Reflections on a Ministry

This is the letter I sent to the members (both formal and informal) of the congregation I serve regarding my decision to end our mutual ministry as of the end of this church year (June 30th).  If you're interested, you can read the formal announcement to the congregation, as well as the reflections I offered the Sunday after the congregation was informed.

To the people of TJMC, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Charlottesville:

Eight years ago you called me to serve this community as your Lead Minister.  I promised that I would do my best to accept the challenge you offered:  help you move into the next phase of your journey, help you to write the next chapter of your history, help you to grow into something new, help you to be more fully the Unitarian Universalist congregation that Charlottesville needs in these times.

As I have often been the first to admit, I have not always satisfied everyone’s expectations of what a Lead Minister should do and how it should be done.  I have dropped balls, and I have let people down.  During candidating week I told you that one of the ways I understands local UU congregations is as “laboratories” for discovering how our faith tradition should manifest in a particular time and place.  Some of the “experiments” I encouraged us to try were dead ends; I don’t deny this and never have.  Over the years, in response to feedback, I made changes, course corrections, and led us to try new things – some of which have excited and inspired many here; some which have taken our congregation to the cutting edge of our Association’s evolution. 

I have championed a radically shared leadership and ministry model aimed at addressing systemic issues of racism and misogyny by refusing to continue the clergy-centric structures and assumptions so common in faith communities.  Leia, Chris, and I have twice been invited to teach a session at Harvard Divinity School about our Senior Staff model, in which the Director of Faith Development, the Director of Administration and Finance, and the Lead Minister collaboratively and co-equally share the responsibilities and authority of “running the church.”  Our approach to shared ministry was also influential in the decision to create a tri-Presidency at the UUA during the interim between Peter Morales and Susan Frederick-Gray.

I have also unflinchingly demanded that we – myself as much as anyone – recognize in ourselves and our institution the ways we participate in and perpetuate the systems and structures of our white supremacist culture, however unintentionally and unconsciously … especially those of us who identify as white.  It is challenging for us good-hearted, well-meaning liberal white folks who have long been committed to racial justice, among whose number I count myself, to hear that even we are complicit in the continuation of the very oppression(s) we are trying to dismantle.  Yet as we learn to listen more fully and faithfully to the voices of people of color, this truth becomes unavoidable and our denial of it just provides more evidence.  The myriad of ways Christina has experienced racism during her time here, and the difficulty so many of us have had in believing her when she’s named it, brought up close and personal the need for us, as individuals and as an institution, to address white supremacy in here if we want to have any hope of making changes out there.

Not everyone has agreed with my methods or my understanding and vision of what a UU congregation needs to be.  Some have felt that I was going too far too fast, while others thought I was leading in the wrong direction altogether.  In the past two or three years this divide has grown increasingly visible and deep.  In 2016 we watched together as our country elected a misogynistic, xenophobic, regressively bigoted, and entirely unqualified man to be our nation’s President.  In the summer of 2017 our city became ground zero for a newly (re)empowered expression of the basest expressions of hate when first the KKK and then the “Unite the Right” rally gathered (from far and near) in our own downtown.  In February of 2018 our Director of Administration and Finance, Christina Rivera, was the target of a racist attack in the form of an anonymous note delivered to her office, with the perpetrator most likely being a member of our community.

That February marked the 75^th anniversary of the founding of this congregation.  Throughout that history there have been many times when a division erupted between those who believed that our congregation was called to take the risky position of moving to the forefront of efforts for change, and those who were less enthusiastic about taking risks because of their deep desire and heartfelt commitment to the quality of this community and the need to respond first-and-foremost to the needs of those who called this place “home.”  (We could call these the “risk friendly” and “risk reluctant.”)  Neither is “right” nor “wrong” – both can create loving community and both can work for justice.  Yet they are different from one another, and it is extraordinarily difficult to be both at the same time.  It might even be impossible.  Each pulls the congregation in a different direction.  And while there is a good deal of overlap, ultimately a decision must be made.  Or, at least, a decision must be made if the congregation wants to be its most healthy, vibrant, and Alive.

