We wanted to update everyone on the focus your Edjucation and Justice (EdJ) committee has chosen for this church year. Along with all of you, the Board and our minister, Rev. Rita, we will be elevating and evaluating the social justice initiatives of our congregational life, both historically and currently.
What do we mean by that?
By elevating we mean celebrating, recognizing, and remembering all the actions we have taken for social justice in our past, and visioning what future social justice actions might be. Look for the timeline of UUFM Social Justice efforts in the main stairway. Diane Dobitz, Patti Ruskey and Eleanor Coons-Ruskey have designed this, with input from many members who named past actions. You will be able to read about past actions since the 1950s, add actions that are missing, and add your visions for future social justice efforts. We have been a strong, social justice-minded congregation since our inception!
Recently, our congregation was honored by our MN UU Social Justice Alliance (MUUSJA) as their 2018 recipient of their Beacon of Justice Award. Please read more about this award and watch the acceptance video done by our President, Tony Filipovitch, and our EdJ Chair, Diane Dobitz.
As part of the UUFM’s mission to ‘nourish the spirit’ and ‘build community,’ we have a longstanding commitment to support our unhoused neighbors. For many years, this has been expressed through serving meals at the Salvation Army, and providing food for the Welcome Inn for many years while on Pohl Road. Recently, many churches in our community have banded together to fill unmet gaps through the Connections Shelter program, and last year we joined that effort. EdJ plans to continue to support the Connections Shelter, and will be placing more of our energy and resources there as we move forward.
A new effort has been requested by the Board to develop a Rapid Response Policy. The initial policy has been approved by the board, and we will be working to set up conversations about this in the near future. This policy will make it possible for our minister and/or our Board President to respond publicly in times of trauma and injustice. This is one way for us to use our privilege to effect change in our larger community.
In November, we will be celebrating over 30 years of providing quarterly Salvation Army meals in this community. Initially organized for over 20 years by Sue Wiltgen, many members have participated in this wonderful effort. While we take stock and decide where to focus our justice efforts, we will be discontinuing our participation in these meals in 2019. Once we have identified our core commitments to social justice by the end of this church year, we might decide to rejoin this cause.
By evaluating, we mean taking a close look at what we have been doing in social justice, and how we have been doing it. Our wonderful MUUSJA has developed a tool/rubric that we will be using. This rubric divides social justice work into several categories such as: Public Witness and Prophetic Voice, and Interfaith and Organizational Partnerships. This evaluation will probably take the rest of this year. Our end goal is to identify two or three core commitments for our congregation in the area of social justice. We want to answer the question: How do our principles call OUR congregation to social action?