What is UUJMCA? – Find Out Now

We enter the coming year with a new mission, clear goals and a NEW name! Following the yearlong appreciative inquiry process, during which we held 17 input sessions across the state, held a young adult input session at the PSWD Young Adult Camp and gathered ideas online through a survey, UULMCA is ready to move forward.

The Board of Trustees, with support from the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, engaged Unity Consulting to help guide us through our strategic planning process. Laura Park helped us sort through the volumes of feedback and ideas generated by so many engaged activists and partners. Her guidance, along with that of Rob Eller-Isaacs, helped us generate a framework for the next five years, building on our successes and growing into some exciting areas.

Our revised mission statement reads, “The Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry of California advances justice in our state by cultivating and connecting leaders and communities, and by empowering the public voice of those who share UU values and Principles.” In identifying the communities and groups we wish to serve as we bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice, we defined core objectives, or “ends”, that we aim to create by 2018:

• California Unitarian Universalists have access to and participate in statewide justice education, advocacy, and witness that deepens their faith and changes life for the better in California.

• California Unitarian Universalist justice leaders are trained, effective, inspiring and connected.
• California Unitarian Universalist congregations utilize UULMCA to strengthen their justice ministries.
• California policymakers and justice leaders value UULMCA as a visible and credible partner in advancing justice in California.

These are so exciting and we are already getting to work on their implementation! These are living ends for us, not just words on paper, and they are guiding how we approach each item in our organization. Of course, while we started as an organization looking at creating statewide systemic change, we have also expanded to training justice leaders, creating experiential learning opportunities, and supporting congregations and individual justice leaders, both in skill-building and creating change at the local and federal levels of policy-making.

With our partner organization, the UU Legislative Ministry Action Network, CA, UULMCA has been at the forefront of a multi-tiered approach to systemic change combined with effective education and skill-building on key topics. In January, we will be changing our name to the Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry of California to better reflect these priorities. We look forward to your continued support under our new banner!