From Our Ministers

The UUCB Covenanting Project Team has been working to create a process for us as a congregation to develop a covenant of how we want to be with one another in community.

“Our Unitarian Universalist principles are a covenant affirmed by our congregations that include values for human relations, promoting the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equity, and compassion in human relations; acceptance of one another and encouragement…respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part,” words that remind us of who we want to be.

The staff of our congregation has a covenant that we read regularly, as well as review and edit as needed as new people join the team. The Council of our congregation has a covenant. Your three ministers worked with our Pacific Central District Executive to create our covenant. The Coordinating Team reads our covenant at the beginning of each of our meetings, and it guides us in our work together. Each of these covenants names specifics of how we will relate with one another. They name how our Unitarian Universalist affirmations look in day to day practice.

Wherever people gather together, there will be disagreements. This is human and healthy. Differing views can lead to creativity and growth. Congregations are challenged to name how we can agree to act and live together in our differences.

In Behavioral Covenants in Congregations, Gilbert Rendle writes that across denominations, the larger culture’s “win at any cost.” attitudes and uncivil behavior, anonymous communications, rumor and hearsay repeated and embellished, finger pointing and blame, and conversations behind people’s backs have become part of congregational life. We say things or leave unsaid things that hurt one another.

Change is always a part of healthy congregational life, yet change produces anxiety. Anxiety increases unhealthy ways of relating. Congregations, Rendle says, need to be counter cultural and create behavioral covenants with one another.

Covenants call us to direct speaking, to dialogue, listening, and learning. Covenants help us move together in good faith and in good health, seeing the difference between people and problems without mixing the two.

Congregations can move beyond cultural practices to spiritual maturity. Growing spiritually mature can help each of us in all our relationships in the home, workplace, neighborhood, and congregation.

We will fall short of our ideals, but our covenant can call us back.

Your participation is needed and wanted in this important covenanting process set for Saturday, February 11 from 9:00 am . 3:00 pm. We’ll do good work with one another, enjoy a meal together, and make community as we begin to make our covenant. Please come!

Barbara and Bill
Revs. Barbara and Bill Hamilton-Holway, Co-Ministers