, that means our dream dreams are too small. 351 00:19:41,279 --> 00:19:43,839 Our promises are not covenantal yet. 352 00:19:43,839 --> 00:19:46,960 So that that means falling short is a given in 353 00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:51,640 a covenant, but that also means repair and reconciliation need to be like central to who we are. 354 00:19:51,640 --> 00:19:54,920 We understand Unitarian Universalism is requiring repair 355 00:19:54,960 --> 00:19:58,799 and reconciliation to be like the muscles we're using all the time. 356 00:19:58,799 --> 00:20:02,880 And then finally, about Covenant, we 357 00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:06,200 we always come back to that 358 00:20:06,240 --> 00:20:10,559 the promises of covenant are between people, but it's not just people. 359 00:20:10,559 --> 00:20:13,680 There has to be something greater because a 360 00:20:13,680 --> 00:20:16,960 community without something greater is just a club, which a club's great 361 00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:20,680 but if you want to do something that's really hard and 362 00:20:20,680 --> 00:20:23,960 really big, you have to keep being able to remember your promise 363 00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:27,720 is to something that isn't about us or even for us. 364 00:20:28,720 --> 00:20:30,720 And you can name that all kinds of ways. 365 00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:33,200 I'm my last one, I promise. 366 00:20:33,240 --> 00:20:37,680 Okay, so my last one is the long view. 367 00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:42,119 This I've heard this a lot on Saturday in 368 00:20:42,119 --> 00:20:45,400 the workshop that y'all put on that 369 00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:50,200 this to not get caught in thinking change can happen quickly. 370 00:20:50,200 --> 00:20:53,240 I have a colleague in town who's in the 371 00:20:53,279 --> 00:20:57,599 midst of like four different, like transitions and change at the UCC church. 372 00:20:57,599 --> 00:20:59,599 And 373 00:20:59,599 --> 00:21:01,599 she's so impatient and I'm always like, just chill. 374 00:21:01,599 --> 00:21:05,200 You got to think a little bit more like, what's your ten year dream? 375 00:21:05,200 --> 00:21:08,240 So that starts with what 376 00:21:08,279 --> 00:21:10,480 I describe as learning to love the mess. 377 00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:12,480 It's a spiritual practice 378 00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:15,400 because congregational change is very slow and 379 00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:18,799 for a long time, a lot of things that you see 380 00:21:18,839 --> 00:21:21,480 are not going to be where you want them to be. 381 00:21:21,480 --> 00:21:24,519 And I think we take that very personally, 382 00:21:24,519 --> 00:21:28,839 like, that's a reflection on whether we think it's right or not. 383 00:21:28,839 --> 00:21:31,960 We have to let that go and instead realize it's 384 00:21:31,960 --> 00:21:34,759 where it is right now and that's because you're tending to other stuff. 385 00:21:34,799 --> 00:21:37,799 So trying to do everything too fast will mean nothing gets 386 00:21:37,799 --> 00:21:40,920 done, you'll be burned out, you'll hate everything you're doing. 387 00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:43,480 That doesn't create a great congregational life. 388 00:21:44,400 --> 00:21:47,440 The next related to that, though, with the same time 389 00:21:47,440 --> 00:21:49,640 is to feed the health. 390 00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:54,480 So wherever the health is in the congregation, particularly, I mean people. 391 00:21:54,480 --> 00:21:59,400 And I'm going to skip over my slide later that says, snacks. 392 00:21:59,400 --> 00:22:03,039 And so I'm just going to say here when I say feed, I mean, spiritually and literally 393 00:22:03,759 --> 00:22:06,759 because I think that treating 394 00:22:06,759 --> 00:22:10,160 our people who are healthy and who are going 395 00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:15,119 to be the future of the congregation well is so critical. 396 00:22:15,119 --> 00:22:18,279 So this goes along with just just overall, what you pay attention 397 00:22:18,279 --> 00:22:21,400 to as a leader grows, whatever that is. 398 00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:25,400 So if you, you're always paying attention to the problems, problems are going to grow. 399 00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:28,839 If you're paying attention to the people who are healthy 400 00:22:29,440 --> 00:22:31,440 that'll grow. 401 00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:34,720 So mentor equip, and empower healthy partners to lead change with you. 402 00:22:34,720 --> 00:22:37,880 You can see, again, there's partnership, encourage and thank them 403 00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:41,640 often and ask for their feedback all 404 00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:44,920 the time, like, even if it's hard and it sucks 405 00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:48,279 and you would disagree, I think asking for their feedback and 406 00:22:48,279 --> 00:22:52,000 thanking them for their feedback, if it's done in the spirit of partnership. 407 00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:56,440 The other thing on this is that people leaving can be a sign that what you're doing is working. 408 00:22:56,440 --> 00:22:58,440 I left a congregation. 409 00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:00,079 I served a congregation before this. 410 00:23:00,079 --> 00:23:03,119 And I was so thrilled on my last day that the the most toxic person 411 00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:06,519 had left and then I got a 412 00:23:06,519 --> 00:23:08,680 note from a couple liters a couple of years later. 413 00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:10,680 They're like, we're so happy. 414 00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:11,960 That person came back. 415 00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:14,319 And I was like, it's so sad, actually, because 416 00:23:14,319 --> 00:23:17,119 that is actually not a sign of health. 417 00:23:17,160 --> 00:23:19,680 And it doesn't mean that that person doesn't deserve belonging. 418 00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:21,680 They do. 419 00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:22,759 It's just not what we're doing is not for everyone. 420 00:23:23,079 --> 00:23:26,559 The next is to look back to look ahead. 421 00:23:26,559 --> 00:23:29,680 So for big changes to stick, it helps a lot to say this 422 00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:31,839 thing isn't new and, it's actually old. 423 00:23:31,839 --> 00:23:34,880 So we've done a lot of looking back at our congregational history to help people 424 00:23:34,920 --> 00:23:39,160 feel like they're remembering something, not just doing something new. 425 00:23:39,599 --> 00:23:43,119 The next is to find the zone of proximal development, 426 00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:46,480 my very favorite phrase, which is the place where 427 00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:49,880 you can you're uncomfortable to the degree you can tolerate 428 00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:55,559 and learn, not tip over, resist too anxious or not uncomfortable so therefore you're not learning 429 00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:59,079 last but not least is this that timing is 430 00:23:59,079 --> 00:24:04,480 everything so that's the patience and remembering that something impossible one year will be easy another year. 431 00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:08,960 It's like so weird, but it's the benefit of being in a church for more than a decade. 