General Session V, General Assembly 2018

General Assembly 2018 Event 403

Program Description

Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Co-Moderators Mr. Barb Greve and Elandria Williams preside over the general sessions in which the business of the Association is being conducted.

Agenda

The following final draft script was completed before this event took place; actual words spoken may vary. Unedited live captions (TXT) were created during the event, and contain some errors. Captioning is not available for some copyrighted material.

Call to Order

Co-Moderator: I now call to order the Fifth General Session of the Fifty-Seventh General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Opening Words

Bailey Saddlemire:

Right Relationship Team Report

Co-Moderator: Does the Right Relationship Team have anything to report this morning?

Hannah Roberts Villnave / Yadenee Hailu: (live caption)

Rules and Process Review

Co-Moderator: Before debate begins, time will be provided for you to informally discuss the agenda item with others sitting around you; this informal discussion time will not count towards the thirty-minute limit.

The thirty minutes of debate time does include time devoted to discussing any amendments to the proposed amendment.

Amendments: Amendments must be submitted for consideration of at the appropriate Mini- Assembly in order to be offered in the General Session. There has to be 15 minutes of discussion before amendments to the main motion can be considered.

Time Limits:

  1. No one can speak for more then 2 minutes and not more then once unless no one else wants to speak except by permission from the moderator.
  2. There are thirty minutes total allowed bylaw or rule amendments, resolutions or action.
  3. After 15 minutes of debate motions to table or refer are in order if that much time is needed. Motions must come from the producurel mic.
  4. Now for the fun part. A motion to call the previous question is in order once 7 minutes has expired and there are people at the pro and con mic. Once 5 minutes has expired and no one is at the pro or con mic then the motion to call the previous question is in order.
  5. Time taken at the procedural mic will not count against discussion time.

Consider Proposed Bylaw Amendments

To be live-captioned. Carried over from General Session IV.

Actions of Immediate Witness

Co-Moderator: In accordance with Section 4.16, c(3) of the bylaws, the Commission on Social Witness shall submit up to six proposed Actions of Immediate Witness that meet the published criteria to the agenda of the General Assembly for possible admission to the General Assembly’s agenda. After the Chair of the Commission on Social Witness submits those issues, the proposer of each will have 2 minutes to describe the issue. Then delegates may vote for up to three issues that they would like to place on the final agenda for consideration tomorrow. Delegates will indicate their choices using the stub on the bottom of the voting card. Please clearly mark up to three choices. If a ballot contains more than three choices, it will be discarded. After you mark your ballot, please tear off the marked stub and pass it to the aisle for the tellers to collect. Susan Goekler, does the Commission have proposals?

Susan Goekler: Co-Moderator, the Commission on Social Witness submits the following [Number] issues that meet the criteria for Actions of Immediate Witness and have received the required number of delegate signatures.

Delegates may select up to three to add to the final agenda for a vote on Sunday: [TBD]

Distinguished Service Award: Charles Gaines

Barb Greve: Reverend Doctor Charles Gaines, your ministry has rippled out into the lives of many contemporary leaders in our religious movement. Your influence on the growth of our movement and the diversity of our professional religious leaders has largely gone without credit. Let us take a moment here to celebrate you and your dedicated work in our faith.

You were the last minister to be ordained as a Universalist minister in 1961, before the consolidation of the Unitarians and the Universalists into the Unitarian Universalist Association. Throughout your ministry, you have demonstrated the inclusive values of Universalism and upheld the broader vision of a social gospel made manifest in our daily relationships, our institutions, and our work in the world.

You have ministered with congregations in Milford, New Hampshire, as well as Massachusetts congregations in Hardwick, Framingham, Cohasset, Groton, and Acton.

You faithfully served on the staff of the Unitarian Universalist Association and consulted with hundreds of congregations while at Turnabout Consultants. During your time on the UUA staff, you visited forty-four states and eight nations on behalf of our faith.

