From Karen Gustafson: August 7, 2020

Dear ones,

As your interim minister I take seriously my charge to help you to identify your strengths and your challenges in ways that will help you to thrive during this time of preparation for your next covenant of settled ministry. I also support the Ministerial Search Committee in presenting a clear and honest profile of the congregation to prospective candidates.

In the weeks since my last message in which I summarized the interim work going forward, I have been invited in a variety of ways into a new urgency of consciousness about white supremacy culture and systemic racism. At the UUA General Assembly the UCE delegates were present at the unveiling of the Report of the UUA Commission on Institutional Change entitled Widening the Circle of Concern. This document is an in depth report on the state of our association of congregations and our Unitarian Universalist faith regarding our understanding of racial justice and systems of oppression. It is a call to self examination and a call to meaningful action.

Clearly this awareness has been underway at UCE as reflected in the leadership of the REAL Team, the participation of a number of members of UCE in Beloved Conversations and classes on racism and the initiative that put the Black Lives Matter sign on the lawn. Now you are being encouraged by your General Assembly delegates and others to go deeper and wider in the cause of dismantling oppression in the many places that it is hard wired into a system that is built on white cultural values.

You will need to be prepared to be in conversation about all of this with anyone interested in assuming the position of Senior Minister at UCE. Among the many efforts to “widen the circle of concern” at UCE, I will be engaging you over the next year in conversations that will help you look at where systemic racism and white supremacy culture has become embedded at UCE. What then might it look like to make more real and visible a fuller embrace of Unitarian Universalist values and principles?

These conversations are beginning in August with elected and lay leaders and staff. They will be suspended in September and October to allow for a full focus on the Congregational Survey and the Cottage Meetings conducted by the Ministerial Search Committee. No doubt these issues will come up in these places as well. In November we will open the conversations again and hope to involve everyone in one way or another.

We will continue to work on other areas of UCE governance and structure as identified in the Interim Report. If you have questions or concerns about any of this, please feel free to contact me by e-mail at kgustafson@ucevanston.org.

In love and gratitude,

Karen