432 00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:12,160 You start to see, oh, that just wasn't time, so don't give up just because 433 00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:14,200 something didn't work one time, maybe even a few times 434 00:24:14,559 --> 00:24:17,440 try not to be the person that says, well, we tried that already. 435 00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:20,200 But also don't be afraid to let good ideas go. 436 00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:22,400 There's a million great ideas that we can't do. 437 00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:25,559 I have a list of other great tactics, 438 00:24:25,559 --> 00:24:28,960 like little things that I felt like were important to note that 439 00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:33,559 are in the fuller presentation that we'll share 440 00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:36,960 out, but you can see 441 00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:40,680 the last one is joy and I believe strongly that 442 00:24:42,279 --> 00:24:45,880 that joy is a huge change strategy 443 00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:49,640 and not just we talk about it always as an active resistance, but I think 444 00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:53,039 it's also just such a important part of how we help people 445 00:24:53,039 --> 00:24:56,400 feel like they can manage change, laugh more. 446 00:24:56,920 --> 00:24:59,359 That's the last slide. 447 00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:02,519 Teach people to want something they don't know yet 448 00:25:02,519 --> 00:25:06,240 to ask for, remembering the covenant is the path and the destination 449 00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:11,799 and to keep the long view always and try to cultivate that 10 year dream. 450 00:25:12,839 --> 00:25:14,839 So thank you. 451 00:25:14,839 --> 00:25:17,720 You can email us if you have more questions. 452 00:25:17,759 --> 00:25:20,799 That's the general email 453 00:25:20,799 --> 00:25:24,279 here and they will make sure that you like whatever, if 454 00:25:24,279 --> 00:25:27,319 you can name your question there, they'll make sure that you get connected with 455 00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:30,839 the staff or lay leaders that could best answer your question or 456 00:25:30,839 --> 00:25:36,279 you want to hear more about, we have lay leaders that are so passionate about talking to other congregations. 457 00:25:36,279 --> 00:25:38,279 So lay leaders to lay leaders. 458 00:25:38,279 --> 00:25:40,079 So if you have a lay leader that 459 00:25:40,079 --> 00:25:43,079 would love to just connect and talk through kind of a 460 00:25:43,079 --> 00:25:46,839 change that you're in that seems like any of the changes we described, 461 00:25:46,839 --> 00:25:49,039 our folks are eager to do that. 462 00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:53,240 Last is the little quote 463 00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:56,839 from one of my professors in seminary, Jean Miller Schmidt, 464 00:25:56,839 --> 00:26:00,920 who said, respect people enough to invite them to change. 465 00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:03,920 And I include that because I think sometimes we think the opposite is true 466 00:26:04,559 --> 00:26:07,680 that you're respecting people by saying 467 00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:10,559 that who they are right now is exactly right. 468 00:26:10,559 --> 00:26:13,559 And she reminded me always that we can we need 469 00:26:13,559 --> 00:26:16,200 to respect people enough to invite them to change. 470 00:26:17,039 --> 00:26:20,160 I think that's it. 471 00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:22,160 Thank you, Gretchen. 472 00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:23,480 Thank you so much. 473 00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:25,799 I hope folks can express that their appreciation with the reaction or in the chat. 474 00:26:25,799 --> 00:26:28,960 And thanks for being with us, and we know you've got a board meeting to schedule. 475 00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:30,960 I do. 476 00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:31,279 Thank you all. 477 00:26:31,279 --> 00:26:31,960 Thank you for being with us. 478 00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:35,240 And I want to turn it now over to our 479 00:26:35,279 --> 00:26:40,880 colleague, Reverend Sarah LaWall in Boise, Idaho, to tell a little bit of their story of change up in Boise 480 00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:42,880 I am Sarah LaWall. 481 00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:44,839 I serve the congregation in Boise, Idaho. 482 00:26:44,839 --> 00:26:49,039 I have been the minister here for 10 years. 483 00:26:49,039 --> 00:26:51,039 This is my 10th year. 484 00:26:51,039 --> 00:26:54,359 As most of you know, we're a very, very red state 485 00:26:55,279 --> 00:26:58,680 And so we're we're, I think, unusual 486 00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:02,880 in the fact that we're the only UU congregation for more than 100 miles, 487 00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:07,839 which means that in the context of that, we are the most radical faith community 488 00:27:08,519 --> 00:27:10,519 here in Idaho. 489 00:27:10,519 --> 00:27:13,160 And I say that with a little bit of laughter because I wouldn't 490 00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:16,519 have necessarily thought we were radical, you know, we're pretty typical 491 00:27:16,519 --> 00:27:19,519 UUs, but comparatively we are. 492 00:27:20,839 --> 00:27:23,759 I use she, her pronouns. 493 00:27:23,759 --> 00:27:27,480 I'm a middle aged white woman wearing 494 00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:31,440 a gray sweater, a gray 495 00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:36,000 cardigan with a light colored sweater underneath. 496 00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:39,279 I have ear length, brown hair 497 00:27:39,319 --> 00:27:42,559 cut in bob, and I am wearing purple glasses. 498 00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:49,960 I joined this wave cohort because I've been working 499 00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:53,960 with and frankly struggling with nurturing and shaping 500 00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,599 this change in my congregation for many, many years. 501 00:27:56,599 --> 00:28:00,079 And sometimes I feel frustrated that we haven't made more progress. 502 00:28:00,079 --> 00:28:02,880 And so I just want to name that up front that I'm not here really 503 00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:06,359 as an expert, but 504 00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:09,000 rather to just share the process we're in. 505 00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:11,279 So we're definitely in the messy middle. 506 00:28:11,279 --> 00:28:14,519 And the congregational shift that I have been 507 00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:18,839 facilitating is this on this screen. 508 00:28:18,839 --> 00:28:22,319 How can we align our governance, our policies, 509 00:28:22,319 --> 00:28:26,400 procedures, administrative systems, our organizational map, 510 00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:30,279 our decision-making processes, our approach to staffing in leadership 511 00:28:30,799 --> 00:28:33,960 with our aspirations and commitments to 512 00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:37,319 being a values-based relationship centered, 513 00:28:37,319 --> 00:28:41,400 justice making organization committed to dismantling 514 00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:46,240 systems and habits of white supremacy, culture, and decolonization. 515 00:28:46,279 --> 00:28:48,279 That's a lot of words. 516 00:28:48,279 --> 00:28:50,039 But that just, I wanted to give you the framework. 