I got the call a few months ago, a request from Unity Church to share my experience working with Team Dynamics. They were being considered as a potential partner in intercultural development for Unity as an organization and as a congregation. I remember tripping over my words in the voicemail left in response, excited about what a great match this would be.
Team Dynamics, founded by Trina Olson and Alfonso Wenker, was indeed hired by Unity. They have been working with the Beloved Community Staff Team for the past few months on an ambitious initiative: to grow the effectiveness of Unity Church in achieving our Ends Statements by growing our individual and collective ability to recognize and bridge the “differences that make a difference.” On Saturday, September 7, more than 150 people gathered from strategic ministry areas for a multicultural training event with Team Dynamics. Trina and Alfonso were joined by their colleagues Tyrai Bronson-Pruitt and Levi Weinhagen, and shared core concepts intended to spark new thinking and new ways of living our values and intentions (please see links below to handouts and resources). Together, the group got grounded in its understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and how certain differences – race, gender, class, immigration status, sexual orientation, ability, and more – make a real difference in how we engage with one another and the life outcomes we experience. The group applied its learnings and insights to their experience at Unity, recognizing that good intentions have not necessarily had the desired effect – whether that be, for example, in ensuring that longstanding members of color at Unity Church feel a sense of belonging, welcoming new visitors to the church, or maintaining authentic relationships with the broader community through our outreach efforts. Already, new questions are being asked by those who participated – questions that will shape how the congregation pursues its Ends. The work done by the group to apply learnings to Unity’s education, worship, community outreach, board governance, and welcome team efforts will continue as long as participants rely on their new learnings as guiding touchpoints. And I can tell you, from my own experience over the past few years working with Team Dynamics at the organization I lead (the American Institute of Architects – Minnesota), that success in bridging difference and achieving diversity, equity, and inclusion goals hinges on each of us being open to personal and organizational transformation. It’s about more than new terms and skills; it’s about a new humility and a new curiosity about the effects of our thinking and our actions. The more we individually and collectively pursue a cycle of learn-try-fail, then learn and try anew, the closer we will get to creating the church community, and the world community, we seek to make real. Handouts and resources from Team Dynamics are intended for use as part of ongoing work with TD, who encourage sharing materials with conversation partners.
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From Pauline Eichten, Past ARLT member and current member of the
Beloved Community Staff Team In 2002, a few people thought that Unity Church, a worthy institution, could do better around the issue of racism. They presented a proposal to the Board of Trustees that resulted in the church commissioning the Anti-Racism Leadership Team in January 2003. Made up of church members, the team’s stated mission was to help lead the church into becoming an actively anti-racist institution. This meant organizing from the inside, looking at policies and practices that would need to change to realize that mission. With institutional endorsement and mandate, these “leaders without authority” worked in an uncharted area, reporting to both the Board and the Executive Team and relying on them to execute team recommendations. The first significant piece of work of the team was to look at church history through an anti-racist lens. We asked, “Was Unity Church part of the resistance to racism in this country or was it complicit in supporting white supremacy and thus racism?” In spring 2005, after much research — going through archives, interviewing people, and reading and discussion — the team produced a 53-page document titled “The History of Race Relations and Unity Church-Unitarian, 1850-2005”. The team’s final assessment of Unity Church and its stance regarding racism was that we “engage[d] in charitable works instead of initiating a deeper exploration of racism and how we might be complicit in its continuing existence. That work would have forced us to feel a great deal of discomfort, and to be willing to be changed.” Over the following years — and many programs, educational opportunities, sermons and workshops later — changes began. In summer 2005, the Board of Trustees developed a new definition for moral owners as those “who yearn for the Beloved Community and see Unity Church-Unitarian as an instrument for its realization. The Beloved Community … is community at the highest level of reality and possibility, where love and justice prevail.” Then in 2009-2013 the Ends Statements, the guiding documents for the work of the church, spoke to a commitment to anti-racism and racial healing. It was noted that the multi-million dollar construction project, proposed in 2011, had no stated commitment to the use of minority businesses for goods and services. A group of concerned church members initiated policy language to spell out how the church could address that issue with this project and into the future. The Board of Trustees used that as the basis for Policy J, added to its governing policies in the fall of 2012. The new Ends Statements, adopted in 2018, included the following commitments to:
