A colleague remarks with pride that he serves a congregation of “generous listeners.” I am glad and would agree: Unitarian Universalists on the whole do try to give one another a fair and open hearing. We walk our talk by being respectful to each other.

You would think, given our also well-known penchant for arguing about beliefs, that that would not be so. And sadly, sometimes it’s not — especially when touchy theological issues open old wounds or challenge faith convictions. I think here of the too often voiced disdain for anything Christian or reactive eagerness to challenge another’s faith expression without truly understanding what they mean.

John Steinbeck wrote once that beliefs are the things we debate, dispute and argue over. That’s a good thing, leading to deeper understanding and clarity. He also went on to note that faith is what we fight over, bleed for, sometimes even kill and die for. That is to say, you know you’ve touched someone’s most heartfelt convictions when they become angry and defensive, even hostile. At that level, the generosity goes out of the speaking, which means we have to be sure to put it into our listening.

Cultivating the art of generous listening is crucial to our way of being a free religious community. We’re not out to indoctrinate or spiritually clone one another; we are not seeking creedal conformity. We’re here to appreciate and learn from one another. Mindful that none has a corner on the whole truth, we need to hear what each has to offer. Which is why listening — especially to faith expressions we find discomforting in any way — is so important.

I believe it was Soren Kierkegaard who said religious maturity requires an increasing subjectivity toward others and an increasing objectivity toward oneself. A heart of compassion for others keeps the mind open; humility about one’s self leads to a greater heart connection with others. Thus, listening is part of a spiritual discipline. Or, as a former parishioner counseled me one day, “God gave us two ears and one mouth; we should use them in that proportion.”

I’m glad to be part of a tradition that values generous listening as much as clear speaking. Thank you all for your open hearts, open minds, and open ears.

All blessings, Rev. Kenn

A year ago October I wrote that the UUA Board of Trustees (BOT) was in the process of being on the path to becoming a policy governance BOT. We are there, and continue to be in the learning process of how to meet as a Board and make decisions in this form of governance. Thus it is my plan to report differently with less of my observations and detail, and the report will be shorter. If you are interested the entire UUA Governance Manual can be found at http://uua.org/aboutus/governance/policy/index.shtml.  Briefly, our deliberations and responsibilities on behalf of our Sources of Authority and Accountability will be to ensure the UUA achieves appropriate results for appropriate personas at an appropriate cost, and avoids unacceptable actions and situations. As always if you have questions or comments in general, please email/telephone me at jlund@uua.org or 813-931-9727. In addition you can go to the UUA website www.uua.org for Staff and President Morales reports, and the October Board of Trustees (BOT) Packet which was posted before the meeting.

The BOT will govern with an emphasis on outward vision, an encouragement of diversity in viewpoints, strategic leadership, a clear distinction between the roles of the BOT and President, collective decisions, the future, pro-activity, and an open, transparent process. The BOT will inspire, direct and hold accountable the UUA administration and itself through careful establishment of broad written policies reflecting UU values and perspectives. Through scheduled reports the BOT’s monitoring and evaluation of accountability will include making certain the reports are results oriented, not activity based. It will be important to remember if it is not worth monitoring it is not worth having as policy. The reports will include operational definitions of the policy in the interpretation, rationale as to why the definition is reasonable, and actual data to show that the projected result has been achieved.

One of the BOT’s primary concerns is linkage to our Sources. These can be found in our Governance Manual. The Linkage Working Group (LWG) recommended, and the BOT agreed, our initial focus will be on congregations in their role as Sources. How the BOT will link and be accountable to our remaining Sources will be part of our discussion over the next two years. Also as you know our Florida District Board considers linkage with congregations to be their primary focus. Linkage is a process of engaging the relational, cooperative power of covenant. It is a constructive dialogue between the BOT and its Sources of Authority and Accountability (Carver Policy Governance) about which benefits should be produced by our UUA. The outcome of this process is two-fold: clarified values and a context of trust. Linkage is not just any conversation with any congregation leader and/or member. The purpose of linkage is to learn and evoke insight, reach new understanding, and/or create a context from which agreements might come; it is not advocacy. It is the BOT’s belief that congregations as Sources will financially invest so that services are available; they will be concerned with the long term health of the organization’s mission and values; congregations will take a longer term view…believing and investing in this mission; and congregations will link with our UUA BOT.

