Dear UCG, 

The first thing I ever bought from UCG was a “Black Lives Matter” sign from our Racial Justice Committee, in the fall of 2020. Our Pride service that year was online only, but the afternoon featured a drive-through event, at which you could get communion, your BLM sign, an art kit for kids and youth, a pledge card for Enlistment, and a Halo Donut in lieu of our regularly scheduled Pride brunch. Ever since, the sign has adorned our front lawn, welcoming youth for the annual pool party, staff for the Christmas party, friends, family and all manner of folks picking up items from our local Buy Nothing group. 

But this last weekend, with Hurricane Helene, that sign finally met its end. It’s sort of bent, looking pretty rough. It looks less like a proclamation of our family values and more like something we put up once and forgot about. Which of course, isn’t true, but feels like a metaphor all the same.

Recently, Ellen Ribe, Talia and I all completed an online training in Racial Equity, Diversity and Inclusion through the Florida Conference of the UCC. It’s a new requirement for those serving in active ministry, alongside our regular boundary training. Despite the fact that the 8-hour course (conducted entirely on zoom) was held on a Friday night and the following Saturday morning (a fact about which we groaned, a lot), I was glad to have participated.  The facilitators called the group to examine a host of assumptions and practices, and encouraged us to reflect on our shared values. There was much I found meaningful, and relevant for the life of our congregation. 

We have been doing the work of Racial Justice explicitly for a number of years now, been an Open and Affirming Congregation for more than three decades. We have hosted the Friendship Group for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities for generations and are planning to train our children’s staff and ministries to be more inclusive of neurodiverse kids. But that doesn’t mean that we always get everything right, or that our work is done. 

Two insights particularly struck me: first, that “diversity is not something that some of us have, it’s something we create together.” Second, “True inclusion moves beyond assimilation and creates institutions that are willing to be changed and shifted by the people that become a part of them.”

UCG is a diverse congregation in many ways, but we have some room to grow, I think, in the ways we embody that true inclusion. We intend to be open to everyone, and our “bar” for doctrinal beliefs is very low. And yet there is too often a sense of “how we’ve always done it” as a limiting factor in our life together. Too often a sense that newcomers are intended to become one of “us,” rather than our congregation’s identity and practices changing as new folks participate and others move on. 

This congregation has a good deal of work before it in the coming months, in considering how we encounter change and how we treat one another. In examining our identity now and what we hope to become in the future. In telling the truth about what serves the congregation’s purpose and vision, and what behaviors and practices have gotten in the way.  Even a group as wonderful as this one has its growing edges, challenges that should be attended to as surely as the beat-up sign in my front yard. 

If you’re interested in exploring some of your own implicit assumptions (and you’re over 18) our facilitators shared a link for this self-assessment: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html. 

This work can be exhausting: all three of us completed the Saturday morning session and promptly took naps. But considering how we can be people and communities of true belonging is some of the most vital work we have in this moment. 

Grace and Peace,

Bromleigh