OUR COVENANT
Our revised covenant was adopted at a special meeting of the congregation on May 5, 2019
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Rockland
Congregational Covenant
In our efforts to live out our mission, we strive to...
Welcome all who enter our building.
Ensure that everyone in the congregation has a voice.
Listen to each other with patience and respect.
Assume good intentions.
Openly acknowledge, in appreciation, our commonalities and differences.
Speak to educate and encourage.
Seek to present and receive diverse perspectives. Strive for inclusivity.
Participate in congregational groups and activities to the extent
comfortable.
In supporting the community, step back and forward as needed.
Use peaceful and respectful language when dealing with conflict.
Respect the personal and physical space of others; ask for consent
before touching people, for example.
Acknowledge when you have been hurt or have hurt others
(“oops” and “ouch”).
Hold true to confidences.
We understand that this covenant may be broken and can be renewed.
The following covenant was adopted at a Special Meeting of the Society on October 29, 1961, and was amended at the April 1979 Annual Meeting.
We join ourselves together as a body of religiously committed men and women, believing that the values which give worth and dignity to our lives will be fostered in the common life of the congregation. Therefore, out of deep concern of conscience, we make this covenant with one another:
We pledge our loyalty to this church, its purposes and polity; we will maintain it and take part in its work and worship.
We undertake to seek a faith to live by, whose sole authority is that it meets the test of our conscience, experience and need, recognizing as we do so that our knowledge is partial and our conclusions tentative.
We will respect one another amid differing convictions, maintaining our beliefs with that responsible self-discipline which is the condition of freedom.
We acknowledge our duty to the community and to all humankind to work for the common good, to speak out against injustice, and to bear ourselves worthily of the society of free men and women.
We will strive to give one another of our best selves in the exchange of fellowship, with mutual concern and support, charity and forbearance, friendship and affection.
To our children we offer our loving concern for their growth and welfare; we propose to bring them into the presence of wisdom old and new, to teach them to be undaunted in the face of evil, and to guide them so that in time they can guide themselves.
And for ourselves, we resolve to live uprightly with integrity of mind and heart, so far as we are given strength to do so. And whatever is good and true and beautiful and high and holy, that we would follow and make the measure of our being, so that we may grow in spirit, and help one another to grow.