How can our church become a Beloved Community?

To become a truly Beloved Community our church must commit to welcoming all forms of diversity – race, ethnicity, culture, education, class, gender, sexual orientation, physical ableism – and know that we are better together because of all that we learn from each other. When we take care not to marginalize people because of their identities, and centralize and celebrate diversity, we will feel the power that comes from mutual respect, caring, and love. Together, coming from this powerful beloved community, we can work for justice and equality in the world. The power of love – not the love of power!

Adopting the 8th Principle is a substantial step toward demonstrating that a church is ready to put their values into action. This requires conscious awareness and effort, on both personal and institutional levels. A mechanism or structure is needed to ensure accountability.

To ensure accountability, a church would first want to have an audit of where they are now, and then create action steps for going forward and staying on track. Ideally, this would include asking groups outside the church for an opinion on these matters. One could ask for ideas from identity groups such as BLUU (Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism) or DRUUMM (Diverse & Revolutionary UU Multicultural Ministries). One could also ask other UU churches for opinions. In our own case, we have been fortunate to be part of the Widening the Circle discussions with four other Illinois UU churches, and now have an ongoing relationship with them. We would all be great partners for each other in creating accountability structures. Eventually, official guidelines will no doubt be created, including ways to report back to the UUA.

We invite you to attend a Zoom listening/ discussion session about the 8th Principle on Monday evening, May 10 from 6:30 to 7:30 pm. We hope to see you there!