Thanks for coming this morning. I know for more than a few the mission, vision and covenant theme doesn't sound particularly stimulating or inspirational. I realize I've been harping on this theme for several years now and I criticize myself because many in our Fellowship still don't fully understand the terms or appreciate their significance. I must confess I've been struggling with them too as their common usage is often ambiguous. I appreciate your willingness to stick it out and return again to this topic.
And I recognize that I'm pushing this stone uphill. I know some believe this definition process is just an useless game which blends a soup of words into a homogeneous statement that includes everyone, says nothing substantial and satisfies no one. Many congregations spend a lot of energy identifying a mission statement which gets framed and forgotten, returning to business as usual.
The reason I keep bringing the congregation back to the need for a clear, easy to understand and pass on mission statement has to do with creating more life and energy here. Notice I didn't say more people and money. That is clearly what the finance committee is focused on. We run this place on a bare bones budget in an inadequate facility to fully support children's religious education or even a secretary. Either the people who are here must give much more money or the congregation must include more people. I know we have a number very generous people who provide most of our operating expenses of whom I am very grateful. I know we have members living on fixed and limited incomes who give as much as they can of whom I am also very grateful. And I know there are those who could give more than they are and choose not to for a variety of reasons. While the giving of our current members may increase slowly over time as thankfully it has, the current membership is unlikely to solve our budget woes.
Whether we grow or not, whether giving increases or not, understand that a sense of mission isn't necessary for our survival. Our congregation will survive even without a strong financial base. Currently, our budget doesn't permit much investment in the congregation's future. I've watched several small Fellowships limp along on inadequate budgets gradually tightening their belts. I want to be very clear that we can maintain the status quo here more or less without a clear sense of direction and identity and still survive.
To thrive this congregation must find and articulate the collective passion which holds it together, solidify that passion into a dream, and commit energy, time and resources to that dream. To make steady progress, to prosper, to grow vigorously, to flourish, to gain wealth and resources, we need to know who we are, why we exist, where the source of our passion is and what we want to become. To thrive we must regularly explore these questions together and find substantial, meaningful, motivating answers. Knowing, envisioning, speaking and acting from our sense of passion, dream and promise creates a powerful transformative institutional identity.
Congregations that thrive are attractive.
Congregations that thrive add new members and grow their budgets.
Congregations that thrive make a positive personal and communal difference toward the good.
I hope your goal as a member or friend of this congregation is not survival.
I hope the reason you put your energy, time and money into this congregation is to see it thrive.
I hope you will accept nothing less in return.
I got cranked up on the importance of mission, vision and covenant at General Assembly and while attending the Unitarian Universalist Association Leadership Skills Seminar at the end of July in Boston. As you heard from my General Assembly report two weeks ago, the Unitarian Universalist Association is encouraging us to explore what we promise or covenant with each other as members of a congregation and as congregations which make up our Association. We inherit a venerable religious tradition that reaches back beyond the ministry of Jesus which men, women and children have died for. We inherit a tradition which cherishes the inherent value in each individual. We inherit a tradition which puts its faith in the capacities of the human mind. We inherit a passion for justice and resistance of oppression.
Are we living up to the promise of our high ideals so beautifully articulated in our Purposes and Principles?
Rebecca Parker, president of Starr King School for the Ministry, put the charge to us powerfully:
The history of covenant-making shows that the means for tremendous influence for the common good are in our hands. We do not need more money, though it always helps when we are as liberal regarding money as we are in other matters. We do not need more people, though it would be good to have them, and many in our society need what congregational life can give. To be an influential force for good, what we need to do is establish more strongly in our congregational life the practices that embody loving, just, and sustainable community. We need to be what we want to see, and make visible an alternative to the forms of oppression, alienation and injustice alive in our time.
The second experience came while in Boston with a group of other ministers honing their leadership skills, listening to UUA Department of Congregational, District and Extension Services Education and Research Director Larry Peers, talk on mission, vision and covenant. Larry's description of what I'm calling "our identity trinity" begins with mission. Mission is a sense of congregational calling, the force that continues to create and sustain the congregation. That sense of calling can be recognized or unrecognized by the members often working in them unconsciously. Mission answers the question, "Why do we exist?" "Who do we exist for?"
The vision of the congregation is our picture of that mission as it is translated out of our minds and into the world in concrete, substantial ways. The mission of establishing a Unitarian Universalist presence in Charlotte County led to the vision of owning our own land and building this edifice. The vision of having a full time minister brought together a great deal of energy in this congregation taking the mission of ministerial leadership and giving it form. The mission of serving the liberal religious needs of a broad range of ages in Charlotte county was translated into the vision of a growing religious education program for our children. These aren't written in a mission statement but are alive in us.
