By words and actions, people all over the world give voice to URI. Their voices remind us what URI means and inspire even more of us to speak out and spread URI’s message.
URI is an interconnected worldwide web of groups called Cooperation Circles. Each one strives to transform the world toward peace, justice and healing. Along the way, transformation happens in local communities and within individuals. Dr. Gary Gunderson, in his book, Boundary Leaders, Leadership Skills for People of Faith (Fortress Press, Minneapolis 2004), highlights URI’s radically different organizational structure as the right vehicle to shepherd profound change in an uncertain world.
Gary said “webs” are designed to thrive amid instability… and, “you find them where people are engaging complex community dynamics to create something truly new.” Currently, Gary is Vice President, Faith and Health Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Greensboro/Winston-Salem, North Carolina Area
About URI, Gary writes:
It [URI] emerged among a highly diverse group of people – a web if there ever was one - who were deeply moved by the failure of religious powers to deal with ethnic violence and its closely linked global challenges.
URI took the form of a radically different organizational logic of Cooperation Circles…The art of the Cooperation Circle is born when diverse people appreciate a radical new possibility around which energy and commitment form with speed and beauty, just as when a string is dropped into a glass of sugar water. Each circle emphasizes transformation, each promotes a functional vision of accomplishing something transformative, whether mundane or bold. The action that is the visible magnet for the group is expected to be sustained by a quality of relationships among the members in which they can experience their own transformation too.