Your ministry has been a beautiful blend of humancentered relationships, truth telling, and driving institutional change. Your justice activism has included direct, street-based activism, such as answering the 1965 call for clergy to join the March from Selma to Montgomery, as well as choosing whenever possible to use your institutional power to deliberately seek out and empower those who experience barriers and marginalization. At a time when there were few women in our ministry and even fewer serving in leadership roles at the UUA, you were a consistent ally, colleague, and friend to those who were there while working to make space for those who were not yet in places of power.

Not one to mince words, your passion for honesty and candor led you to address issues head-on, which sometimes was not as appreciated as you might have hoped. Nonetheless, your analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of our movement and your willingness to name difficult truths have taught many about oppression, privilege, and what it means to be an ally.

In 1984, months before you were hired to serve at the UUA and because no one on staff was willing to attend, you represented institutional Unitarian Universalism at the first gathering of bisexual, gay, lesbian, and transgender UU ministers and students. Not long after that, you were hired as the Ministry Settlement Director of the UUA, a position you held from 1984 to 1990 and in which you boldly promoted women, people of color, and LGBTQ ministers for settlement in our congregations. When you encountered resistance, you introduced a programmatic response requiring congregations to examine and strive to overcome their own systemic and personal biases during the settlement process. That response seeded the ground for a program we continue to use to this day, called Beyond Categorical Thinking. Your zealous advocacy was one of the key factors that paved the way for the diversity experienced in our professional ministry today.

Your Universalist passion for the growth of our religious movement was contagious, inspiring, and practical.

During your time as Director of the Extension Department of the UUA (from 1990 to 1995), you implemented a broad initiative that understood the work of “extension” and church growth to include not just the support of firsttime ministry in congregations and the development of new congregations—but a full spectrum of services for every congregations of every size. From workshops and conferences to specific programs, you made sure that congregations learned new approaches and found new resources among one another’s demonstrated successes.

Your sense of urgency led a vibrant period of the extension ministry program and the most robust outreach and growth efforts since the days of the celebrated fellowship movement. You were a champion of programming and resource deployment targeted at helping existing congregations realize their potential while planting new congregations wherever opportunities presented themselves.

You have been champion, friend, mentor, role model, ally, and minister to too many to count. Your love of our faith, passion for justice, and commitment to ever reforming our institutions are commendable. We owe you a deep debt of gratitude for helping Unitarian Universalism grow when other denominations were waning and for inspiring a diversity among our religious professionals that helped to change who is in the conversation. Throughout your service, you have given us some taste of a Universalism that is realizable and modeled for us a Unitarian Universalism that can be.

On this 23rd day of June in the year 2018, we honor you by awarding you with the Annual Award for Distinguished Service to the Cause of Unitarian Universalism as presented by the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Charles Gaines: <live caption>

Singing

Unitarian Universalist Service Committee Report

Co-Moderator: The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee is an incredible social justice organization propelling UU values throughout the world. The UUSC advances human rights through grassroots collaborations in dozens of countries around the world and in the United States.

Promoting economic justice, bolstering environmental justice and protecting rights at risk is the work of the UUSC.

Lyssa Jenkens: [Slide #1] Marshall Islander Kathy Jetnil- Kijiner shared a poem written for her infant daughter at the 2014 UN Climate Summit: “Dear Matafele Peinam.” She begins with lamentations for her child given the possibility of a homeland lost to the ravages of climate change [Slide #2].

they say you, your daughter and your granddaughter, too will wander rootless with only a passport to call home She then goes on to promise that she will do everything in her power to ensure that there will never be another “climate change refugee” and that they are not alone.

She tells her daughter “there are those who see us” with [Slide #3]: hands reaching out fists raising up banners unfurling megaphones booming Wow. That sounds a lot like [Slide #4]—us!

