Hold the Individualism. Keep the Chalice.
Collaboration is What’s Next
The benefit of being at Community Church of New York right now is that we are in such a state of transition and change, we have no choice but to try new things. No choice. If we had a choice, it's possible we wouldn't bother, but our situation has offered us an unusual opportunity and we're embracing it wholeheartedly.
This means we need to collaborate, even though congregational partnerships aren't common in UU culture. Our policy is hyper-individualistic with every church making all its own decisions. We can even ordain our own ministers without the blessing of the UUA or any other credentialing body. No one can tell us what to do! We love that. I hear it often. It's our most common mantra. What connects UU churches with each other? Chalice lightings and hyper-individualism.
I'm not sure this has ever served us well, but it's sure holding us back now. I'm grateful both for my church's current situation, but also the parts of our history that have built up this culture for us. In the early part of the 20th century, Rev. Egbert Ethelred Brown opened a Unitarian church in Harlem. The Unitarian Association was decidedly unsupporting of our first and only Black church, and they struggled, not for members, but for funding. In response, the minister at Community, Rev. John Haynes Holmes, and his wife Madeline, joined Harlem Unitarian and attended whenever they could. They were personally regular donors, and Community Church made it a habit to send money as needed. The next Senior Minister, Rev. Don Harrington and his wife, followed suit and the two churches understood themselves to be in mutual relationship.
With stories like that one in our sights, Community Church has been reaching out to other churches to deepen our relationships. I don't want to out anyone here, so let me say simply...collaboration isn't a muscle most UU churches know how to flex. There's some, "we're happy to help you", and a little "you can join us if you want", but not a lot of "let's work together as a team to create something gorgeous."
Regardless of how well we do this now, collaboration is going to be necessary in the future. And even if that wasn't true, breaking down these barriers is good for us right now. It's good to get to know other UUs, to stretch ourselves, to see things in a new way. It's also tremendous fun and adds a big burst of energy to liturgical calendars.
And, it's how we build collective power. Alone, we are vulnerable and our resources are quickly exhausted. Together, we are stronger, safer, and have more to draw from. To survive, we have to get over our hyper-individualism.
We can keep the chalice.
I'm now serving two congregations that yoked about a year and a half ago. They're starting to really dig into collaborating with planning at the board level to some extent (the Presidents have agreed to meet quarterly or more frequently) and I've been encouraging them in other ways. It's so cool watching them build this relationship with each other.
After years of trying and failing at this in the Episcopal Church (where we have *much* more structure!), I struck out into the world as a Free Range Priest. It's sort of the inside-out opposite of trying to merge communities: it's changing the way clergy serve them. I serve on task-based contract (doing a variety of tasks - some of them about worship, some about digital development, some about spiritual growth). In this way, I can serve multiple small congregations in ways they need and can afford, and I can easily serve multiple congregations without being overwhelmed. I teach clergy how to do this, too!