UU Society of Cleveland

February 24, 2008

Freedom and Form

by Rev. Colin Bossen

Our congregation is a living system. Like other social systems it is governed by both formal and informal rules. As we work to continue to grow our community one of the central tasks that we face will be to lessen the number of informal rules we use in our self-government. The presence of informal rules makes it difficult for new people to integrate into the congregation--without formal rules it is hard to understand how decisions are made. The lack of formal rules also makes it possible for a small group or an individual to subvert the democracy inherent in our polity. The presence of a large number of informal rules make it difficult to change congregation practices. Informal rules are usually only known by insiders and it is difficult to do things differently when most people do not understand how they are done in the first place.

I should warn you all that this is a sermon primarily about the life of our community. It is necessary for us to reflect upon our congregational life from time-to-time. It may not be as exciting as some of my other sermons but it is necessary to give sermons like today’s for the health of our community.

With that said, I want to begin my reflection on the dangers of informal rules with a story I heard from an African American friend of mine. My friend is a long time member of one of our inner city congregations. He is a university professor and, when he was young, he was a professional jazz musician. He lives in what is regarded a rough city. It is a city not very different from Cleveland in its crime statistics, poverty level and income distribution. My friend is, quite frankly, a member of the local black elite. He drives a Jaguar and always dresses impeccably in a well-tailored three-piece suit.

One day my friend went to visit another Unitarian Universalist congregation. The congregation is in one of the affluent largely white suburbs that border his city. His city, like Cleveland, has suffered greatly over the last forty years and the suburb that he was visiting is a bastion of white flight. The suburb is a very wealthy community. In fact, it is probably one of the wealthiest communities in the entire country. Unlike the city where my friend lives, the suburb that he visited is overwhelming white.

My friend visited this church because someone he knew well was going to be preaching there. Though he had been a Unitarian Universalist for almost forty years he had never visited this congregation before. When he finally did visit the congregation he was shocked by the way that he was treated.

The congregation, like the community it was located in, was overwhelming white. In fact, the congregation may have had a membership that was 100% white. This made my friend's appearance somewhat of a novelty. Within his first few minutes there it was made very clear to him that he was not welcome in the congregation. Not one but several people made it a point to come up to him and suggest that if he were looking for a Unitarian Universalist congregation to join he would be more comfortable visiting the inner city congregation of which he was a member. The very clear undercurrent of these conversations was to suggest to my friend that African Americans were not welcome in that church.

Now, some members of the congregation would have undoubtedly been shocked by this overt display of racism. Like most Unitarian Universalists they pride themselves in liberalism and tolerance. Nonetheless, their congregation had an unspoken rule that certain groups of people were not welcome within it. If they ever sat down and tried to determine some of the informal rules that their community was governed by they probably would have become very uncomfortable when this rule was exposed. They never did this and so the unspoken rule that racism was acceptable never was broken.

There is a very insightful essay about informal rules called "The Tyranny of Structurelessness" that came out of the radical feminist movement in the 1970s. The author, Jo Freeman, made a number of interesting observations about human organizations and how they can be hampered by informal structures. One of her key arguments was that:

"there is no such thing as a structureless group. Any group of people...that comes together...for any purpose will inevitably structure itself in some fashion. The structure may be flexible; it may vary over time; it may evenly or unevenly distribute tasks, power and resources over the members of the group. But it will be formed regardless of the abilities, personalities, or intentions of the people involved...Only if we refused to relate or interact on any basis whatsoever could we approximate structurelessness--and that is not the nature of the human group."

A little later in the essay Freeman suggests that since all groups have rules by which they operate the question is not whether or not a group will have rules. Instead the question is whether the rules will be transparent or not. "As long as the structure of the group is informal," she writes, "the rules of how decisions are made are known only to a few and awareness of power is limited to those who know the rules. Those who do not know the rules...must remain in confusion."

After making this point Freeman further argues that "The rules of decision making must be explicit, not implicit. The rules of decision-making must be open and available to everyone, and this can happen only if they are formalized."

Freeman continues her essay by arguing that an elite inevitably controls communities governed by informal rules. An elite in Freeman's definition is "a small group of people who have power over a larger group of which they are part, usually without direct responsibility to that larger group, and often without their knowledge or consent." Freeman assures her readers that elites are not necessarily insidious individuals. Often they are simply groups of friends who are involved in the same community and who, by the nature of their tenure with the community, their friendship network and the resources they have at their disposal, hold the keys to decision making within a community. The appearance of formal rules within the community can greatly limit the power of elites because it forces them to wield power openly. When this happens change is almost inevitable.

Change is something that this community is experiencing a lot of right now. You have a new minister. In the last year membership has increased by 25% and total membership is now up more than 60% of what it was in 2004. On some Sundays there are twice as many people here than there would have been in 2006. The presence of so much change can cause long-term members to become anxious. Things were not the way they used to be and, undoubtedly, some people miss the old days. Change can be threatening as power in the congregation shifts around and new members get involved with decision-making. Despite this change can be exciting because change through growth suggests that the congregation has a vital core, which is attractive and appealing to newcomers.

