Shaping Change

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At the beginning of 2020, we didn’t know what was coming.

At the beginning of 2021, we had hope on the horizon.

Now, at the beginning of 2022, our hope is tempered by a healthy respect for how quickly things can change, and some trust in our ability - and flexibility - to faithfully respond.

As we enter our third year of not just living through, but living with a global pandemic, something we already knew has been hammered home: Church Is Changing. Perhaps the most important, most faithful question we can ask ourselves is, How will we shape that change? As Amanda Gorman offers in her New Day’s Lyric (YouTube) (YouTube),

Let us not return to what was normal/ But reach what is next.

Reaching toward what is next is the theme of this special series we offer you at this time. We’ve heard so many of the questions weighing on the minds and burrowed in the hearts of our congregations’ members and religious professionals. We don’t have all the answers. But we have tools - and so do you. It’s easy to forget this when there is still so much chaos and uncertainty; still so much out of our control.

Stepping back, it’s almost like 2020 and 2021 swooped through and left us with a pile of mismatched leftover gifts from a stressed out Santa’s workshop. It’s like we got a bunch of lego blocks, some Ikea bolts, pipe cleaners, a partially used roll of duct tape, and a couple unrecognizable odds and ends -- and no instruction sheet. Not only don’t we know how to put all these pieces together, we don’t even know what the thing we are building will look like.

Roll up your sleeves, friends - we are building a new way (YouTube) .

And what tools can we bring to this pile of mixed up bits and pieces to shape the change our congregations are being called to?

We have the Practices of Spiritual Leadership.

  • We have the practice of Covenant, which calls us to our deep interdependence, and which does not break but requires us to hold ourselves and one another in accountability and compassion.
  • We have the practice of Faithful Risking, which reminds us that the call to faith requires us to continual growth and invites us to consider not only what are the risks of trying something new? But also, what are the risks of not trying something new?
  • We have the gift of our tradition, and our obligation to tend what we have inherited with an eye toward what we will gift to the generations to come.
  • We have the practice of doing our inner work, which invites our connection to the deep wisdom that will help us navigate the path between our power and our powerlessness in this evolving landscape.
  • We have the practice of centering in gifts, through which we can recognize gifts that may have been overlooked in years past which might become the mortar that holds our new bricks together.
  • We have stories to mine and the words and deeds of prophetic people, past and present.

We believe this work of shaping change is the cornerstone of our collective work in the coming months and years, and that we are creating the blueprints as we go. Together, in a year, or a decade, or perhaps a generation, a picture will emerge of what we begin to shape today.

In coming blogs we will address some of the common questions we hear from you - questions about how the pandemic has impacted volunteering, family ministry, stewardship, the meaning of membership, and other aspects of daily congregational life. We will offer our reflections, and share questions you might use for deeper conversations with your team.

We’d love to hear where these questions lead your thinking, or what new questions they raise for you. Please email us at newengland@uua.org to let us know. We are ever grateful to be here with you, learning alongside you, building a new way, shaping our shared future.

Resources and Questions for Deeper Diving

New Day’s Lyric (YouTube, 2 minutes) by Amanda Gorman

Building A New Way (YouTube, 3 minutes), sung by Dr. Glen Thomas Rideout, Director of Worship Arts at First Universalist Church of Minneapolis

  1. Amanda Gorman writes, “That though we weren’t / Ready for this, / We have been readied by it.” Draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper. On one side, reflect on the challenges of the last two years that your congregation wasn’t ready for. Approach this without judgment - remember, hindsight is 20/20! On the other side, reflect on how your congregation has been readied by the trials of these years. What strengths emerged? What lessons have been learned? Talk together about how you might take those learnings and responses more intentionally to shape some of your congregation’s practices and policies to become ready for what might come next.
  2. “Let us not return to what was normal / But reach toward what is next.” Consider what you once took for granted about belonging to your congregation. How has your thinking changed about what is essential about congregational life? How are you understanding what belonging means now? How do you hope it will be understood in the future?
  3. Our hymn Building A New Way affirms that we can feed our every need; we are fighting to be free; and peace and freedom is our cry. Talk together about your own congregation’s mission and purpose. Are we centering that mission, that purpose, as we think about shaping what comes next for our people, our congregation, our legacy of faith? How can we continue to remind ourselves and each other of the power and promise of a people bound together in the shared purpose of building and being a beloved and liberatory community?