517 00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:53,680 I want to give some context and catalysts for 518 00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:58,119 why this, why now, and why so many years? 519 00:28:58,119 --> 00:29:01,240 Because I think these are important catalysts 520 00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:05,200 along the way as we've been continuing to shape this change in the congregation. 521 00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:10,839 And it started with the 2017 UUA 522 00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:16,079 hiring controversy, which exposed really deep institutional 523 00:29:16,079 --> 00:29:21,480 racism, which felt like a surprise to some, particularly the white folks 524 00:29:22,319 --> 00:29:25,319 and led to the establishment of the Commission on 525 00:29:25,319 --> 00:29:29,680 Institutional Change and lots and lots and lots and lots of conversations 526 00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:33,200 and workshops and curricula and resources. 527 00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:36,920 So we and I have been steeped in that since 2017. 528 00:29:37,559 --> 00:29:40,599 In response to that, my Dairy and I led 529 00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:44,160 a workshop on de-centering whiteness, which also 530 00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:48,000 wove in conjunction with the 2018 531 00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:53,640 congregational study action issue, undergoing intersectional white supremacy 532 00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:58,680 And that led to the formation of our racial justice ministry team. 533 00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:01,720 And with that racial justice ministry team, 534 00:30:01,759 --> 00:30:06,440 their first real big initiative was 535 00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:12,240 to introduce and to pass the eighth principal. 536 00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:14,440 So our congregation voted to officially 537 00:30:14,759 --> 00:30:17,680 adopt the eighth principal in 2018. 538 00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:21,680 And in 2019, 539 00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:25,519 I attended a Professional Days workshop as part of the 540 00:30:25,519 --> 00:30:30,960 UU Ministers Association in our district ministers group 541 00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:35,480 on collaborative leadership for collective liberation. 542 00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:39,000 It was one of those workshops that came out of this 2017 hiring 543 00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:42,720 controversy facilitated by Dea Vandiver and Aisha Hauser, 544 00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:46,920 that was really transformational for me as a minister. 545 00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:50,400 And that really sparked an epiphany to me 546 00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:53,759 that our attachment 547 00:30:53,759 --> 00:30:59,880 to an over emphasis on policy-based governance was part of or fed by 548 00:31:01,079 --> 00:31:03,519 culture and systems of white supremacy. 549 00:31:03,559 --> 00:31:06,839 Now, I love policy-based governance. 550 00:31:06,839 --> 00:31:09,839 Gretchen just shared how instrumental it was 551 00:31:09,839 --> 00:31:12,359 in shaping their congregational change. 552 00:31:12,359 --> 00:31:15,400 It has a lot of value, and we are not 553 00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:18,000 separated from it in the congregation 554 00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:22,559 but it's just holding the awareness of how being overattached 555 00:31:22,559 --> 00:31:26,039 to the rigidity and the structure may actually be 556 00:31:26,039 --> 00:31:30,960 fueling and adding to and kind of going along with systems of 557 00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:35,039 the same systems we are also trying to dismantle. 558 00:31:35,039 --> 00:31:38,759 And so we just kind of, I just, we just kind of hold that intention, 559 00:31:38,759 --> 00:31:41,039 although we still very much do 560 00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:45,960 use the inspiration of policy-based 561 00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:48,880 governance in our governance work. 562 00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:53,880 Then there was a deep dive by 563 00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:57,279 so many of us and so many different places and spaces into 564 00:31:57,319 --> 00:32:02,519 emergent strategy, the book and the concept by Adrian Marie Brown. 565 00:32:02,519 --> 00:32:06,039 I was in a local community group here in Boise 566 00:32:06,079 --> 00:32:10,279 of nonprofit leaders and change makers who were doing work around this. 567 00:32:10,279 --> 00:32:12,279 They called themselves 568 00:32:12,279 --> 00:32:13,279 collective thriving. 569 00:32:13,279 --> 00:32:15,759 So that was happening in my world. 570 00:32:15,799 --> 00:32:19,640 And then my ministerial study group was also deeply 571 00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:23,720 engaged in in looking at emergent strategy, and I ended up writing 572 00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:26,000 a long paper for that study group that year. 573 00:32:26,599 --> 00:32:29,720 So I have been doing a lot of like intellectual and 574 00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:33,799 reflection and thinking and writing around emergent strategy. 575 00:32:33,799 --> 00:32:37,079 And then I would add that the UUA's current meet the Moment campaign 576 00:32:37,079 --> 00:32:41,920 is also a current catalyst and resource into this conversation. 577 00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:45,079 Here's just a quick slide that helps us remember 578 00:32:45,079 --> 00:32:49,079 some of the core principles of emergence strategy 579 00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:52,640 from Adrian Marie Brown, because this really kind of influences 580 00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:56,640 our thinking and you heard Gretchen reference it as well. 581 00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:59,519 The idea that change is constant. 582 00:32:59,519 --> 00:33:03,839 So it's not that here's a change and we're dropping it into the water. 583 00:33:03,839 --> 00:33:07,200 It's that we're paying attention to how 584 00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:10,440 the water is moving within the congregation, 585 00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,720 within our local community, within the country and the 586 00:33:13,759 --> 00:33:17,880 wider world, and figuring out where change is happening 587 00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:20,480 out of the movement, like water. 588 00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:23,839 And I just really appreciate Adrian 589 00:33:23,839 --> 00:33:28,640 Marie Brown's focus on trust, trusting the people 590 00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:33,400 on never a failure, always a lesson on, 591 00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:36,000 there's always enough time for the right work. 592 00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,599 So really paying attention to what feels like the right work and giving 593 00:33:39,599 --> 00:33:42,880 our time and energy that I could also be saying, like feed the health 594 00:33:43,559 --> 00:33:46,599 and moving at the speed of trust, 595 00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:48,839 focusing on relationship. 596 00:33:48,839 --> 00:33:51,839 Adrian Marie Brown would say, not just critical connections, but 597 00:33:51,839 --> 00:33:55,559 relationships for which feels like it speaks exactly to 598 00:33:56,359 --> 00:34:00,200 our highest aspirations is congregations. 