“’Building Capacity to Lead’: The Questions of Authority”
May 7, 2017
The Rev. Heather Janules
About two weeks ago, I gathered with a small group of colleagues at a retreat center in New Hampshire for a continuing education program. We, as a collection of Unitarian Universalist ministers, came together to explore the history and theology of political resistance through the writing of Dietrich Bonhoffer and Martin Luther King Jr.
Yet, something else was on our minds. So we set aside an hour to sit in a circle next to the stone fireplace in the center’s main meeting room and talk. At one colleague’s suggestion, we used the questions posed to groups debriefing traumatic events for our conversation. One by one, we answered these questions:
What are the facts?
Where were you when it happened?
What did you think? What did you feel?
How are you taking care of yourself?
The facts are that a controversy erupted when the Unitarian Universalist Association selected a white male minister for a senior level position over another candidate, a Latina female lay leader. For many leaders-of-color within the denomination, this was not an isolated decision. In an open letter, a number of ministers-of-color write, in part:
there exists within UU’ism institution-wide patterns of behavior – including formal and informal power brokering, coded-language and communication, and well-entrenched patterns related to hiring and call – that favor those who look and act like the majority white culture within Unitarian Universalism while creating disadvantages for those who do not…This problem is endemic and fundamentally systemic. It is also heart-breaking.[1]
Amid this controversy, UUA President Peter Morales wrote a letter seeking to foster greater unity. Yet, many objected to some of his statements, leading him to then submit a letter of resignation.
I was in my office when I learned of Morales’ resignation. Since then, two more senior staff have resigned, the UUA Board has appointed three interim co-presidents – two men, one woman; two ministers, one lay leader; all people-of-color – for the remaining three months of Morales’ term.
The Executive Director of the UU Ministers’ Association, Don Southworth, has issued public statements that have generated even more heated discussion. Let it suffice to say that social media is now a forum for lively, sometimes painful debate between clergy.
Sitting with my colleagues in New Hampshire, surrounded by the beauty of the forest around the retreat center, I thought it strange to adopt a trauma response process to discuss bureaucratic changes in an institution. Yet, these changes are symbolic of the significant questions behind them that do provoke fear and pain: Can we trust people in positions of authority? Do they use their authority with integrity or in service to prejudice and ego? What happens to communities we cherish when leadership is challenged? Disrupted? Can the center of our community hold in the midst of fierce conflict? In brief, my colleagues and I were reflecting on questions of power.
This year, I have been preaching on elements of this congregation’s Vision Statement. One of the elements addresses power and authority. It speaks of a vision of “Empowering Strong Leadership: We enjoy exceptional professional leadership in all major program areas, including worship, lifespan education, youth programs, and music. We support our professional staff and congregation members in building their capacity to lead.”
It takes courage to cast such a vision, a vision of a community with power-ful leaders. I believe it is reasonable for anyone subject to governmental rule, never mind anyone who grew up…with parents, to be suspicious of people in authority. In a religious tradition with deep roots in challenging the established order, beginning with Luther’s break with Catholicism and – within the Protestant Reformation – the Puritan break with the Church of England and then rejection of the trinity within Puritan Christianity, challenging authority is a consistent thread within Unitarian Universalism, not empowering authority. To name a goal of “empowered leadership” is to articulate a vision of collective confidence, character and trust in its leaders – paid and volunteer, lay and ordained. In service to this vision, this morning I explore the spiritual dimensions of authority and power.
I am grateful to many teachers I have had who have taught me about the complexities of authority. Each of us embody and are subject to formal and informal authority. Formal authority comes with a particular role. If you are wearing a uniform, you likely possess formal authority, no matter whether it is the uniform of a supermarket cashier, a police officer or minister. It is implied that whoever wears this uniform is authorized to ring up groceries, make arrests or officiate a wedding, regardless of whether you know them personally or not. Formal authority is also conveyed through organic skill and training, which is why it is reasonable to grant me the privilege of preaching and not reasonable to invite me to play the organ.
Informal authority is authority built through relationship. When someone demonstrates they are loyal to a community or cause, when they stay engaged over time, when they consistently offer wise observations and fulfill their commitments, even when they are just particularly loveable, they earn the trust of others and thus become capable of exerting influence, regardless of whether they hold a formal role or not.
As the UUA controversy reminds us, both kinds of authority are impacted by variations in social status. I don’t know how many times I have arrived at a wedding venue and have been asked if I am the photographer or the wedding planner even though I have my clergy robe over my arm. Are older male ministers also confused for event staff at the banquet hall?
I am also grateful to community organizers who have taught me about power. It is not just those within the Unitarian Universalist tradition who are suspicious of those with power. With too many examples to name, power is often exercised and thus understood as simply “power over,” a tool of coercion, greed or domination, rendering an understanding of power as, at best, distasteful.
Yet, power simply is “the ability to act.” By this definition, every living thing has power. Anyone who has spent time with a toddler or a curious puppy knows that one can influence a group through their behavior regardless of age or what end of the leash they are on. In the history of Unitarian Universalism, Peter Morales may be remembered as the President who was lobbied out of office through the simple power of Facebook posts.
So understanding how a congregation functions, answering the question “who’s in charge?” is not as straightforward as asking to speak to the Board chair or the staff person associated with a project. We are forever in a complex landscape of formal roles and informal influence, woven together by relationships – established and evolving; tight, fractured and distant.
Just as the people who compose and interact with the Unitarian Universalist Association are considering the UUA’s practices in granting authority to leaders, this congregation has engaged in great reflection on these issues.
