At the time of this writing, Bernice Powell Jackson was Executive Minister, JWM.

For the past six years we in the United Church of Christ have been learning what the pronouncement calling our church to be a multiracial and multicultural church really means. In many ways it has been like peeling an onion as we have been uncovering what the pronouncement really calls for us to do in order to truly become multiracial and multicultural. To live up to that self-proclaimed status we must be radically inclusive and inclusive not only of people of all racial and cultural groups, but of people with differing abilities, differing sexual orientations, differing income levels, and differing theologies and politics. It means that we must live out the Southwest Conference’s annual meeting theme of a couple of years ago, “God’s House is an Open House.”

Thus, it is a logical next step for us to say that the United Church of Christ is a multiracial and multicultural church accessible to all. That “accessible to all” ending is, then, a constant reminder of our identity and our goal.

And what does all of this mean for the new national structure of the church? While the skeleton of our new structure has been put together over the past decade, there is still much in the way of muscles and tendons which have yet to be put on this new creation. But we do understand the underlying values upon which the vision of a new national structure has been built. These include a faith-filled, Christ-centered church dedicated to diversity, a spirit of collaboration and partnership, as well as communication, equity, accountability, and excellence.

Implicit in such an understanding of our national structure is the need for the covenanted ministries of the church (which we have called instrumentalities) to work together in a new spirit of partnership and collaboration, crossing the “permeable boundaries” which have been drawn between the ministries and between the teams within each ministry. Thus, we could foresee new ways of national staff working together on issues and in on-going programmatic activities.

Our work with people with disabilities might be one example of this new way of working. While it is envisioned that work with the UCC Disabilities Ministries would be coordinated under the Wellness Empowerment and Advocacy Ministry Team in the Wider Church Ministries, staff of Local Church Ministries who work on evangelism and church growth or on church building programs, staff of Justice and Witness working on advocacy in public policy concerns, and staff of the General Ministries who are planning General Synod might all be on a team which would cross covenanted ministry boundaries.

Or, within Justice and Witness Ministries, we might have a team consisting of staff from the economic justice team, the public life team, and the human rights, justice for women, and transformation team all working together on issues of concern to people with disabilities. At times it might even include staff from the racial justice team since there are many people of color with disabilities who face double or triple discrimination.

The challenge, then, is to see the work holistically and not in isolation or lineally as we so often have done in the past. The concerns of people with disabilities cross all our ministries and we in our national setting are challenged to recognize that and to work accordingly. I know there is some discussion about where the primary coordinating work with the UCC Disabilities Ministries will be lodged, but wherever that coordination is located; our expectation is that your concerns should never be pigeon-holed in one place. Thus, our vision is to work in new partnerships with you and with each other and to stretch ourselves to re-vision how we do our work in our national setting. It really is a new way of doing things.

That, then, is a little of the vision that we are beginning to see through a glass dimly. It is exciting and challenging and even a little frightening all at the same time. The Collegium has just begun to meet and to talk about this vision and to understand what this is calling us to do. We are committed to bringing this vision into reality because we believe that God is calling us to better serve you and better serve our world. May God grant us the wisdom and the patience and the courage to make it so.

From UCC DM Newsletter Archive