599 00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:03,440 And one 600 00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,559 of the learnings that I have shared with my congregation 601 00:34:06,559 --> 00:34:12,599 in the ways that I've tried to articulate the context of why is this important right now 602 00:34:13,159 --> 00:34:16,800 Is that as Unitarian 603 00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:21,519 Universalist congregations in particular, we are values-based 604 00:34:21,559 --> 00:34:26,840 and relationships centered rather than outcome driven. 605 00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:30,320 A lot of regular nonprofits out in the world are 606 00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:33,000 outcome driven and they need to be, right? 607 00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:36,480 Your homeless services organization is outcome driven. 608 00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,519 If it doesn't meet its outcomes, it can't exist 609 00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:43,840 Even though likely, housing 610 00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:46,800 and security will be an issue for a very long time. 611 00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,920 But for congregations like ours, if 612 00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:53,320 we are values based in relationship centered, it doesn't 613 00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:57,920 mean we don't have outcomes, but it just means if we didn't do anything 614 00:34:58,559 --> 00:35:00,559 we would still exist. 615 00:35:00,559 --> 00:35:03,719 The need for us, of the congregation would still exist. 616 00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:06,880 We would still be in relationship with one another. 617 00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:11,880 We would still be reflecting on serving, lifting up our values. 618 00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:14,559 So that's just kind of a little bit of difference. 619 00:35:14,559 --> 00:35:16,880 And then I really love less prep and more presents. 620 00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:18,920 I wish I could learn that lesson myself 621 00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:21,840 The changes that were made, some of the 622 00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:25,079 small changes that have come out of this ongoing conversation 623 00:35:25,079 --> 00:35:29,320 is that we revamped our organizational map, which we 624 00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:31,880 affectionately call our bubbles map. 625 00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:36,239 And we use the word map as opposed to chart very intentionally 626 00:35:37,079 --> 00:35:40,480 And we we, this is it, reflected 627 00:35:40,519 --> 00:35:44,239 here on your screen, and I want to name, we did not not invent this, actually. 628 00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:47,960 We were inspired by a very similar version 629 00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:51,719 of an organizational map created by the Well Springs Congregation 630 00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:54,239 in Pennsylvania under the Ministry of the Reverend Lee 631 00:35:54,559 --> 00:35:56,559 Lee Allen Pexula. 632 00:35:56,559 --> 00:35:59,639 So I sat down with my colleague and 633 00:35:59,639 --> 00:36:03,880 quizzed them about this and how it worked and then brought it back to 634 00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:08,840 our program ministry and our team and board and and we shaped it to fit who we are. 635 00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:12,599 But really, we wanted to we really wanted to 636 00:36:12,599 --> 00:36:16,679 focus on a flattened hierarchy, a distributed authority, 637 00:36:16,679 --> 00:36:19,840 where the vision, mission, and ends is 638 00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:23,360 what is at the center of our organization. 639 00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:26,000 And that is what we are serving. 640 00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:29,039 And then we like to think about that black circle there 641 00:36:29,039 --> 00:36:34,239 is like, that's the congregation surrounding the vision mission and ends and touching all of these 642 00:36:34,559 --> 00:36:37,679 core ministry areas, which are the larger bubbles, and 643 00:36:37,679 --> 00:36:41,400 then the smaller bubbles reflect our specific ministry teams. 644 00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:44,639 It doesn't matter what those specific little bubbles are. 645 00:36:44,639 --> 00:36:47,639 It matters that we've identified what our core ministries are, and 646 00:36:47,639 --> 00:36:51,119 we're thinking about how we're organized in service of those core ministries and 647 00:36:51,119 --> 00:36:55,239 how all all of the congregational life and our mission serves 648 00:36:55,639 --> 00:36:57,719 all of those different ministries. 649 00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:00,760 And also we 650 00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:04,039 felt like this expression was more, again, more values 651 00:37:04,039 --> 00:37:06,079 based in relationships centered. 652 00:37:06,079 --> 00:37:08,079 The board recently 653 00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:12,480 over the last couple of years, has been 654 00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:16,360 migrating to a more collaborative, inclusive decision 655 00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:20,000 making process, which for us meant first 656 00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:24,559 abandoning Robert's rules. 657 00:37:24,559 --> 00:37:27,599 Like the board does no longer use uses Robert's rules. 658 00:37:27,599 --> 00:37:30,480 And that was really challenging for people. 659 00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:33,719 And I have some additional supplementary documents and links 660 00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:36,960 that I'll put in the chat when I'm done that explain 661 00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:40,679 are the story of our bubble map and explain the decision making process. 662 00:37:40,679 --> 00:37:45,000 So if folks want a deeper dive into some of that, I'm happy to provide those documents. 663 00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:48,440 And that has been a huge shift 664 00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:51,719 in undertaking, and it's only the board right now. 665 00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:54,840 We have a vision that we could bring 666 00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:57,760 that to the entire congregation, but baby steps. 667 00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:00,840 We also have a social justice 668 00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:04,440 grant fund that separate off of our operating budget that we fund raised 669 00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:07,480 for that operates more like a mutual aid fund in that 670 00:38:08,039 --> 00:38:11,039 in part of reflecting our values and our commitments 671 00:38:11,039 --> 00:38:14,400 in terms of dismissmantling systems of whit supremacy, culture 672 00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:17,639 and decolonization, it operates more like mutual aid. 673 00:38:17,639 --> 00:38:21,000 So there's no, it goes out to organizations. 674 00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:24,000 Some of it is to fund programs that our ministry teams are doing 675 00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:27,400 here in the congregation, but often times these are small grants to 676 00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:29,840 work that's being done out in our local community 677 00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:33,679 and we prioritize local groups, maybe that 678 00:38:33,679 --> 00:38:36,840 are not 501C3s, that don't have a ton of backing behind 679 00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:39,159 them like Planned Parenthood and ACLU. 680 00:38:39,199 --> 00:38:42,239 We also support them too, but in different ways. 681 00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:45,599 And we just give basically angel grants. 