As the Winchester Unitarian Society is 151 years old, I imagine there are countless examples of times when authority granted to and exercised by its leadership was up for discussion. But I know that just a few years ago, these concerns were front-and-center for the whole community. And I know that, without question, for many the events that raised these questions were, indeed, traumatic.
I am wary of naming “the facts” as I was not here at the time. But, like a forensic scientist, I have pieced together a general summation. Many tensions within the staff team and throughout the congregation sparked conflicts. In the end, one staff member was terminated, another staff member resigned as did the co-ministers. Members of the congregation were in many different places about what happened and what should happen. Shouting matches erupted, friendships ended, members left.
For those who remained, much work was done to address governance issues that contributed to the crisis. And much was done to heal. Yet, the questions raised in this chapter of the Winchester Unitarian Society’s history also remain for some: Can we trust people in positions of authority? Do they use their authority with integrity or in service to prejudice and ego? What happens to communities we cherish when leadership is challenged? Disrupted? Can the center of our community hold in the midst of fierce conflict?
When I was an applicant to be called as the Winchester Unitarian Society’s next minister, the search committee and I had many philosophical discussions about governance and allocations of formal authority across the roles of minister, Standing Committee, by-law and annual committee and member. But I think Lee Barton said it best when he observed that “it doesn’t matter what model we use. What matters is that we communicate and collaborate with each other.” (At that point in the search process, I had already intuited that, beyond his role on the search committee, Lee possessed great informal authority. Occasionally I call him “Dumbledore” as his wisdom is consistently insightful.)
I wish I could provide insight with similar clarity about how this collaboration should be structured and how it might unfold. But I can only offer an invitation to a different kind of collaboration, one that is rarely considered in discussions of congregational authority.
I have long cherished the meditation by Jack Medelsohn that serves as this morning’s reading. For this reflection, I focus most on Mendelsohn’s observation that a minister is, “a person whose tasks involve great responsibility and little power, who must learn to accept people where they are and go from there; a person who must never try to exercise influence that has not been earned.”
A cursory reading or a frustrating day might inspire a minister to hear Mendelsohn’s recognition of the clergy’s great responsibility and limited power as a complaint. I hear it more as naming a minister’s humility in the midst of the impossible task and tremendous gift of ministry. In short, I hear Mendelsohn affirming that the minister does not hold ultimate authority.
But this does not mean that the congregation holds ultimate authority either. We in the “liberal church” often forget the third party in the beautiful impossibility of congregational life. We forget the presence and the power of the holy that dwells among and between us.
I know I stand before a community of atheists, agnostics and theists so I imagine some of you are feeling a little itchy as I have spoken of the power of the holy as part of our shared reality. By this I mean our “higher power” which, for some in twelve-step programs, is just the group itself, a collective wisdom that transcends the will of any one role or individual. I mean, in the words of this morning’s responsive reading, the “sustaining and transforming power not made with human hands,” creation born by two or more human beings connecting across resonance and difference to foster new truth. I mean that which changes us – all of us – into priests and prophets, no matter what formal authority we bear, no matter who we are or how we got here.
What is the holy asking of us in this place, at the corner of Mystic Valley Parkway and Main Street? What is the holy asking of us in this time, with so many suffering in a world defined by “power over?” How are we called to take up the mantle of our formal roles of authority, to draw on our informal power, to bring all we have to the world in service to our convictions?
These questions of authority transcend a focus on clergy and congregation or congregation and governing board. These questions of authority assume that all of us are subordinate to a power greater than our own and ground us in shared humility. These questions suggest that we may be well served by revisiting our governance structures from time to time but, in equal measure, should revisit our covenant and connection with one another, that spiritual bond that holds and guides us together, through which that which is greater than our individual selves may speak. The truth that emerges through our communion with one another transcends formal roles and individual gifts – calls us forward, holds us to account and invites us into deeper relationship with one another and our spiritual lives. In this way, collaboration is nothing short of a sacrament.
In 2013, the UUA’s Commission on Appraisal published the resource “Who’s in Charge Here? The Complex Relationship Between Ministry and Authority,” after months of research and discussion with many Unitarian Universalists. In the chapter, “Responding to Conflicts,” under the subheading “Authorizing Each Other,” the Commission suggests that:
We might move away from seeing authority and power as limited resources to struggle over…Ministers are more powerful…when their work is supported, amplified, and grounded by the work of strong lay leadership. Lay leaders are more powerful when ministers have the authority to do the work of ministry, thereby allowing lay leaders to focus on visioning, goal-setting and discernment about mission. We are all more powerful in the world when we see ourselves on the same team and celebrate each other’s strengths.[2]
“Authorizing each other” is perhaps another way of saying “building capacity to lead.”
“The future of the liberal church is almost totally dependent on these two factors: great congregations…and effective, dedicated ministers. The strangest feature of their relationship is that they create one another.”
The vision of “empowering strong leadership” is a vision in the spirit of the co-creation Mendelsohn invokes. I believe it is a vision of claiming our power – our individual power, our shared power, our formal and informal power – without shame and using it liberally (and liberal religiously) in service to needs and a love greater than our own. It is a vision of exercising our birthright authority in a way that transcends prejudice and ego. It is a vision of power grounded in humility and connection with one another.
May we celebrate all that is possible when we authorize one another, when we build everyone’s capacity to lead. And when inevitable conflicts emerge, may we bring our most honest, caring and committed selves to the sacrament of collaboration and the dismantling of systems of oppression that diminish the humanity of all. May it be so.
[1][1][1] https://www.facebook.com/manish.mishramarzetti/posts/10158423900525162?pnref=story
[2] P 75.
Topics: Embodiment