And, yes, Matafele Peinam, as Unitarian Universalists, we see you. We see you, your people and your neighbors throughout the South Pacific [Slide #5] confronting the immediate and existential threats of a rising sea. We see you. Just like we see the Rohingya [Slide #6] desperately fleeing ethnic cleansing in Burma, Syrians [Slide #7] escaping unending and horrifying civil warfare. We see the 65 million people displaced by conflict and climate seeking safe harbors only to find that they are not safe.

We see [Slide #8] the mistreatment of immigrants in this country, the escalating acts of hatred on our streets and from the highest offices [Slide #9] in this land. We see all of this and so much more. And, then, we do [Slide #10].

Our Unitarian Universalist values tell us to see and, then, to do.

That is the mission of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee—to put our UU values to work in this world [Slide #11]. It has been our mission [Slide #12] from the moment we joined with local resistors in World War II helping Jews, intellectuals, children, all enemies of the Nazi state get to safety. Seventy-eight years later, we remain true to our mission to defend the human rights of oppressed people everywhere.

Fidelity to this mission has moved UUSC from strength to strength across the generations. It has sustained us in this past year, when the world tilted off its axis. And, this glorious mission has sustained us in a time of our own institutional transition.

None of this is possible without our UUSC family. Our board, our staff, our partners and you [Slide #13], this faithful community of UU ministerial leaders, congregational liaisons, members, volunteers, donors.

You [Slide #14] are our greatest asset—40,000 UUs already engaged. You [Slide #15] are the ones our poet described: “with hands reaching out, fists raising up, banners unfurling, megaphones booming.” We are “marching hand in hand” with people across the world in the world in partnership and in defense of basic human rights. Thank you for your engagement, your vision, your support.

Today, I am happy to introduce a new member of our immediate UUSC family. The Rev. Mary Katherine Morn [Slide #16] has been in our larger circle for 30 years as a UU minister serving congregations, communities, and our larger association. After many months of a very robust search, the UUSC Board is delighted that Mary Katherine accepted our invitation to be our President and CEO. We are confident that Mary Katherine will lead us, all of us, to live our UU values more passionately and effectively in this time that needs people just like us! Please, join me in welcoming Rev. Mary Katherine Morn to this new role in our UUSC family and in our movement that she has already served so well.

Mary Katherine Morn: Thank you, Lyssa. I am honored by your invitation to serve and thrilled to take on this tremendously important role leading our UUSC. UUSC’s staff and board leadership inspire me and give me confidence that we can and will do even more as we navigate the treacherous waters ahead—UUSC was made for times like these, by times like these.

From its beginnings, UUSC has effectively centered the voices and leadership of our partners around the world who are creating change and defending human rights.

Partners like Ursula Rakova [Slide #17], an environmental activist from the Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea and leader of Tulele Peisa.

Tulele Peisa means “sailing in the wind on our own” in the local Halia language. Tulele Peisa supports Carteret Islanders through all stages of relocation [Slide #18] and works to ensure that when they leave their homes behind, they can create a new home [Slide #19] that fits, as best it can, with their identity and way of life—leaving them not rootless, but rooted in the beauty and history that has always held them, even as they lose so much to shifting tides.

Because of your support, at UUSC, together we see Ursula, we see Matafele. And then, together [Slide #20], we reach out our hands, we raise up our fists. Thank you [Slide #21].

Unitarian Universalist College of Social Justice Report

Co-Moderator: The UU College of Social Justice was founded at Justice GA in 2012 as a collaboration between the UUA and the UU Service Committee (UUSC). Its mission is to inspire, equip, and sustain spiritually grounded activism. The Rev. Kathleen McTigue has been the Director of CSJ since its founding.

Kathleen McTigue: UU College of Social Justice programs rest on the power of proximity: the idea that when we move closer to injustices and the people on whom they fall most heavily, it changes us. We connect in alliance and solidarity with people we suddenly recognize as kin. And when it’s family whose well-being is threatened, we become more bold and creative in our actions for justice than we might ever have dreamed possible.

