October 20, 2009
Written by Gregg Brekke

The UCC's Executive Council, acting on the recommendation of General Synod 27, has approved a plan to revisit governance of the national setting.

A working group was chartered at the Executive Committee's fall meeting, Oct. 17-19, in Cleveland. Twenty-nine delegates, representing diverse constituencies within the UCC, were assigned to this Unified Governance (UGOV) dialog and discernment team.

Members of the working group are: Douglas Andrews, United Black Christians; Jim Antal, Council of Conference Ministers; Marti Baumer, Executive Council; Diane Bennekamper, Local Church Ministries; Lynda Bigler, UCC Disabilities Ministries; Geoffrey Black, Collegium; Anita Bradshaw, Office of General Ministries; Deborah Blood, Wider Church Ministries; Elizabeth Clement, Office of General Ministries; James Darnell, Justice and Witness Ministries; Mike Downs, Pension Boards; Julia Estrella, Pacific Islander and Asian American Ministries; Sylvia Ferrell-Jones, United Church Foundation; Yvette Flunder, Seminaries of the United Church of Christ; Edith Guffey, Collegium; Beau Heyen, Council for Youth and Young Adult Ministries; Linda Jaramillo, Collegium; Bill Land, Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice; Marilyn Pagán-Banks, Council for Hispanic Ministries; Rich Pleva, Council of Conference Ministers; Phil Porter, Coalition for LGBT Concerns; Inez Reid, Local Church Ministries; Cally Rogers-Witte, Collegium; Steve Sterner, Collegium; Jeannie Thompson, Justice and Witness Ministries; Bing Tso, Wider Church Ministries; and Bernard Wilson, Executive Council. Representatives from CAIM (Council for American Indian Ministry) and two additional Young Adult representatives are to be named.

Key milestones will guide the Unified Governance process, culminating in the proposed presentation of bylaw and constitution changes to General Synod 28 in 2011.

Steps include the December design of a dialog process concerning governance to be used throughout the denomination and constituency groups by July, status reports to the Executive Council in spring 2010, presentation of recommendations to the Executive Council and Covenanted Ministry Boards in spring 2011. Upon approval at the spring 2011 Board meetings, the recommendations will proceed to the General Synod for vote.

In his address to the Executive Council earlier in the weekend, General Minister and President the Rev. Geoffrey A. Black listed governance as one of his three main priorities, saying, "No matter what happens with our work specifically on the design of our governance structure, we are going to need to develop a culture of governance here in the United Church of Christ."

United Church of Christ News Service