I’m a member/employee at my church, and have been struggling in recent months to do my job and feel safe in my community because of our minister. She is extraordinarily controlling, dismissive, gossipy, and generally seemingly out of touch with the practice of our UU values. When I first started attending we were lay-led and struggling to find a minister, so there’s this weird aspect to the congregational relationship where many people are super grateful because she stepped up and took charge, but those who actually have to work with her on a close basis (most church employees) are struggling. When she first came, I personally felt written off by her (she would literally ignore me if I tried to talk to her)until she realized that I was “important” in some way as I am heavily involved both in logistics for the church and several of our activities. I wanted to write this off as generational and cultural differences as she is from the opposite side of the country from our church, but I’ve continued to feel dismissed in our interactions. One of the first times I spoke with her it was to discuss use of our space for letter writing campaign for a cease-fire in Gaza. I was told that we “can’t have it here“ despite the fact that other UUs in our area were at the time doing the similar campaigns. She later made it clear from the pulpit that she “agreed with President Biden” on condemning the protests against the genocide, which is ironic because I’ve been told several times not to bring up politics. She has: -Repeatedly ignored my and others instructions in how to treat our sound equipment, resulting in us having to purchase new microphones that we had not budgeted for. -Gotten up out of her seat and gone to the back of the room mid-service to tell me I was doing something with our projection she didn’t like -Complained in spaces where I was not present about me posting on our social media without her permission (I started our instagram with her and she does not post on it- and all I was posting was taken directly from our newsletter. -taken down decorations put up by others directly before a service. -multiple times kicked me and my coworker out of the chapel while we were securing equipment which has to be done after service. -berated our pianist for using her phone during service to look at the script. -when I performed at our auction, she looking at her phone a for THE ENTIRETY of my 10 minute performance. Today, she sent an email thanking me for my “attempts” to moderate our facebook page after she promoted a post about us being queer affirming that was immediately swarmed by the wrong kind of attention, and reminding me not to post anything “political”. I assume the latter was in regard to my post about Indigenous People’s Day, in which I shared information about the specific tribe whose lands the church resides on. I was very careful to share only facts in the post, and I quite literally used to work at a museum that covered 19th century history in our area, so I’m unsure how that could be considered political. I’m a pretty direct communicator and would love to just work this out by sitting down with her, but on occasions I’ve met with her for lunch or meetings I have found her to be very unreceptive and quite prone to uncomfortably racially charged stories about her time in India. From my talks with other congregants and staff members, feeling uncomfortable with her seems to be a common occurrence (4/5 staff I’ve spoken to) and several members, including our oldest member. I am considering going to the board about it, but I’m currently on my way to petition them to add social media management to my job title as there is an increasing need that cannot be met through volunteer work and I don’t want to ruffle any feathers until that’s gone through. My church is pretty much my whole community, and while I don’t want to even consider leaving, I’m unsure what other course of action I can even take here.

How are we feeling about article II?