Our programs are grounded on two truths of our UU faith.

The first is our interdependence, which demands that we be mindful of our place in the web, mindful of how it connects us to every other being. The second is that no person’s life is inherently worth more than another’s: no one is disposable.

The winds of injustice are blowing at hurricane force these days. They can make us feel scattered or helpless because there’s so much under attack at once. But our core truths—that we rise and fall together, and that we are all of deep worth—ground us like mountains against the wind. In that grounding, we see where we can best resist degradation and suffering, where we can best act for life and love.

[Slide #1] This is what CSJ programs support. Wherever your congregation is in its social justice path, we have entry points: study guides, workshops, webinars, and toolkits. And we have a powerful array of immersion journeys.

I’ll highlight three of them, and I hope they’ll resonate with you as ways to strengthen what you’re already doing, or to jump-start some new directions.

[Slide #2] First, come to our Border Witness journey at the Arizona/Mexico border. It has a way of breaking your heart open and putting it back together again with powerful new elements of courage and passion. People have returned from that journey motivated to form partnerships with migrant-led groups in their own towns.

[Slide #3] They’ve brought their congregations into the fold of Sanctuary churches, supported undocumented students, accompanied people to immigration hearings, and visited those in detention. [Slide #4] Some have undertaken greater risks, quietly opening their homes to people in danger of deportation.

The struggle for migrant and refugee justice could not be more urgent, at a time when refugees are called criminals, those painted as criminals are called animals, desperate migrant parents are separated from their young children, and volunteers trying to save lives are charged with felonies for humanitarian aid. [Slide #5] This is all part of a systemic effort to dehumanize our siblings and criminalize activism. The College of Social Justice has programs and tools to help you resist.

Second, if you want to empower and inspire [Slide #6] the rising generation of justice activists in your congregation, help your high school students join one of our Activate programs.

We run week-long versions of Activate [Slide #7] in West Virginia, New Orleans, and Tucson. These programs offer deep dives into the issues of climate change, racism, and migrant justice [Slide #8], all framed in a way meant to inspire and equip teens to move along the spectrum from interested bystander to activist to organizer. This year we also offered shorter, adapted versions of Activate [Slide #9] for UUA programs in Pittsburgh, Chicago, New York, Denver, and Seattle. Ask us. We can bring it to you, too!

Third, if you want to deepen your congregation’s commitment to climate justice, [Slide #10] come with us to Houston. Our program, “Recovery and Beyond”, is a chance to put your hands to the physical work of hurricane recovery. But unlike some service programs, where you come home feeling great about the good you’ve done but knowing little about the people or the systems they’re up against [Slide #11], our program puts a justice framework around the hands-on labor.

There was a storm of injustice in Houston way before Harvey struck, especially environmental racism. A deep dive into that storm’s path is what we offer [Slide #12]: encounters with grassroots UUSC partner groups, an eye-opening “toxic tour” of some of the most poisoned areas, and ideas about how to work for climate justice in your own town. [Slide #13] If you can’t remember the details from this brief review, please remember our website: uucsj.org. Everything you need is there. [Slide #14] And remember that the UU College of Social Justice is yours. Sign up for a program, and find powerful new ways to harness your passion for justice! UU College of Social Justice programs rest on the power of proximity: the idea that when we move closer to injustices and the people on whom they fall most heavily, it changes us. We connect in alliance and solidarity with people we suddenly recognize as kin. And when it’s family whose well-being is threatened, we become more bold and creative in our actions for justice than we might ever have dreamed possible.

Our programs are grounded on two truths of our UU faith.

The first is our interdependence, which demands that we be mindful of our place in the web, mindful of how it connects us to every other being. The second is that no person’s life is inherently worth more than another’s: no one is disposable.

The winds of injustice are blowing at hurricane force these days. They can make us feel scattered or helpless because there’s so much under attack at once. But our core truths—that we rise and fall together, and that we are all of deep worth—ground us like mountains against the wind. In that grounding, we see where we can best resist degradation and suffering, where we can best act for life and love.

