Connecting

My notes of the meeting on 8/29/2010 for CnE about how Pilgrim connects to other organizations.

We began with a review of the many relationships we enjoy with other organizations. They are with

• other UCC churches and institutions [Association and Conference, Deaconess Foundation, Neighborhood Houses],

• other religiously based organizations [UCM, Union Council, Faith Aloud, MCU, CWS, CWU],

• other public benefit organizations [Union Ave Assoc., BJC, The Muny, the Science Center], etc.

In addition to specific local congregations, there are easily a hundred associations or corporations with which we have had some interaction around a shared interest.

A small number of these are formal affiliations in which we have elected or appointed representation. These are delegates to meetings or people who represent Pilgrim on Boards or committees of other organizations like UCM.

Mostly the connections come from individual members who have an interest in the activities of a given organization, attend meetings, or supply Pilgrim with information about the organization's activities. In some cases the interest also drives a donation from Pilgrim through the work of the Community Partnership Ministry.

Clearly there are many more organizations which we have common interests with than we can support or even follow closely. We must set priorities. There are a couple of ways we do that.

• We elect representatives to help us connect to certain other bodies [like Union Council,]
• We vote money into the budget to support certain organizations [like OCWM,]
• We ask Community Partnership to provide leadership in our support by authorizing them to use their budget according to their discretion, and

• We invite members to promote the activities of organizations they support through announcements in PP and in worship.

Some aspects of this system are working about as well as we can expect them to.

• We have delegates to meetings of the Association and Conference. We recruit members to serve on the Boards of UCM and Union Council. We really have to do some arm twisting to fill those positions. It is not likely that we are going to get more members to come forward for those sorts of tasks unless the organization in question is one the member has some passion for.

• We set budget numbers for the big ticket items and allow CP to make smaller decisions on our behalf. This allows us to be intentional as a Congregation and still have some flexibility to respond to the needs of the community as they arise. We are not likely to come up with more money anytime soon.

If we are going to do much to clarify and intensify our relationships to other organizations, we probably won't do it by appointing delegates or funding projects. The only resource it seems we have not fully tapped is the enthusiasm and creativity of our members.

During the initial stages of this conversation we heard from several people about their ideas for what we "should" be doing. Paul Sonderegger has a vision of a program for families in the neighborhood who have young children and are looking to do family activities that communicate and teach spiritual values. Mark Barnett thinks we should be more active around improving the quality of education. Sara Coffin is concerned about food insecurity and sees options for a more robust community garden. Velma Hunt is concerned about the physical security of the neighborhoods and thinks we can build stronger alliances with municipal workers. These are all excellent ideas which are completely consistent with Pilgrim's mission as I understand it. But how are we going to get these off the ground?

Let's look at the project Paul initiated--which I have taken to calling Second Saturday--as an example of the problem. The project was named in these conversations and is aimed at reaching out to our neighbors so it seems to fall to Communications and Evangelism, but it is a program that looks more like something Christian Education would do. So who owns it and how do we keep from stepping on each other's toes? Who will staff it? Is this something that the new CE person will administrate? Who decides?

I don't think we want members going off on their own to create programs in Pilgrim's name without some clear lines of accountability, but we also don't want to stifle people's enthusiasm and creativity. What this suggests to me is that we can up the voltage on these sorts of projects by:

• Actively engaging each other about just where our passion for ministry lies. Can we make it an assumption of membership that we are each called to ministry and can we make it a task of the church to identify, support, and authorize that call?

• Building an incubator for ministry such that members can identify other members with similar passions and interests and can build constructive alliances.

• Clarify the administrative process for getting a project authorized by the Congregation so that everyone knows they will be supported and how they can collect that support.

This is not something we have in place at this point. If we were to create it, who would make it happen, and how would they get the authority to do so?

Reaching Out Summary

Following worship Sunday the CnE Ministry hosted the second in the series of four conversations about who we say we are as Pilgrims and where we see the church going.  A summary of Mark’s PowerPoint with expanded comments is to be found here.

If you have comments about the summary, and I hope you do, please post them on the site itself, not by replying to this post.  If you have any trouble getting onto the site or registering or logging in, please contact me here, MarkLeeRobinson@gmail.com.  I will help you get on.