Mission and Vision lead finally to Covenant. What is it that we need to sustain our community as we move together toward our vision inspired by our mission? Covenant is much larger than making a pledge, serving on a committee, and making coffee every few months or being a teacher's aide with the kids. Covenant is more a personal commitment. Here is some traditional language for covenant: "Love is the doctrine of this church and service its sacrament. This is our great covenant: to dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help one another."
Larry sums up developing one's sense of mission, vision and covenant as follows:
The task before us is to foster and develop a "ministering congregation": a congregation that has a communal sense of call, knows the community that it is aiming to serve, mobilizes its resources and programs to respond to the diverse ministry needs of its gathered congregation and surrounding community, and provides a formation process to engage its membership in this shared ministry.
I find this explanation of the interconnections between mission, vision and covenant quite helpful but the language is still too archaic for many. I know the word mission is a turn off for many of us who associate the word with missionaries in undeveloped countries engaging in cultural and religious destruction. That is why this morning I titled my sermon, Passion, Dream and Promise. The inspiration for this alternative language came from Larry's exercise I described in my newsletter article.
We were asked to answer three questions.
How do I do that? Bringing the experience of my life and training to bear on the present moment. Trusting my inner sense of reality and acting reflectively from its accumulation of understanding.
The most engaging question was, "Why is this important to me?" As I explored each response and went deeper, I reflected on why decided to become a minister reconnecting with my desire for work which was more meaningful and emotionally satisfying. My last response to asking what is behind my earlier answer touched me. Why is this important to me? I wrote, "the experience of love wants to be shared and come to life through us." I realized that from my earliest experiences which had inclined me towards ministry, glimpses of what might be called transpersonal or divine love had kindled a creative relational energy in me that continues to seek expression and life through me.
I assert that the same force driving me, is alive and well in this congregation distributed through the hearts and minds of our members and friends. It is more than shared history and habits. There is a life independent of any member of this congregation, independent of me, called the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Charlotte County that wants to thrive! If we were Catholic we'd want to call it the Holy Spirit. The more mystical among us would want to name it divine presence. The naturalistic theists would probably call it the Spirit of Life. The psychologist might label it our group consciousness. What is important here is not so much the name we give this energy but the recognition that this phenomenon is real. Not real in the way this pulpit is real exactly. More real in the way a software program in a computer is real. As a pattern of energy distributed throughout a network. James Luther Adams used these words to describe what I'm talking about:
Traditionally our churches have been grounded in a covenant binding us together...but this enterprise of maintaining the network is itself not to be understood as simply a human enterprise. It is a response to a divinely given creative power, a sustaining-power, a community-transforming power. This power is ultimately not of our own making...-- (Adams, The Prophethood of All Believers, p. 252)
Just as we are not of our own making, given the gift life by our parents, this Fellowship is not the product of any one person. If it were, it would not survive. We lost our last founding member, Dolly Hoettels, this summer. No one who started this Fellowship is still alive. Yet it is stronger than it ever as been and has the possibility of a very bright future. While the founders are gone, the Fellowship remembers them. There passion is still here.
When we discover and name the passion that drives this Fellowship, we strengthen it and encourage it to come to life through us. Part of that passion we share with other Unitarian Universalists across the Continent rang through loud and clear in the Fulfilling the Promise survey. At General Assembly, Clark Olsen reported, in response to the question, "What are your dreams for the Unitarian Universalist movement?" The overwhelming choice was "Become a visible and influential force for good in the world."
This morning I declare to you that there exists a common passion at the heart of this congregation which lives in each of us to varying degrees. Part of that passion comes from the passion, tradition and heritage of Unitarian Universalism. Part of that passion has come from the individuals who have been part of this Fellowship's history. Part of that passion comes from what we have done together. Part of that passion has to do with the nature of Charlotte County, Florida. Part of the passion has to do with who I am and my ministry here. There are common threads that run through all the sources of our passion which tie us together.
Basically it all boils down to this: Forget membership numbers and budget figures. Growth for these reasons alone is empty. Do you want this congregation to thrive? If you do, the Fellowship needs your help finding those common threads and making them visible in a way that kindles our passion, gives form to our dreams and makes us willing to make promises and commitments.
We have an important liberal religious message Charlotte County needs to hear. We have an important liberal religious message for our own ears. We have an important liberal religious message for our children's minds. Finding unifying words for this liberal religious passion will unleash our power to make a positive transformational difference in the lives of our members and friends, in our community and in the world at large.
May we bring more life and energy to the spirit of liberal religion here in this congregation so we can thrive
Closing Words
Passion is the energy of love which holds the universe together.
Vision is the energy of love taking shape and form into the sensing world.
Promise is the energy of love which binds people together in relationship.
Passion, Vision and Promise are simply ways of creating more love
in world starving for lack of it.
What more valuable and holy work can we do?