[Slide #1] This is what CSJ programs support. Wherever your congregation is in its social justice path, we have entry points: study guides, workshops, webinars, and toolkits. And we have a powerful array of immersion journeys.

I’ll highlight three of them, and I hope they’ll resonate with you as ways to strengthen what you’re already doing, or to jump-start some new directions.

[Slide #2] First, come to our Border Witness journey at the Arizona/Mexico border. It has a way of breaking your heart open and putting it back together again with powerful new elements of courage and passion. People have returned from that journey motivated to form partnerships with migrant-led groups in their own towns.

[Slide #3] They’ve brought their congregations into the fold of Sanctuary churches, supported undocumented students, accompanied people to immigration hearings, and visited those in detention. [Slide #4] Some have undertaken greater risks, quietly opening their homes to people in danger of deportation.

The struggle for migrant and refugee justice could not be more urgent, at a time when refugees are called criminals, those painted as criminals are called animals, desperate migrant parents are separated from their young children, and volunteers trying to save lives are charged with felonies for humanitarian aid. [Slide #5] This is all part of a systemic effort to dehumanize our siblings and criminalize activism. The College of Social Justice has programs and tools to help you resist.

Second, if you want to empower and inspire [Slide #6] the rising generation of justice activists in your congregation, help your high school students join one of our Activate programs.

We run week-long versions of Activate [Slide #7] in West Virginia, New Orleans, and Tucson. These programs offer deep dives into the issues of climate change, racism, and migrant justice [Slide #8], all framed in a way meant to inspire and equip teens to move along the spectrum from interested bystander to activist to organizer. This year we also offered shorter, adapted versions of Activate [Slide #9] for UUA programs in Pittsburgh, Chicago, New York, Denver, and Seattle. Ask us. We can bring it to you, too!

Third, if you want to deepen your congregation’s commitment to climate justice, [Slide #10] come with us to Houston. Our program, “Recovery and Beyond”, is a chance to put your hands to the physical work of hurricane recovery. But unlike some service programs, where you come home feeling great about the good you’ve done but knowing little about the people or the systems they’re up against [Slide #11], our program puts a justice framework around the hands-on labor.

There was a storm of injustice in Houston way before Harvey struck, especially environmental racism. A deep dive into that storm’s path is what we offer [Slide #12]: encounters with grassroots UUSC partner groups, an eye-opening “toxic tour” of some of the most poisoned areas, and ideas about how to work for climate justice in your own town. [Slide #13] If you can’t remember the details from this brief review, please remember our website: uucsj.org. Everything you need is there. [Slide #14] And remember that the UU College of Social Justice is yours. Sign up for a program, and find powerful new ways to harness your passion for justice!

Religious Professionals of Color Conversation

Co-Moderator: Please welcome Natalie Fenimore, DeReau Farrar, Carey McDonald, Jesse King, Melissa Carvill-Zimer, Jessica York, Taquiena Boston, and Leslie Takashi to share with us reflections on what is happening with Religious Professionals of Color within our faith.

Collection (Side with Love)

Co-Moderator: Please welcome Elizabeth Nguyen, the Strategic Advisor for Side with Love and Susan Frederick-Gray the President of our Association.

Elizabeth Nguyen: I know that you’ve felt it. The heartbreak, the powerlessness, the violence. There is so much of it. We could fill this whole General Assembly with litanies for all of the injustice.

But have you felt the other things too? The healing, the power, the righting the of wrongs, the sometimes quiet and sometimes not so quiet organizing that looks injustice and despair in the face and fights back.

Holding the tension of heartbreak and resistance is at the core of our work.

At Side With Love we understand that creating and responding to those tensions is ours to do, and at the core of our faithful commitments as Unitarian Universalists.