682 00:38:45,599 --> 00:38:47,599 There's not an application process 683 00:38:47,599 --> 00:38:49,480 that's arduous. 684 00:38:49,519 --> 00:38:51,519 There's no application process. 685 00:38:51,519 --> 00:38:53,400 And there's no required reporting system. 686 00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:56,760 It is our gift given based on what we're 687 00:38:56,760 --> 00:39:01,360 seeing in the world or based on those partnerships, definitely around partnerships. 688 00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:03,760 I thought that was really excellent point that Gretchen made. 689 00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:06,760 We give a lot of those angel grants because we are in partnership 690 00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:10,559 with these very small groups and organizations doing really important important work, 691 00:39:10,559 --> 00:39:15,400 particularly in Idaho around reproductive justice and LGBTQ plus rights. 692 00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:19,320 And then we just have ongoing 693 00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:21,840 conversations and continually learning. 694 00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:24,000 And here is some of that continued learning 695 00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:28,239 that we're all still figuring out. 696 00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:32,599 Change is slow, particularly cultural shifts. 697 00:39:32,599 --> 00:39:34,880 I think of this as a cultural shift. 698 00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:37,519 I just really appreciated some of Gretchen's 699 00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:40,280 learnings. 700 00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:43,599 And so I added them really quickly into my slang too, because, yes, love the mess. 701 00:39:43,639 --> 00:39:45,639 It's really hard to do that. 702 00:39:45,639 --> 00:39:48,119 We want clean 10 point plans. 703 00:39:48,119 --> 00:39:50,800 I would say perhaps it's familiar to you. 704 00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:53,639 I have a congregation that really struggles 705 00:39:54,119 --> 00:39:57,159 to with the idea of emergence and 706 00:39:57,199 --> 00:39:59,960 generative projects. 707 00:39:59,960 --> 00:40:03,119 And once the 10 point plan before we 708 00:40:03,119 --> 00:40:06,840 begin something and we've worked really hard and 709 00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:11,039 they're tired of hearing my mantra of we're building the bridge as we cross it 710 00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:15,119 to empower us to start things, 711 00:40:15,119 --> 00:40:18,360 to start them as we mean to go on, but to not have to know 712 00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:22,920 all of the answers or all of the potentialities before we begin. 713 00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:25,079 That's a barrier to starting anything. 714 00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:29,400 But in terms of this work, one of the 715 00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:33,039 learnings that we're experiencing right now is that it's 716 00:40:33,079 --> 00:40:37,679 really difficult for people to make these kinds of cultural shifts because they don't understand 717 00:40:38,639 --> 00:40:41,639 and have a hard time visually visualizing what 718 00:40:41,639 --> 00:40:43,719 they they don't see in their own world. 719 00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:46,920 So in our own culture, we are driven by a kind 720 00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:50,440 of corporate culture and that includes 721 00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:54,119 in the corporate nonprofit sector, which 722 00:40:54,119 --> 00:40:58,360 suggests that there are particular best practices and ways of 723 00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:00,800 organizing and ways of fundraising 724 00:41:01,079 --> 00:41:04,440 that are good and right and successful. 725 00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:07,599 And we don't see models that are 726 00:41:07,639 --> 00:41:11,880 values based in relationships centered and countercultural. 727 00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:15,480 And so it's really hard then for us to imagine 728 00:41:16,199 --> 00:41:18,199 how it would be. 729 00:41:18,199 --> 00:41:20,400 So I watch and notice that in my 730 00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:25,079 congregation, lots of leaders think we should be 731 00:41:25,079 --> 00:41:28,960 following these particular corporate like or 732 00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,679 nonprofit corporate structures and practices 733 00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:35,519 And that in our doing things differently, it feels 734 00:41:35,519 --> 00:41:37,840 to some like we're not doing it right. 735 00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:40,880 And I put that in quotes or we're not being 736 00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:45,119 successful again in quotes, because all we're comparing ourselves to 737 00:41:45,119 --> 00:41:47,679 are these dominant culture 738 00:41:49,679 --> 00:41:54,239 you know, capitalists, profit- driven cultural measurements. 739 00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:56,880 And that's really, really hard. 740 00:41:56,880 --> 00:42:01,199 If you don't see other people doing this thing that you want to do, it's really hard to imagine how to do it. 741 00:42:01,199 --> 00:42:05,519 We've we continue to learn that communication is vital. 742 00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:09,000 In this moment, in this last year after 743 00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:12,519 the election, we've been moving so, so fast 744 00:42:12,559 --> 00:42:16,559 to just try to reduce harm, offer 745 00:42:16,559 --> 00:42:20,039 community care, protect to the most vulnerable, that 746 00:42:20,039 --> 00:42:25,239 I am learning, I am learning the hard lesson that we haven't communicated enough to people. 747 00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:28,280 What we're doing, why it matters, how we're doing 748 00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:30,480 it, and why these changes are part of that work. 749 00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:34,320 And so we've had to go back and do a lot more communicating 750 00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:38,400 on continuous dialogue. 751 00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:41,800 As a leader, again, this is my personal learning, 752 00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:45,199 but I think my leaders experience it too, 753 00:42:45,199 --> 00:42:49,199 is that it's really hard to remain non-anxious and non-reactive 754 00:42:49,519 --> 00:42:52,559 when people express concerns and particularly 755 00:42:52,559 --> 00:42:57,159 dislike about the choices we've made and this vision that we have. 756 00:42:57,199 --> 00:43:01,519 And we all struggle and I struggle with that on a regular basis. 757 00:43:01,519 --> 00:43:05,760 And then I was just listening to Adrian Marie Brown on a podcast 758 00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:09,440 today about emergency strategy as I was 759 00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:11,760 reflecting on what I was going to say tonight. 