Time and again this congregation has bumped up against this divide, and according to all of the history I’ve read and been told about by people who were there, the congregation’s decision has been not to decide.  “The wounds were never healed,” I have read, “the issues were never fully addressed.”  To paraphrase one of our long-time members, “we’re really good at sweeping things under the rug.”  This has made it possible for folks to come back together comfortably, to “heal,” while leaving the underlying issue of identity unresolved.

Some of the conflict that has grown among us in the past couple of years is unquestionably about differing opinions on my performance, my message, and my style, and there are people who disagree about the way our finances have been handled, and decisions the Board has made, and no doubt other things.  I don’t deny that, and have tried to acknowledge the validity of those disagreements whenever possible.  Dissent within a community is essential for its health and longevity.  Yet I believe that beneath and behind those things is the never resolved division between the “risk reluctant” and the “risk friendly,” between two competing visions of what a Unitarian Universalist congregation should be, and what a healthy congregation looks like.  The greatest predictor of the success in solving a problem is a clear understanding of what the problem is.  If one tries to solve the deep root of a problem by addressing only its surface layers, change can take place only at the top of the iceberg, not the estimated 87% that remains unseen.

Two years ago an organized effort began to bring an end to our mutual ministry by forcing me to resign or asking the congregation to terminate my call.  Their stated assumption was that my departure would fix what they see as wrong here.  There is no doubt that things would change with another ordained minister in my role.  Yet if my ministry is identified as the source of our current conflict, the underlying issue of who this congregation is and wants to be may once again go unresolved. No one, and no institution, can be all things to all people – at least not healthily.  So much energy gets spent trying to react to the needs of whoever is unhappy at any particular moment.  Yet there will always be someone unhappy if you try to please everyone, and this futile effort at achieving the impossible leaves little left with which to respond to the real needs of the community as a whole, and the demands of the wider world.

The decision to end my ministry with and among you is not one I’ve made lightly, nor is it one that I want to make.  I would like to continue to serve this congregation; I would like to continue exploring and expanding the ministries that have been nurturing and exciting to so many here.  We have done some really good things together, and have been moving in a direction that I deeply believe puts us more fully into alignment with the Call of our faith.  I know that many of you feel that way, too.  And there is so much still to do.  We continue to be beckoned forward on the journey toward becoming a truly anti-racist, anti-oppression, multicultural Beloved Community that will be a living, breathing alternative to the White Supremacist Culture which pervades every facet of our society.  I do not want to leave with so much undone, nor to leave all of you who are eager to embrace the discomfort of change.

Yet as much as I want to stay I nonetheless feel compelled to leave.  Over the past two years it has become undeniably clear that there are those who are willing to withhold or withdraw their resources to ensure that my continued ministry cannot succeed and that the congregation cannot continue down its current path.  I want to be very clear — I truly do not disparage most of those who oppose my continued ministry; I believe that many of them do have the best interest of the congregation in mind, albeit an entirely different understanding than mine of what that is.  These are honest disagreements, and as I have repeatedly said, honest disagreements are essential to a healthy community.

Yet I must also say that there are some who have demonstrated that they are okay with the environment in our community becoming terribly unpleasant, extremely unhealthy, and, as many have said, toxic.  These few folks are willing to see the congregation hurt in their effort to see me gone, so strongly do they believe that I am the problem.  I cannot in good conscience allow this group to damage the congregation any further in the name of their opposition to me, nor can I continue to put my own physical, emotional, and spiritual health at risk or that of my family. 

I honestly don’t know how much my leaving will “fix,” yet I feel certain that nothing will be fixed as long as I remain.  I have said since before I arrived here eight years ago that this is an extremely strong, beautiful, and committed congregation.  I still say this today.  Unitarian Universalism is truly needed here in Charlottesville and this congregation can be a beacon, a true powerhouse for racial justice, and an amplifier for the life-save message of our faith.  I pray that with the issue of my ministry resolved you will be able to focus on the fundamental question of what kind of Unitarian Universalist congregation you truly wish to be, and that this time you stick with that discomforting question until you have finally found its answer.

It has been an honor to serve as Lead Minister in the midst of this community of ministers.  The staff I have worked with have been incomparable, rightly respected throughout our Association.  The lay leaders have been inspirational.  And this congregation has been like no other I have served.

I bow deeply in gratitude,

Pax tecum,

RevWik

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