The harm that has been caused by a name that contains ableist language, and the beauty of a new imagining of our work and a re-commitment to disability justice.

Working closely with the ability-based advocates who called on us to change our name last year, Side With Love announced its new name in January.

The violence of white supremacy and balm of organizing for collective liberation. In Charlottesville, Side with Love staff provided communications and logistical support to the faith presence there. Following the attack, we supported with offline and online healing and processing spaces for those harmed along with members of the broader community.

When grassroots groups with the migrant caravan of refugees coming to the U.S. Mexico border asked for help finding sponsor, Side With Love helped many of you say yes. As hate tried to close our borders, we opened our hearts and our homes.

As our Unitarian Universalist Association and our spiritual communities engage the transformative work of resisting white supremacy and oppression internally, we know it cannot be separated from the justice work that embodies our values in the world. These both flow from our shared theological core. Interdependence means that none of us are free until we are all free. And Universalism means that no one is outside the circle of love.

Susan Frederick-Gray: Side with Love does not try to duplicate the justice work that secular organizations do.

Instead we play our role in the ecosystem to offer deep spiritual sustenance and unleash the power of Unitarian Universalists. And when we Side With Love we remind ourselves that as people of faith our vows, our covenants, our commitment to the beloved community, are what we hold most sacred.

Today, we ask you to pledge allegiance to liberation, to community, to the struggle, to our ancestors and to the generations to come, and make a generous gift that says “yes, I will side with love.” Say yes to feeling more, feeling a love that is more powerful than hate. Say yes to the low ego, high impact organizing that cuts through false solutions and easy answers. Say yes to spiritual practices that keep us grounded among a mess of issues and pain and helps us find what is ours to do, knowing that together we are strong and full-hearted. Say yes to our prophetic call to courageously and unapologetically live our values through our work with this election year cycle and beyond.

Make a gift today that matches your personal, spiritual, ethical commitment to side with love in your life and your community. Invest here, right now, together in the struggle. Invest in the spiritual calling that says nothing can keep me from my values. Thank you for giving generously to Side With Love.

Singing

Journey Toward Wholeness Transformation Committee Report

Co-Moderator: The Journey Towards Wholeness Transformation Committee was established in June 1997 by the Board of Trustees as part of the 1997 General Assembly Business Resolution “Toward an Anti-Racist Unitarian Universalist Association. Please welcome the Journey Toward Wholeness Transformation Committee for their report.

Theresa Soto and Ted Fetter: As the Journey Toward Wholeness Transformation Committee, we recognize that now is the time to go deeper with anti-oppression and anti-racism, to dedicate our energies to creating a transformative and liberatory future in Unitarian Universalism.

We must root out our habitual culture of white supremacy—together, of course, with our patriarchal, heterocisgender-normative, and ableist culture. We must engage in building a new culture not because we are bad persons, but because so many Unitarian Universalists are part of the larger Western, Euro-American culture where the pattern of centering white European culture is an established practice. Together we can use our ability to grow and change so we may instead embody our ideals and aspirations as lived experiences.

Your Journey Toward Wholeness Transformation Committee has undertaken a study of power mapping.

Through this process we are asking questions that can help to transform our faith: Where does the power to change our institutions lie? Who controls the levers of change? What are their motivations to change, and what are the factors inhibiting transformation? Who are the advocates for building the beloved community, and what power do they have? Who are their allies, and how can coalitions of change-agents be established?

Change has occurred in the Association as people dig into questions of what it takes to decenter white supremacy in worship. Congregations across the United States and Canada participated enthusiastically in the White Supremacy teach-in.

Unfortunately, a demonstrable pattern of conflict with religious professionals of color demonstrates that white supremacy seeks to maintain its influence. We closely follow these incidents and support the work of the Commission on Institutional Change. It is because real people encounter the harms of white supremacy and the conflicts it causes that this work matters.

