How to Fulfill Our Mission?

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Guest Blog by Colleen Johnson
At our congregational meeting on January 10, we adopted a mission statement to guide our thinking and discussions, our programs, and our budget in the coming year. The mission statement is:

“We come together to seek our truths,
honor our diversity,
serve with love,
and work for justice in our world.”

The Board now asks you to share your ideas on how we make our mission statement happen.
Help define actions and behaviors that go with each of the four goals we have set. I hope you will respond below and give us as many ideas as possible.

This is the brainstorming stage, so we’d like to have many suggestions, to see how many things are mentioned and how we prioritize them.

What does it look like to seek our truths?
To honor our diversity?
To serve with love?
To work for justice in our world?

Hoping for a hundred or so ideas…Colleen

5 Responses to “How to Fulfill Our Mission?”

  1. I believe we do the first two pretty well already. Coming together to seek our truths and honor our diversity are formally addressed through guest speakers, alps courses, affinity groups. They also are strong elements in our individual and collective personalities. It is the second two that we need to work at more firmly embracing as a community.

    I am moved each time I hear the words recognizing and honoring this land’s traditional heritage. I think those things that are important to us should be ingrained in our service. Sharing our offering with various organizations is one way we do so. However, I would like to see specific needs and/or efforts our members are putting forth to address them highlighted in each and every service.

    There is a small core of our congregation who are intensely focused on service and justice work. If these are to truly be part of our mission statement we need to elevate these efforts in our awareness, hopefully inspiring more support and collective action.

  2. I’m putting on my “Board” hat — I hope we get more than three responses to Colleen’s request for input!

    Now I’m putting on my “8th Principle Task Force” hat. In last week’s Guest Blog Kathy Stevenson introduced this proposed 8th Principle: We covenant to affirm and promote:
    • Journeying toward spiritual wholeness by building a diverse, multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.

    Adopting this Principle will help us ACT on all four parts of our Mission Statement.
    I note that President Biden is the first President to mention white supremacy in an Inauguration Speech. There has been a seismic shift in awareness and attitude. There is urgency. And this is the time.

    Let’s work on this together — through our Mission Statement. To quote Representative Cori Bush: “It’s not divisive to call out white supremacy. What’s divisive is to not work to eliminate it.”

  3. Our ALPs programs are an excellent opportunity for me to discern what is true. Especially by my listening with an open mind to comments by participants who are experts on given ALP subjects.
    Don

  4. How about instead of jetting off to Europe, Antarctica, NewZealand/Australia, donate that money to adopt a family or person in need? Pay down their debts, pay off their vehicle, buy a new frig, washer/dryer, other appliance, pay off their medical bills…

  5. 1. What does it look like to seek our truths? To cherish the freedom to be who we are and pursue our spiritual and personal interests.
    2. To honor our diversity? To actively abolish bigotry within our congregation, through educational programs, meaningful movies, and ESPECIALLY through organized social justice activities..
    3. To serve with love? To get up off our butts and BE ACTIVE in helping our congregation both individually and collectively, our neighborhoods, our town, county, state and country. Discussion is not enough. Feeling righteous is not enough. Thoughts and prayers are not enough. ACTION through organized congregational policies and activities is necessary.
    4. To work for justice in our world? To pay attention to those in our congregation and community who are social justice leaders, instead of blowing them off as annoying eccentrics. They are vocal and loud and insistent because that’s what it takes to get anybody’s attention. We should LISTEN to them, we should JOIN them in their efforts.

    In general, UUs these days seem more inclined to just discuss things deeply and think that’s an acceptable substitute for action. Our history of activism is being forgotten. We need to renew it!

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