Over the years the Anti-Racism Leadership Team has continued to work on influencing the progress of Unity Church toward becoming an actively anti-racist institution. Most recently, it had been serving in a strictly monitoring role. In its 2018 report, the team noted that it was the Board’s job to measure and evaluate the implementation of the church’s Ends. Given the new Ends Statements, and the strategy and implementation work envisioned with Team Dynamics, the team recommended bringing this monitoring task back to the Board. In February 2019, the Board passed such a motion and the Anti-Racism Leadership Team was dissolved. This past June the Board and the Executive Team hosted a gathering, inviting anyone who ever served on the team. The event was both to thank everyone for their work and to solicit input to help guide the Board going forward. There are plans to have a congregational recognition sometime this fall of the Anti-Racism Leadership Team and the 60-some church members and staff who served on it over the past 17 years. From Pauline Eichten, Beloved Community Staff Team
“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” – Cynthia Occelli With the development of Unity's new Ends statement – “create a multicultural spiritual home based on authentic relationships” – the Beloved Community Staff Team created an experimental group called Multicultural Conversation Partners.[1] Among the dozen or so in the group, half the members are persons of color and half are white. These multiracial partnerships are in regular conversation, both as duos and as the larger group. The idea is to foster an ongoing conversation/learning process, which KP Hong describes as risking “an encounter with another that distances ourselves from our familiarities” -- going beyond the usual racialized forms of self-protection and moral shelter. I am struck by the phrase “moral shelter.” I interpret it to mean the ways in which I affirm my identify as a “good” white person, someone who is aware of systemic racism and opposed to it. I don’t easily admit to the racist thoughts that bubble up from my subconscious. I’m active around issues of racial equality, but I’m not sure I’m willing to put my life in danger. When I traveled by myself to a one-time Sundown town in southern Illinois, it never occurred to me that it could be dangerous for my bi-racial daughter to do the same. “I’m doing enough,” my comfortable white self says. And then I read about another white person calling the police on black people going about their lives, playing golf or having a picnic in the park, or another black man being shot by police. And I know that there is an urgency to change and I must do my part. As the Unity Church congregation works to live into our aspiration to create a multicultural spiritual home, there will be change. And from that change will come growth. The hope is that these conversation partners can help to develop a possible reality beyond racialized barriers that will offer new ways of doing/being that can apply to congregational life. “We cannot obtain what we lack if we tenaciously cling to what we have.” – Charles F. Haanel [1] The Multicultural Conversation Partners include Sheila Bosc, Jessica Burton, Rico Duran, Pauline Eichten, Kevin Harris, Heidi Johnson, Rich Lau, Mary Pickard, Lia Rivamonte, Erika Sanders, Jon Vaughan-Fier, Ray Wiedmeyer |
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Beloved Community ResourcesUnity Justice Database
Team Dynamics House of Intersectionality Anti-Racism Resources in the Unity Libraries Collection Creative Writers of Color in Unity Libraries The History of Race Relations and Unity Church, 1850-2005 Archives
June 2024
Beloved Community Staff TeamThe Beloved Community Staff Team (BCST) strengthens and coordinates Unity’s antiracism and multicultural work, and provides opportunities for congregants and the church to grow into greater intercultural competency. We help the congregation ground itself in the understanding of antiracism and multiculturalism as a core part of faith formation. We support Unity’s efforts to expand our collective capacity to imagine and build the Beloved Community. Here, we share the stories of this journey — the struggles, the questions, and the collaborations — both at Unity and in the wider world.
The current members of the Beloved Community Staff Team include Rev. Kathleen Rolenz, Rev. KP Hong, Rev. Lara Cowtan, Drew Danielson, Laura Park, Lia Rivamonte and Angela Wilcox. |