ssues
Andrew Fink, August 6, 2006
We come to church for the music,
for solace, and for assistance in living a better life, among other
things. No one comes to a church service
because he wants to listen to a talk about church governance. For that I apologize, because today you are
going to get no help in living a better life.
You are going to hear me talk about the problems and issues that face
this church in the next year or few years.
THE MINISTER: Nana has announced
her retirement. We will have her as our
minister for only eleven months more.
Then what do we do? The easy and
obvious answer is that we then go through the process of hiring another
minister. First get an interim minister,
then a permanent one. But, that may not
be the right answer. There are many in
the congregation, primarily those who have been involved in growing this church
and meeting its financial needs, who believe we cannot afford a minister.
Recently, a church leader who has
been around a long time told me that we hired Nana in the expectation that we
would grow enough to pay her salary. We
haven’t grown enough, he says, so we cannot get a new minister.
Others have said that without a
minister the church will lose members, particularly the younger members with
families. While this would be a great
loss in the character and attractiveness of the church, monetarily we would be
ahead if we had no minister.
I want a minister. I will do what I can to persuade the board and
the congregation to replace Nana.
However, I am not naïve. I know
that we cannot afford a minister at our current size with our current revenue
sources.
So, we must either a) find a way to
afford a minister; or b) find a way to live without one. This is not an easy challenge.
The board is going through the
process of preparing to look for a minister and finding an interim minister, on
the assumption that we will replace Nana.
That doesn’t mean that we have decided to replace Nana. It means only that we have not decided not to
replace her. Until we know what we are
going to do we have to continue the process or the decision will be made by
default.
MUSIC: We have a magnificent music program. How can music be an issue for the
church? Well, here’s how. That music does not just happen. Sue and Karla, mostly Sue, spend hour after
hour preparing the music for each service.
They must choose it, practice it, and when there is a choir, conduct it.
They are tired. They feel unappreciated. They cannot go on as they have. We pay the minister. We pay the Religious Education Director. We pay for all of the professional services
to the church, except music. The Music
Committee notices that they are not recognized in the budget. They make comparisons to RE and it hurts.
In this church as in every group
there is a limit to the burden put on volunteers. Our board is elected for two-year terms, as
are the officers. Yet, we operate on the
assumption that the music volunteers will go on forever. Well, they won’t.
I feel that our music is crucial to
the future and health of the church. We
have to find a way to permit Sue to continue in her role, beyond that which we
can ask of a volunteer – we have to pay her.
Of course, that means we have to have the money. If we can’t afford a minister, how can we
afford a music director?
In prior years the music committee
has violated the copyright of the music they have passed out to us and used in
the choir. The Finance Committee
recommended a budget sufficient to avoid breaking the law, and the Board
approved it. In addition, in an effort
to prevent hard feelings, the board voted a one-time allocation of $2000 to the
music committee from the second phase of the Berlow
gift.
THE BUILDING: The Strategic
Planning Committee found that nearly all of us were unhappy with one aspect of
the building or another. While few of us
said we wanted a different building, the only way we can accommodate the
desires of the congregation is to move to another facility. Well, that’s not going to happen in the near
future.
Meanwhile, due to lack of
maintenance (as a result of lack of funds) the building has been falling
apart. A few years ago our furnace
quit. We replaced it with loans from
members. Then we got the members to cancel
the debt. Our walls are leaking, so we
hired Pieter to tuck-point them. Our
plumbing is bad, so Pieter got a plumber to give us a bid on repairs. The building is essentially unusable in the
summer, at least for those of us better built for the
Every dollar put into the building
is a dollar lost, because eventually we will have to move. On the other hand, we have to spend money to
keep it going.
The board recently told Pieter to
limit the plumbing repairs to the kitchen.
We did not want to put more money into the building than necessary.
INDIVIDUAL LEADERSHIP GROWTH: This
church has been held together by a small group of long time members. Ruth Berlow and
Warren McFerran have recently died, but they are only
the most recent. Others, whom I will not
name here, are getting …..uh……not so young. While I am a fairly new member, I do draw
social security. There is only one
person on the board who stays up to midnight on New Year’s Eve.
We need younger leadership. That’s a long-term problem and will not
become a crisis in the next two years.
But there is a crisis coming. Bill Wright, one of those not so young,
long-term members will no longer be our bookkeeper, as of June 30. We need a replacement. It is not a big job. Not as big as the music director. But it is a job that must be done for the
church to survive.
Our Treasurer, Marv Johnson, is
also in the not so young category and will retire from his job on June 30.
The board has agreed to make the
nominating committee a leadership development committee and the nominating
committee has accepted this expanded responsibility. When one of them calls you, please do what
they ask, particularly if social security is decades away for you.
MONEY AND GROWTH: You may have noticed that most of these
issues focus on money. Over the last 10
years we have failed to have a balanced budget every year. We survived only because of extraordinary
gifts from members, in excess of their pledges and most recently because of
Ruth Berlow’s gift.
I have always thought that
increased membership was the solution, but it is not as easy as that. We have grown significantly in recent
years. And our pledges have grown to be
greater than ever before, even though in the last two years we have lost two of
our greatest contributors.
We need more growth, or we will
assuredly be unable to afford a minister and a music program.
The Board of Trustees has addressed
the need for growth in two ways. First,
we have asked Shawn Willson to develop a marketing
program for the church. We are planning
to use the second phase Berlow gift to sell Harbor UU
Congregation to the
Second, we have decided to buy a
small trailer to help us market the church at the Farmers’ Market and other
places. This will make it easier for us
to continue the coffee service at the Farmers’ market, and hopefully we will
use it at other places, like the county fair, the blueberry festival, etc.
APATHY: I believe apathy is the greatest challenge we
have. People are not taking interest in
these and the other issues facing the church.
If you want the church to survive, if you want the church to go in a
direction you agree with, please get involved.
The Board of Directors meets every month on the second Thursday at 7:00
p.m. All of you are welcome. Anyone who comes will be given an opportunity
to speak. You do not have to be on the
board to help us address the issues that are facing this church.