Let's forgo the pressure of resolutions and spend time in healing community instead.

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...

When we lean into creative conflict, doing our best to create courageous space, we must understand that it can’t be accomplished without setting boundaries. I would never suggest that anyone should put up with any kind of abuse. In loving relationships people should know one another’s needs,...

“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...

Congregations are facing a lot of changes and challenges around church budgets. Changing demographics, economic uncertainty, and general anxiety can make the budget planning process overwhelming and stressful, especially when planning five to ten years out.

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...

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...

Creating beloved community requires intention and practice. 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 our values

Covenants are about relationships. When we speak of Unitarian Universalism having a covenantal theology (rather than a creedal one), we can as say that ours is a relational theology.

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.