The biggest change our congregation is facing at the moment is a shift from what church sociologists call a family-sized congregation to what they call a pastoral-sized congregation. The Society has essentially been a family-sized congregation since we moved to Cleveland Heights from 82nd and Euclid in the early seventies. Family-sized congregations generally have, on average, no more than fifty people participating in Sunday morning worship. Rarely can they afford to have a full-time minister, when I started here in September I was the first full-time minister the Society had in more than thirty years. Decision-making in family-sized congregations is generally very informal. Things get done the way they do because so-and-so has always been in charge of them and always done them that way. The long-time members who participate in a friendship group usually make decisions and the general structure of the organization is very informal. It can be very difficult for a family-sized congregation to grow beyond about 50 active, or Sunday morning attending, members.

Family-sized congregations generally exist to tend to their members individual spiritual and emotional needs. Rarely do they have any sense of a larger mission or call in the world. While the purpose of a congregation is to succor and lift up each other it is also more than that. We must come together to seek justice as well. There are a lot of people out there who would like to hear our liberating message. There are gays and lesbians looking for a religion that encourages them to embrace themselves as they are rather than feel guilty for loving whom they wish to love. There are people who demand a religion that allows for both faith and reason. Others are looking for a religious community where they can raise their children free from the fear of damnation. We should be able to broadcast our message that all people on Earth are brothers and sisters and that we all have an obligation to be stewards of each other and of the planet loudly. More succinctly, as a congregation we are called to come together to seek justice while growing in spirit and growing in community.

Operating as an inwardly focused family-sized congregation it is difficult to reach such a vision. Family-sized congregations keep their good news to themselves. Instead of focusing on the larger community they focus on themselves. The presence of a large number of informal rules makes it hard for the community to integrate newcomers and challenging to determine if a common agenda actually exists.

The Society is currently transitioning from a family-sized to a pastoral-sized religious community. The presence of a large number of informal rules can still hinder the growth of the community as it effects its transition. If the community continues to be governed by informal rules at this stage in its development it can concentrate too much power in the hands of its minister or with a faction who opposes the minister. Growth can also plateau.

The increase in the number formal rules for governance in the congregation at this time can serve as a system of checks and balances. Each community within the congregation can clearly understand what its rights and responsibilities are. Newcomers can easily learn who gets to make what decisions and how they can plug into the congregation's increasing number of activities.

It is important during this stage of development not to go overboard with the creation of formal rules. Too many formal rules can limit the creativity inherent within the community and restrict independent decision-making. The trick of balancing formal rules with the needs of the community is basically met by two factors. The first is democracy and the second is communication.

Like all other Unitarian Universalist congregations, the Society uses a system called congregational polity for our governance system. The principle idea of congregational polity is that the ultimate authority in all matters lies with the congregation. We, not our Association's headquarters in Boston, are ultimately responsible for the religious and collective life of our community. Under congregational polity the congregation rules. It is the congregation who has the power to hire and fire ministers, set the annual budget and make decisions about the long-term vision and mission of the religious community. Under our system it is one member, one vote.

The problem with congregational polity is that it does not work very well without communication. An uneducated electorate cannot govern and if the congregation is unaware of how and why decisions are made power will not ultimately lie with them but with those who understand the decision-making dynamics. The implementation of formal rules is, therefore, essential to truly placing power in the hands of those who should have it.

Importantly, if the congregation agrees to formalize, and all I really mean by formalize is write down, the important rules it uses it becomes easier to assess those rules. It is hard to evaluate how the congregation function in its quest to reach its vision if you do not know the structure of the congregation in the first place. One of the beauties of democracy is that we know that if governance system does not work we can always change it.

When I talk about formal rules I am really talking about the need for policies. We need clear policies for personnel and financial management. We need policies for communication, who has a right to speak for the whole group and who does not. We need one for programs, how does a new member create a program? Right now most of these policies do not formally exist. This makes them hard to change or inform people about.

Once created policies become changeable. The Board can alter them at anytime by majority vote. Anyone can suggest changes that need be made. Using formal rules, decisions are not made for all time. Instead, they are acknowledged as having been made and can be shared with everyone.

This may all seem a little wonkish. So little me try to be concrete. Congregational polity is both a system of governance and a spiritual practice. We Unitarian Universalists use it, in part, because we believe that all members of our community are, on some deep and fundamental level, equal. Anyone who is a member of community should have the same voice in decision-making. What is more, we understand that when we come together and decide together we often arrive at the best decision for our community as a community. Our councils as a group usually are often wiser than our opinions as individuals.

Exercising congregational polity properly requires the use of formal rules for community governance because the use of formal rules brings clarity to our decision-making. The existence of formal rules also prevents us from making the sort of mistakes that the suburban congregation my friend visited did. They help us to live out our vision and most importantly they allow us to hold each other accountable. The creation of clear rules to work together in community is now one of the central tasks before us. It might not be the most exciting work but it is some of the most necessary. Without formal rules it is difficult to assess ourselves, to hold each other accountable and to continue to grow.

The task before us is essentially a religious task. It will help us bind our community together. It will open the way for the strangers in our midst and ensure that they transform from visitor to member and valued friend.

That it may be so, I say Amen and Blessed Be.