When you’re a member of a vibrant congregation, you hope for a deep and radical welcome there. You want to be able to bring your whole self, and feel called to be your best self, accountable to the vision of beloved community the community shares. In these congregations, when actions, words, or...

Covenant as Landscape (6:36) Many people talk about “breaking a covenant” when conflict arises. But is it the covenant that’s broken or is it that relationships are bruised? Rev. Erica Baron invites us to think about the words as the map to the covenant, and the covenant is the landscape. The...

“Have you been to the bathroom yet?” It’s not the typical pre-workshop conversation my colleagues and I share as we set up projectors, easels, and workbooks for participants. My answer was no, so my colleague proceeded to describe what she found there. There was a beautiful painting in an...

Each Sunday I step into the pulpit and call to worship the congregation sitting in the sanctuary of our 1842 New England Meetinghouse. The sanctuary is simple and elegant. Tall windows line each side, reaching up two stories to the high ceiling, with four chandeliers. The clear panes bring...

Being in community can be challenging. But being in a faith community can give us the opportunity to explore our edges and test our assumptions.

The mental model of the "Social Discipline Window" can be helpful in understanding different patterns of how we might respond when someone is causing harm in our communities.

Right Relations Teams are lay leaders entrusted to help the congregation practice faithful communication and creative conflict based on values of mutuality and consent.

The following (from the Northlake UU Church in Kirkland, WA) is an example of a chater (or charge) for a Right Relationship Team (aka Healthy Congregation Team): Purposes: To facilitate the well-being of the _________ Community by fostering harmonious relations and mediating conflicts within the...

Support and accountability for different aspects of right relationship lie within different parts of the congregation. 

Our covenants articulate our intention, but how do we live into the practice? Right Relations Teams are lay leaders entrusted to help the congregation practice faithful communication and creative conflict based on values of mutuality and consent.