760 00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:14,880 And she said that she said this wisdom that 761 00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:19,800 is really helpful learning, that those who are resistant, sometimes even hostile, but I would maybe 762 00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:26,199 rephrase hostile to be like, you know, your curmudgeons among you, right? 763 00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:29,760 They're still invested, but they have some strong opinions 764 00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:32,800 that are often the very loudest. 765 00:43:32,840 --> 00:43:36,079 So it's hard to hear what feels like it's going well 766 00:43:36,559 --> 00:43:41,599 over the din of those who are frustrated or resistant. 767 00:43:41,599 --> 00:43:44,760 And if we can bring them along 768 00:43:44,760 --> 00:43:49,000 and we can really center those relationships and 769 00:43:49,039 --> 00:43:51,239 their passionate investment in the congregation 770 00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:54,639 this was for Adrian Marie Brown, investment in whatever. 771 00:43:54,639 --> 00:43:57,679 They may end up being our biggest visionaries and champions. 772 00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:01,960 Not all the time, but it's there's some untapped potential there. 773 00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:04,960 And certainly, if we ignore them or brush them to 774 00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:07,360 the side, but that it's also really important. 775 00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:10,360 I think Gretchen named it to balance that with feeding the health, 776 00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:12,440 that we're not spending all of our time and energy 777 00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:16,280 trying to fix what other people perceive to be problems or 778 00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:19,760 to try to chase the people who are unhappy, 779 00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:23,239 but were engaging with them while we're also really feeding and 780 00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:27,079 stewarding and moving the health, the healthy places of the congregation along. 781 00:44:27,079 --> 00:44:29,119 And the quote that I'll end with is 782 00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:31,480 this one from Adrian Marie Brown. 783 00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:34,360 We are all learning what it means means to be somebodies who shape the 784 00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:36,920 future to operate at the scale of transformation. 785 00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:38,000 Welcome back 786 00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:40,000 everyone. 787 00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:41,760 I hope you had really good conversations in your groups. 788 00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:44,920 And what we're going to do now is we've got about 10 789 00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:48,079 minutes to have some Q&A, some conversations. 790 00:44:48,079 --> 00:44:52,320 So I'm going to invite you to put questions in the chat about 791 00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:56,159 change, about the nature of change, about what came up for you, 792 00:44:56,159 --> 00:44:59,280 what questions you have for either for myself. 793 00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:02,440 I can talk to you about what we learned at the conference, some of the theories have changed 794 00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:05,880 some of the other stories we heard or for Reverend Sara, who was 795 00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,039 able to be with us from Gretchen went back to her board meeting. 796 00:45:09,079 --> 00:45:12,320 So go ahead and drop those questions in the chat and we will use 797 00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:16,559 brief time to get to as many questions as we can. 798 00:45:16,559 --> 00:45:18,559 What is proximal development? 799 00:45:18,559 --> 00:45:20,559 Yeah, this is great. 800 00:45:20,559 --> 00:45:23,519 Gretchen didn't have a chance to explore this a lot, but I know what this concept is, so I can tell you. 801 00:45:23,519 --> 00:45:26,639 So idea that there's changes that are like 802 00:45:26,639 --> 00:45:29,440 really close, that are sort of in your core thing. 803 00:45:30,199 --> 00:45:33,480 And then the next layer out is this proximal development. 804 00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:36,280 So it's a change that's proximal to what you're already doing. 805 00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:38,360 It's not an enormous leap, 806 00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:43,440 It's not something out of, you know, in a completely different world, but it's a stretch from where you are. 807 00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:46,119 So it's like the next right thing, is something Buddhists will say. 808 00:45:46,119 --> 00:45:49,159 It's related to the concept and adaptive leadership 809 00:45:49,199 --> 00:45:54,360 of the zone of productive disequilibrium, which is one of my favorite phrases in the whole world. 810 00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:59,039 It's the idea that people can tolerate a certain amount of change. 811 00:45:59,039 --> 00:46:02,079 And if you go too fast or too far outside the 812 00:46:02,119 --> 00:46:07,440 proximal zone, folks will not be able to handle it. 813 00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:09,440 It'll be too much. 814 00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:11,360 They'll shut down, they'll freak out, they will won't participate. 815 00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:15,800 But if you don't stretch enough, then if you're not changing your dying, those are your options. 816 00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:17,800 So you want to stretch just the right amount. 817 00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:19,519 That's what proximate development is. 818 00:46:19,519 --> 00:46:22,920 What are the procedural rules that you use in place of Robert's rules? 819 00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:26,199 And I'll say, I'll turn this over to Sara in a second, but there are lots of options. 820 00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:29,119 One congregation I know uses something called sqociiocracy 821 00:46:29,519 --> 00:46:32,519 which is a circle process where you have deep conversations. 822 00:46:32,519 --> 00:46:34,679 There are other options than Robert's rules. 823 00:46:34,679 --> 00:46:37,960 Sara, you want to talk a little bit about what you do instead of Robert's rules? 824 00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:40,880 Yeah, I can a little bit. 825 00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:45,119 What I want to say, though, is that 826 00:46:45,119 --> 00:46:49,960 as we were exploring this and I have been in a deep dive 827 00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:53,880 around this, I didn't I didn't want us to 828 00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:59,159 replace Robert's rules with an equally rigid structure that may be 829 00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:01,480 attempted more consensus. 830 00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:04,199 So I personally find so sqociiocracy to be 831 00:47:04,199 --> 00:47:07,599 very complicated and have its own sense of rigidity. 832 00:47:07,639 --> 00:47:09,960 So it doesn't work for me. 833 00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:13,000 But what I wanted to invite our board to 834 00:47:13,039 --> 00:47:17,639 think about is, for the purposes of the board, we are a group of 835 00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:21,440 nine people plus the minister, so 10 of us. 836 00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:24,239 So we don't need a second. 