What Do We Do About the Big Ball of Yuck?
Rev. Breanna Illéné, Director of Ecumenical Innovation and Justice Initiatives
During the past few weeks, we have been meeting with pastors and leaders across the state and so many people are asking what they can do to effect change when the world seems overwhelming. Facing executive orders, broken systems, defunding of services, and the same injustices we’ve been struggling with for years sends us into a swirl of wondering where to start and what to do.
We’ve been sitting with a metaphor at the WCC for the past few years that we’ve found really helpful. When we look at the mess of our world, we realize we have a big ball of yuck. There is racism, poverty, oppression, and so many other issues tied together and tangled up. That big ball of yuck can be incredibly overwhelming.
We’ve been encouraging people to look at that big ball, pick one string, and get to work. What is an issue you can work on? For example, perhaps you are passionate about housing. Start there. Working on housing may lead you to learn about racism in housing and the history of redlining. It may lead you to ask questions about poverty. Or to an entirely different topic you had no idea intersected with housing (I recently learned all about sprinkler systems and zoning codes and the effects they have on the affordability of housing). Pulling on one string may lead to working on how it intersects with other strings/issues.
In an ever-churning news cycle, it is easy to get distracted by all the issues. We want to help everyone. Sometimes we feel compelled to start working on one string and then pick up a second, and a third, and more until we are overwhelmed. But what if our faith calls us to only focus on one string? We are called to discern where God is calling us and do deep work there, and then trust that God will call other people to hold other strings and they will do that work. We may meet where our strings intersect, but we focus on our call and have faith that God is moving in unraveling this ball of yuck through the work of many, many people.
So, I invite you to slow down. Spend some time in discernment. What is God calling you to? What is your string? How can you start the work of unraveling? How can you find others working on the same string? Together we can make progress.
As the 2025-2026 legislative session begins, we are organizing clergy and church members to show up at the state capitol to advocate on various topics. We, along with various statewide partners, monitor bills that may be of interest to our members, organize people to join us for legislative hearings (we will help equip and train you to testify, but you can also just attend to watch), and contact state legislators.
As of right now we are monitoring bills on the following topics and invite you to sign up to be notified of opportunities to act.
Bills about Christian Nationalism
If there is a topic you are passionate about, let us know. We are building more channels, and the interests of our members help guide what we work on first.
