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?