Be sure to set your preferences for notification by going into your account in PBWorks, the site that hosts our wiki.  [A wiki is a web page that many people can easily edit.  Ours is called PilgrimNext.]

Conversation on Reaching Out: Mission and Program

Pilgrims,

We are getting ready for the next in our series of conversations about the future of Pilgrim. On August 1 we talked about worship, the center of our life as a community of faith, and many of us continued a spirited conversation over the past week about financial concerns, whether we have decided to stay in our current building, which of the spaces in the church provides the best worship experience, and whether we should restructure the current space in the sanctuary and chancel.

This Sunday, August 15, we will look at the ways we reach out from that center to engage the community around us. This includes what we say is our mission (who we are and what we do on behalf of whom) and at least one idea for how we can turn that mission into a program that meets the needs of a specific group of neighbors.

I have written about the question of mission and posted it on the wiki at this location. I look forward to your comments but urge you to post them on the wiki rather than emailing them to this entire list.

• If you want to just read what others write you don’t need to log onto the wiki.
• If you want to comment or you want to be notified when others comment you should log on.
• If you haven’t created a login you can do that by following the link at the upper right of the page.
• If you have logged in but don’t get email notification when others post comments or replies, click on the “account” link at the upper right and check on the home tab under Preferences to be sure that you have elected to get notifications and set how often you would like them.

Mark Lee Robinson

Worship and Fellowship on August 8

This morning we danced and sang and became the light of the world. Unfortunately we didn’t get video or stills of the Pilgrimen doing the prelude or the postlude.  The pictures include a couple of short videos of the dancers so be patient as they may take a minute to load.  As always, just click on the picture below to be take to the Picasa site and then click on slideshow at the upper left to see them all.

2010-08-08

Nametags

Pilgrims;

We have gotten out of the habit of wearing our name tags. Perhaps this is because we think everyone knows us or perhaps because we have left them at home or in the car after forgetting to put them back in the rack. Please make an effort to wear your nametag. If you don’t have one, just let Valerie know and she will make you a new one.

Worship on the 1st of August

We gathered in the chancel to Ride the Ark of Redemption and Feast at the Lord’s Table.

Click on the picture below for the full gallery.

2010-08-01

Notes from “Worship Space and Experience”

Pilgrims:

Following worship on August 1, 2010 we had an open meeting of the Communications and Evangelism Ministry to discuss ideas folks have about the worship space and the worship experience. Remembering that this is just a discussion and not a decision-making body, we came up with the following observations and recommendations.

• Our sanctuary is a beautiful room and it has excellent acoustics. Whatever we might do to alter the design we want to preserve its aesthetics.
• Our efforts to worship in the chancel are not working well. We don’t want to sit with our backs to the band. Sitting in the choir pews can end up feeling cramped. We have been able to sit closer to each other but there are many people who are more comfortable out in the pews than up in the chancel.
• We want to remember that the most important qualities about Pilgrim come from how we are with each other (warm and friendly) rather than from what nice things we have. Nevertheless, the sanctuary needs a major overhaul. We have peeling paint and frayed carpet and crumbling tile.
• It doesn’t make sense to renovate the room if we aren’t going to stay in the building. We are also in the process of deciding what sort of pastoral leadership we are looking for. We have some bigger decisions to make before we decide on the paint color. We will not know what direction to move until we have settled the larger questions.
• Some of the ideas we have for renovation of the space are very expensive. Others can be done simply by working together. We should not abandon ideas for what we need just because we don’t yet see how God will provide.

Given all of these considerations and aware that the Sunday morning worship event is the central event in the life of the congregation and that the quality of that experience depends to a very large degree on the space in which we meet, we can move ahead on designing what we would like to have the space be like and what we want to be able to do with it. Therefore we may recommend that:

A team be empowered to consult with an architect to develop a master plan for renovation of the sanctuary which will respond to certain considerations:

• Create greater flexibility in the chancel such that there are fewer barriers and greater freedom of movement without losing the elegance of the current design. This might include options for moving the lectern, pulpit, and altar as well as the choir seating and modesty panels; and creating handrails or ramps to provide greater accessibility.
• Give a sense of a space within the space so that we can have a sense of intimacy even within the big room.
• Exercise care that the choice of materials (wood, tile, carpet) respect and preserve the auditory as well as visual characteristics of the room.

Complied by Mark Lee Robinson

August 1, 2010