MidWest Leadership School Journey: October 23, 2020

Vision, Mission, and Covenants 

[CORRECTION from Mary Beth Napier: The notice in last week’s newsletter about this series inadvertently failed to mention one of this year’s attendees at the MidWest Leadership School. Apologies to Sally Parsons.] 

In session 2 of the Midwest Leadership School, the attendees from each church spent time reviewing their mission and covenant and how they align with how the church actually spends its resources. I gained a broader perspective. There are two other components not mentioned as often — vision and shadow mission. 

Below you will find definitions of each of these concepts provided us by uua.org. I invite you to examine the UCE vision, mission and covenant through these lens. 

Vision: A carefully defined picture of where you want to be in five or more years. It is the dream of what you can become. 

UCE’s vision is expressed in ENDS statements. (See https://ucevanston.org/mission-and-more/ ) 

Mission: A concise statement of what you want to be known for, or known as, within the wider world; what you want to mean to the community.  

• What is your congregation called to do?
• How are you transforming your internal community?
• How are you transforming your wider community?
• If you ceased to exist, who in your wider community would notice? 

Our mission is to nurture the human spirit for a world made whole. 

Covenant: A statement of how your members will be with, and will behave toward, one another, as well as what is promised or vowed to one another and to the congregation as a whole. 

Our covenant, recited at every service, is: 

Love is the Spirit of this Church
And service is its law.
This is our great covenant:
To dwell together in peace
To seek the truth in love
And to help one another 

We also have a covenant of engagement, found on our website at: 

https://ucevanston.org/about-living-in-our-covenant-of-engagement/#single/0 

Lastly, there is the shadow mission, a checkpoint to decide if we are true to our mission or spending our resources on things other than what was agreed upon. 

• What are you really serving? 
• Where does your time and energy and money go? 
• Building? Grounds? Conflict in the congregation? Being “nice?” What else? 
• Again, who in the wider community would notice if you disappeared? 

Carefully studying these concepts and questions as they apply to UCE actions will serve to make us better servants. 

—Sally Parsons