We want to be intentional, to identify the potential for growing a new culture, one that can save our faith in a time of distress. Part of the focus is within the UUA, the theological schools, the Ministers Association, and the other national institutions. But a greater part is in the congregations, where most UUs associate and act out their faith. None of us should say "that's not a problem in my congregation," because it surely is. Noticing the habits of prioritizing the needs and narratives of white people and white systems is the job of each congregation.

Our polity calls us to take responsibility for our neighboring congregations, and noticing and accounting for white supremacy, make the necessary changes.

Our committee will work in partnership with the Commission on Institutional Change and the leadership of Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism, DRUUMM, and other partners in this great work. We are grateful for the transformation before us.

Rules and Process Overview

Before debate begins, time will be provided for you to informally discuss the agenda item with others sitting around you; this informal discussion time will not count towards the thirty-minute limit.

The thirty minutes of debate time does include time devoted to discussing any amendments to the proposed amendment.

Amendments: Amendments must be submitted for consideration of at the appropriate Mini- Assembly in order to be offered in the General Session. There has to be 15 minutes of discussion before amendments to the main motion can be considered.

Time Limits:

  1. No one can speak for more then 2 minutes and not more then once unless no one else wants to speak except by permission from the moderator.
  2. There are thirty minutes total allowed bylaw or rule ammendments, resolutions or action.
  3. After 15 minutes of debate motions to table or refer are in order if that much time is needed. Motions must come from the producural mic.
  4. Now for the fun part. A motion to call the previous question is in order once 7 minutes has expired and there are people at the pro and con mic. Once 5 minutes has expired and no one is at the pro or con mic then the motion to call the previous question is in order.
  5. Time taken at the procedural mic will not count against discussion time.

Bylaw Amendments: Gender, MFC, SW, Mod(s), District/Regional

Co-Moderator:

Singing

Motion to Add of Actions of Immediate Witness to Final Agenda

Co-Moderator: I believe that the Commission on Social Witness has the results of your vote on Actions of Immediate Witness earlier this morning. Remember that vote was to select issues to place on the agenda for consideration; it is not a vote to adopt the statements. That vote will occur tomorrow.

According to Section 4.16, c(4) admission of a General Assembly Action of Immediate Witness requires a two-thirds vote. After we learn of those that received the most votes, delegates will vote on whether to add each issue by holding up your delegate card.

Dr. Goekler—the results?

Susan Goekler: Co-Moderator, based on the votes of the delegates, the Commission on Social Witness moves to admit the following three issues to the final agenda for a vote on Sunday: [TBD]

Elections

Co-Moderator: Christina Rivera:

8th Principle, Bylaws, Mission and Vision Discussion Next Steps

Co-Moderator:

Announcements

Co-Moderator: Now it’s time to call on the Secretary of our Association, Christina Rivera, for any announcements.

Christina Rivera: (live caption)

Co-Moderator: Thanks Christina.

Process Observation

Co-Moderator:

Closing Words

Co-Moderator: Dick Jacke: Faithless Works by the Rev. Dr. Jonipher Kwong, found in To Wake, To Rise meditation manual, edited by the Rev. Bill Sinkford.

They say faith without works is dead So I worked for equality Next to my queer friends who wanted to get married And I worked for religious freedom Next to my Muslim friends who were accused of being terrorists And I worked for racial justice Next to my Black friends whose lives were affected by police brutality Yet I didn't feel fully alive even after working myself to death Until I let my work become a spiritual practice Until I let go of my attachment to the outcome Until I stopped chasing after political issues, one after another I still believe that faith without works is dead But works without faith is just as lifeless

Recess

Co-Moderator: There being no further business to come before us and in accordance with the schedule set forth in your program book, I declare that this General Session of the General Assembly shall stand in recess until 11:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Donate Now

Side with Love (SWL) is a public advocacy campaign that seeks to harness love's power to stop oppression. It is sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Association and all are welcome to join.

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UUA General Assembly Off-site Participation: Kansas City, Missouri | 2018