Rather than asking congregations “what would you like our UUA to do for you?” The BOT will be proactively creating opportunities and asking congregations “what impact would you like our UUA to make in a specific area?” The BOT will be asking congregations “for whose benefit do we exist?” Potential areas for linkage include our ENDS priorities, Article II of our UUA Bylaws, the Fifth Principle and our democratic responsibility, and our potential focus for future years. Over the next three years the BOT plans to ascertain right relationship with our congregations through a representative sample of Trustee interviews and possibly doing a larger sample via an online survey. The BOT plans to analyze and incorporate appropriate feedback, provide accountability to our Sources, and refine our means of input with remaining Sources. The BOT will be looking at ENDS/Sources revisions and future linkage on theological diversity.

During the recent BOT meeting six key points the BOT feels important communicating in our districts were developed.

• Beginning to live in policy-based governance and to understand what it means to be a learning board in partnership with the UUA President
• Deepening our understanding of linkage and how we might go about it
• Roles of district trustees in relationship with their district boards
• The board’s commitment to fostering and growing youth leadership
• UUSC report as a demonstration of how we can live out our AR/AO/MC values in world
• Meeting in San Antonio as a symbol of our commitment to linkage and diversity

The relationship between the Florida District Board and our UUA Board will continue to evolve but it is clear that it will be a relationship based in partnership, alignment, and transparency. In the effort to achieve a high level of transparency means adhering to a clear sense of ethical boundaries around relationships between persons in various roles. Clarification about relationships is also evolving as we know more about ethics. The BOT knows, as do the District Trustees, policy governance under both our Boards provides a clear delineation between board work and staff work. Governing by policy means boards speak with one voice, the only authority a board has is stated in policies and approved as a whole body. Individual members of the governing board do not have actual power. Because of the dynamics of power and possible misinterpretation built into the role of board member, members of the board need to be judicious in communications with staff. It is important to remember that a board member may ask staff for information but may not task them with work.

In my role as UUA Trustee I will continue to advocate for congregations to receive District services appropriately and equally. Also I will continue to be clear in interactions with our Staff which means I am not engaging in formal “linkage” work to inform my work with the UUA Board of Trustees. My Trustee relationship with our District and District Board will be based on love for our work and sharing news related to the UUA Board.

President, Rev. Peter Morales
This was the BOT’s first official working meeting with Rev. Morales. His report to us was positive, interesting, and informative. Over the next two or three months I will write in the monthly Trustee Tidbits columns about several sections of this report and Rev. Morales’ views of the challenges and opportunities facing our faith. What I am focusing on in my words to you now are his thoughts on ministry for a new age. Rev. Morales stated about half of our active parish ministers will leave or retire during his presidency. And interestingly, of the Americans who are 70 years or older, ¾ are “white”; Americans who are 10 years old and younger consist of persons where only ¼ are “white”. The fact is we are becoming more multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural than one or two generations ago. If our faith does not recognize these demographic facts we will become obsolete. The future of our faith is at stake and we need capable, committed ministers who can lead congregations into a new multicultural, multiracial America; we need more clergy with visionary leadership who come from diverse backgrounds. As one of his top priorities Rev. Morales plans to convene a task force charged with developing a comprehensive strategic plan for ministry for the next generation. He envisions this task force with leaders from our seminaries, the head of our UUA’s ministry and professional leadership staff group, representation from the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, and persons in our faith who have experience as members of diverse communities. Rev. Morales believes the issue of our future is much broader than the issues of funding our seminaries or recent initiatives to raise the quality of our ministry. As important as these are there is a need to look at the entire process of how we recruit, train, place, and develop our clergy. Specifically there is a need to develop a strategic plan that emphasizes ministerial recruitment as central to our future.

Additional Information of Interest (hopefully)
• The District President’s Association (DPA) will be meeting in early November. Although I am the BOT liaison to this group I will not be in attendance. Eva Marx, Trustee from Ballou Channing District will be there in my role. Several other Trustees will attend to address and discuss with the DPA substantive issues of relationship and accountability.
• The January meeting of UUA Board of Trustees will be in San Antonio, Texas.
• I am currently serving on the Committee on Committees (COM) and the Congregations Working Group. The COM is charged with recommending UUs to the BOT for the appointment to the various Committees of the Board.
• A BOT task group was identified for what we need to know about Youth Leadership. This group will determine what information is needed by the BOT to structure our conversation around Youth Leadership at the January BOT meeting. The purpose of the January discussion will be to determine if there is policy the BOT needs to create or revise to reflect our values around Youth Leadership.

That’s it folks. Thanks for all you do for your congregation, our District, and our UUA.

Joan Lund