Why are we afraid to ask for help? Congregations Edition

Sharing my soapbox with a wise colleague

Our guest post today comes from Rev. Dr. Sarah Lenzi, who serves as senior minister of the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood, NJ, and is writing from her seat on the UUA’s Election Campaign Practices Campaign Committee. This will seem like a bit of insider baseball, but it’s got a lot to say to other faiths that also ground themselves in congregational polity and the foundations of the 1648 Cambridge Platform (I’m lookin’ at you, UCC and Baptists). And, as always, there may be some good nuggets in here for others in different governance structures.

If you are someone who was especially observant at General Assembly in Baltimore, you may have heard me say, as a preface to a question during a forum for the candidates for the Moderator position,, that we don’t always strike very well the balance between congregational individuality and mutual support and accountability. I didn’t go much further on the subject because it wasn’t the time. Now? Well, hand me my soapbox.

And to be clear, I will be neither the first person to make this argument, nor, likely, the most eloquent.

One of the fundamental struggles facing Unitarian Universalism today is a misunderstanding and misapplication of Congregational Polity.

There I said it.

I believe that, as a result of American exceptionalism, individualism, and late stage capitalism which encourages seeing the world as a zero sum game, we, (the grand collective we), have been doing a foundational piece of our shared identity and history wrong.

Congregational Polity finds much of its grounding in the Cambridge Platform. Written in 1648, 65 different congregations signed on, agreeing to a variety of structural, organizational, and spiritual commitments. Among those commitments are ones we no longer concern ourselves with, such as a distinction between Anglican and Presbyterian churches or a required profession of faith in Jesus Christ and a renouncing of sin (and indeed, the language of the platform is the language of Christianity in 1648). Like any good interpreters, looking for what is of value in an historical document, we are free to disregard what is no longer theologically applicable, or to translate it for our times. We eschew fundamentalism of all kinds, including in the form of essentialist interpretation of historical documents.

However, among the commitments of the Cambridge Platform are ones that we do indeed still hold dear; so much so that we consider them matters of continuing core collective identity. These include things like: congregations can choose their own ministers and ordain who they wish, membership in a congregation ought to be taken seriously but depends upon each congregation to maintain and define, and congregations self-govern in all things. These agreements have been understood as the driving force of Congregational Polity. Congregations are independent, self-defining, self-determining, and we concede to collectivity primarily only when it is beneficial to congregations: vetting ministers and engaging in search, taking collective public stances including legal ones, providing resources of which congregations can opt to avail themselves. We are proud of our long history of congregational independence, and we have leaned hard into it even as the culture around us has leaned hard over the last 300+ years into individualism, competition, greed, and consumerism.

For as long as American culture has struggled with accountability, responsibility, and a deep understanding of the collective greater good, Unitarian Universalism has struggled just the same.

And yet, the Cambridge Platform is actually quite clear. In the fifteenth chapter (each of the 17 agreements is written out thoroughly as a “chapter”), those original congregations affirmed to one another that:

“although churches be distinct, and there may not be confounded one with the other, and equal, and therefore have not dominion over another, yet all the churches ought to preserve church communion with one another.”

That communion, or what these days we might assert is covenant, means a handful of things, according to authors of the document. It means: each congregation cares for the welfare of other congregations; each congregation consults with others, offering advice and support – it goes so far as to say that failing to consult other congregations in times of strife is an affront not just to other congregations because it denies that relationship but also an affront to what we hold holy and sacred because it shows a pride that privileges reputation over true healing; each congregation is supposed to actively, publicly admonish one another, and potentially even refuse to remain in communion (we might say covenant) with them; each congregation is supposed to come together with other congregations periodically; and each congregation is supposed to “minister relief and succor one unto another: either of able members to furnish them with officers or of outward support to the necessities of poorer churches.” You read that right. Congregations committed sharing human, fiscal, and physical resources particularly to support struggling neighbor congregations.

It is this relationship between congregations that we have failed to understand and rightly apply. Or perhaps, we have understood but our other commitments to self-interest, to some notion of freedom, or to scarcity have caused us to cast them off.

I believe, with every part of me, that the growth, the sustainability, and the general thriving of our individual congregations, the future of ordained ministry, and the continued power of our faith as a whole depends at least in part on us recovering these lost aspects of our Congregational Polity: mutual support and mutual accountability.

At this moment there are two particular issues that trouble me greatly.

First, as things currently stand, each individual congregation not only self-governs, but can also behave as it wishes with little consequence. They can mistreat one another, mistreat their staff or called ministers, refuse to engage with the larger faith. As long as they pay dues and continue to express a desire to be a member congregation of the UUA, we let them and we do not critique them (certainly not publicly). We might, if asked by the congregation for feedback or assistance, provide UUA consultants who help a congregation understand its missteps. But when those harms are actively occurring, our UUA staff, our neighbor congregations, even our ordained ministers do not feel empowered to interfere because… Congregational Polity. And yet, Congregational Polity actually actively calls us to be involved. Not to shame or to dominate; to call into covenant. Even as our congregations are covenantal and communal, our association is as well. And part of covenant is calling people in. If the UUA is a congregation of congregations, each one an entity in covenant with the others, than we have a responsibility to, as the Platform dictates, admonish when we see things going awry.

Now this might be challenging to accomplish one congregation to another, either owing to a lack of information and insight or a lack of relationship. I believe that we should be empowering the UUA staff to take greater initiative and express greater clarity in their dealings with congregations. There needs to be someone, some entity, empowered and equipped to do the work of calling in, admonishing, leading back. With skill and care, this kind of work is possible. We have all seen it happen inside a congregation with individuals acting out. Why not on the congregational level? If we could get this right, we might find ministers returning to the field. We might find congregations achieving greater health more quickly. We might find growth through healing as the division and disruption is tended to lovingly and with clarity of purpose.

Second, in a world of shrinking congregations, of building sales, and staff layoffs, we still have not learned how to work together in meaningful and deep ways. I have been involved in three different areas, admittedly all within the northeast, and in each case, getting congregations to work with another, worship with one another, share staff, plan together for their futures, has been a (nearly fruitless) struggle. My suspicion is that this is the result of two misguided beliefs: that each congregation is so unique in character and needs that they can’t possibly work together, and that working together might mean congregants moving from one congregation to another which thus engages our competitiveness based in scarcity beliefs. In either case, this is steeped deeply in our American desire to see ourselves as absolutely special and unique and to protect our own resources at the expense of someone else’s survival, for fear that in sharing we will somehow become less. Sharing does not lessen, it strengthens. We are not only individual congregations, we are a collective and we have to care about that collective, I’ll go ahead and say it, more than our individual congregation. Congregations should be cooperating with one another, looking for ways to support one another, finding new roads forward in which congregational life morphs and expands and becomes something wonderfully new and sustainable.

We must reshape our commitment to Congregational Polity. Which, frankly, is simply a way of saying we must reshape our commitment to one another.

Among the readers of the essay may be folks who have heard me say, in hushed tones, behind closed doors, that Congregational Polity (as we understand and apply it now) is killing us, ministers, members, congregations, and association alike. This is no time for hushed tones. Our world needs what we have to offer.