837 00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:28,800 We don't need rules around how we talk with each other. 838 00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:31,920 What we do need to do is one of our shared agreements. 839 00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:37,000 Well, we want to make sure that an inclusive collaborative decision making everybody gets a chance 840 00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:40,519 to speak and 841 00:47:40,519 --> 00:47:44,000 to share what's on their mind, and that we want to craft 842 00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:47,840 the decision that is in the best interest of the congregation. 843 00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:50,880 And so rather than coming, so things could happen in 844 00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:54,400 multiple ways, we could present emotion pre-prepared at 845 00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:56,880 the board meeting and have that on the agenda and vote for it. 846 00:47:57,360 --> 00:48:00,599 But often times where we're headed now is 847 00:48:00,599 --> 00:48:05,400 that we'll have a discussion, and that's the discussion we'll ask. 848 00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:07,800 Does this require emotion? 849 00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:12,039 And if it requires emotion, we will co create and draft that motion together 850 00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:15,880 and then we'll continue to talk about it and refine it as 851 00:48:15,920 --> 00:48:19,159 we receive the input from the board so that it 852 00:48:19,159 --> 00:48:21,679 is as inclusive and collaborative as possible. 853 00:48:21,679 --> 00:48:24,840 So we're crafting the decision in the best interest 854 00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:28,320 of what we're trying to accomplish as the board on behalf of the congregation 855 00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:32,280 rather than, here's a motion, let's discuss. 856 00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:36,039 And now there's Robert's rules it's a very adversarial 857 00:48:36,079 --> 00:48:38,119 structure, right? 858 00:48:38,119 --> 00:48:40,119 And and 859 00:48:40,119 --> 00:48:43,679 part of my challenge is it is you see this at general assembly, right? 860 00:48:43,679 --> 00:48:46,679 If we when we're using Robert's rules, when we're debating 861 00:48:46,679 --> 00:48:50,159 social justice, statements of conscience, there 862 00:48:50,159 --> 00:48:52,599 really shouldn't be a pro and a con. 863 00:48:52,639 --> 00:48:55,800 There should be able to be a way that we can have conversations about 864 00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:59,880 what works and what doesn't and where our discomforts or disagreements lie 865 00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:03,360 But when it comes to social justice issues, we're for all 866 00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:05,519 of the ones that get presented, right? 867 00:49:05,519 --> 00:49:10,559 So I wanted us to get out of this structure that invited that kind of adversarial nature. 868 00:49:10,559 --> 00:49:12,559 Great. 869 00:49:12,559 --> 00:49:13,719 Thanks, Sara. 870 00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:16,199 The Unitarian Universalist Minister Association moved away from 871 00:49:16,199 --> 00:49:19,719 Robert rules for its business meetings a few years ago, and they 872 00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:23,239 had a draft of the sort of new kind of covenantal way of thinking about it. 873 00:49:23,239 --> 00:49:26,519 And I said, let's add one thing, that if if 874 00:49:26,519 --> 00:49:28,599 we don't know what to do, then the chair can make a decision 875 00:49:29,039 --> 00:49:31,039 and then the body can override it. 876 00:49:31,039 --> 00:49:32,559 And that handles almost anything. 877 00:49:32,559 --> 00:49:34,800 Like, it's, you know, well, we don't know. 878 00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:36,800 We don't have to write everything down in advance. 879 00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:38,440 We've kind of figured out. 880 00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:42,480 So what other questions do you all have about change? 881 00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:47,599 Well, you think of those other questions in the minutes, I'll add a couple other things from the conference. 882 00:49:47,599 --> 00:49:51,719 One is that you can register for the conference now, even though it was Saturday. 883 00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:54,119 I know time travel isn't an amazing. 884 00:49:54,119 --> 00:49:57,519 And when you register, then you will get it access to the recordings 885 00:49:57,559 --> 00:50:02,119 and the list of resources sooner than we get them all published 886 00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:04,400 together. 887 00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:06,599 And we've just put the link in the chat. 888 00:50:06,599 --> 00:50:08,599 You can register for that. 889 00:50:08,599 --> 00:50:09,519 You'll get the recordings. 890 00:50:09,519 --> 00:50:12,199 You'll get the stories of a congregation that's done some really good interim work. 891 00:50:12,199 --> 00:50:15,199 You get the stories of two congregations that have formed a 892 00:50:15,199 --> 00:50:18,920 partnership together in Alabama, where the minister is serving 893 00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:22,920 both congregations and they're doing stuff together, even though they're about an hour's drive apart. 894 00:50:22,920 --> 00:50:26,760 You'll get stories of congregations that are exploring change in different ways. 895 00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:30,119 And also theories about change, how change can be like evolution 896 00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:33,960 how white supremacy culture can get in the way of change 897 00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:37,840 and this kind of culture of experiment by expecting us to be perfect so 898 00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:42,000 you can register for those and get a lot of those conferences. 899 00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:49,280 Someone asked about how to nudge their board toward policy governance. 900 00:50:49,280 --> 00:50:52,559 Yeah, so I would say that it's 901 00:50:52,559 --> 00:50:55,719 interesting to me that the governance question, not just these two 902 00:50:55,760 --> 00:50:57,840 presentations, but the other ones on Saturday. 903 00:50:57,840 --> 00:50:59,840 It's really important 904 00:50:59,840 --> 00:51:02,880 how you make decisions is so critical 905 00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:06,719 for your ability to embrace and work with change. 906 00:51:06,719 --> 00:51:10,800 And so you 907 00:51:10,800 --> 00:51:14,159 can work on getting, what's nice about policy 908 00:51:14,159 --> 00:51:17,639 governance is it gives clarity, but there are lots of ways to get clarity 909 00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:22,360 And so to have a conversation and get clear about where, 910 00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:26,239 whose authority is whose, because when you don't get clear, what happens is the 911 00:51:26,239 --> 00:51:30,000 loudest voices or the longest tenured voices or 912 00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:33,519 the voices most resistant are the ones that have the the change. 913 00:51:33,559 --> 00:51:38,519 When you're centered in vision of who you want to serve, even though they might not already be in the room 914 00:51:39,440 --> 00:51:42,079 then you might make decisions differently. 915 00:51:42,079 --> 00:51:45,960 So there's no one way to do this involves a lot of conversation with a lot of clarity. 916 00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:49,599 A lot of congregations find the 917 00:51:49,639 --> 00:51:52,920 model from Governance and Ministry by Dan Hotchkiss to be useful. 918 00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:54,920 Other congregations look at other models. 919 00:51:54,920 --> 00:51:56,920 So they're options. 920 00:51:56,920 --> 00:51:59,519 You can do to your primary contact about possible governance models. 921 00:51:59,519 --> 00:52:02,519 And we have great UU Institute courses on governances, too, 922 00:52:02,519 --> 00:52:07,199 which when Lauren and QuianaDenae send out the materials, they can link to some of those governance kind of resources. 923 00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:10,199 I have a question here. 924 00:52:10,199 --> 00:52:15,599 What are some signs that the congregation is ready for greater change related to the early discussion of approximate development? 925 00:52:15,599 --> 00:52:17,599 That's a great question. 926 00:52:17,599 --> 00:52:19,800 I think when there's some trust 927 00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:25,599 some clarity, a vision, they're certainly ready for change. 928 00:52:25,639 --> 00:52:28,679 And Adrian Marie Brown's theory is so helpful 929 00:52:28,679 --> 00:52:33,239 here, plant some seeds, see what grows, water those, 930 00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:35,800 because change is already always happening. 931 00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:41,119 So the question is, can you nurture changes that are healthy and grow those? 932 00:52:41,119 --> 00:52:45,320 So if change is already happening to them, the question isn't how can we start changing? 933 00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:49,159 How can we shape change in a way that is in line with our values? 934 00:52:49,159 --> 00:52:51,239 So just try stuff. 935 00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:54,360 And people start showing up for a thing or participating. 936 00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:56,360 Oh, there's energy. 937 00:52:56,360 --> 00:52:57,400 Let's feed that energy. 938 00:52:57,400 --> 00:52:59,639 Sara, you want to add anything to that in our last minute here? 939 00:52:59,639 --> 00:53:04,960 I love, I love planting seeds. 940 00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:08,239 I am nothing, if not a seed planter. 941 00:53:08,239 --> 00:53:11,280 And that's probably just because I think of a 942 00:53:11,280 --> 00:53:13,679 million ideas all the time and I sort of 943 00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:17,000 put them out there to the congregation. 944 00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:20,480 So, yes, I would say plant, 945 00:53:20,480 --> 00:53:24,320 plant seeds, try things, experiment, Gretchen's 946 00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:27,480 vision that a lot of us say this. 947 00:53:27,480 --> 00:53:29,480 Everything is an experiment. 948 00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:31,000 Nothing has to be permanent. 949 00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:32,199 We can try it and we can adjust as we go 950 00:53:32,519 --> 00:53:35,800 And so starting to experiment 951 00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:39,199 will show you where the congregation 952 00:53:39,199 --> 00:53:41,599 is in terms of that readiness. 953 00:53:41,599 --> 00:53:44,599 And you might have to come pull back and be like, oh, we have to lay a 954 00:53:44,599 --> 00:53:47,960 few more pieces of the bridge before we keep going. 955 00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:50,519 And then we keep going and we see how far we can go. 956 00:53:50,519 --> 00:53:53,320 Then we have to back up a little bit, build the bridge some more. 957 00:53:54,199 --> 00:53:56,199 That's right. 958 00:53:56,199 --> 00:53:58,000 About 13 years ago, I started running and you start running if 959 00:53:58,039 --> 00:54:03,000 you've never run before, you run for like 10 seconds and then you walk for a minute and then you run for 10 seconds, right? 960 00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:05,000 Now I can run 13 miles. 961 00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:06,679 I couldn't do that for years. 962 00:54:06,679 --> 00:54:09,360 And you got to start where you're at. 963 00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:12,000 Don't try to jump all the way in because you're just going to hurt yourself. 964 00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:14,000 But plant seats and see what grows. 965 00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:15,639 So I'm going to turn it back over to 966 00:54:16,320 --> 00:54:19,440 I think, to QuianaDenae to close us out tonight. 967 00:54:19,440 --> 00:54:21,840 It's so great to be with all of you this evening. 968 00:54:21,840 --> 00:54:24,880 And let's give a big thanks to Reverend Sara for being with us 969 00:54:24,920 --> 00:54:28,320 and sharing her story of change and good luck on your continued work, Sara. 970 00:54:28,320 --> 00:54:30,320 Thank you. 971 00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:31,239 Thanks, everybody. 972 00:54:31,239 --> 00:54:32,800 I was going to do that part, Matthew. 973 00:54:32,840 --> 00:54:36,360 Say the big thank yous, but, you know, more thank yous the better. 974 00:54:36,360 --> 00:54:38,360 So this is QuianaDenae. 975 00:54:38,360 --> 00:54:39,039 again 976 00:54:39,039 --> 00:54:41,760 I want to thank Matthew for facilitating. 977 00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:45,000 I want to thank Sara and Gretchen for their contributions 978 00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:49,119 to our growing and expanding knowledge of this topic. 979 00:54:49,159 --> 00:54:52,280 And I want to thank Ritoo for their work behind the scenes, because without 980 00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:56,960 them, this is not possible, to be present with you and to also do the tech. 981 00:54:56,960 --> 00:55:01,280 So I just want to name and appreciate their contributions to this being a successful evening 982 00:55:01,440 --> 00:55:05,639 I just want to say once again, thank you for joining us. 983 00:55:05,639 --> 00:55:08,880 Thank you for your leadership and your congregation. 984 00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:13,000 This is a movement that we are grateful to be in with you. 985 00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:16,000 We hope that maybe in the chat right now, you'll 986 00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:19,280 share a lesson or a gratitude or a question that you'll 987 00:55:19,320 --> 00:55:21,480 carry from tonight's gathering 988 00:55:22,119 --> 00:55:26,199 This is a little cross-pollinating that happens here in the chat. 989 00:55:28,440 --> 00:55:31,800 Ah, lovely. 990 00:55:31,800 --> 00:55:35,159 Feed the healthy. 991 00:55:35,159 --> 00:55:37,360 Learn to love the mess. 992 00:55:38,559 --> 00:55:41,000 The idea that everything is an experiment. 993 00:55:41,039 --> 00:55:44,519 Yes, yes, yes. 994 00:55:44,519 --> 00:55:47,559 Take those ideas, 995 00:55:47,559 --> 00:55:51,199 put them to work in your congregation, be in touch with us. 996 00:55:51,239 --> 00:55:54,119 Let us know what the fruits of those might be 997 00:55:54,599 --> 00:55:57,840 And until we are together again, know 998 00:55:57,840 --> 00:56:01,000 that you are not alone in this work, that we are spread 999 00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:04,400 across a continent, we are on the same team 1000 00:56:04,440 --> 00:56:07,559 and we learn from one another and we grow together. 1001 00:56:07,559 --> 00:56:09,840 Thank you so much for being part of that community 1002 00:56:10,360 --> 00:56:12,360 tonight and beyond. 1003 00:56:12,360 --> 00:56:14,400 Be well. 1004 00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:16,400 Thank you. 1005 00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:16,920 Thank you. 1006 00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:17,360 Thank you, friends.