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A ROADMAP FOR THE FUTURE
(ADAPTED FROM THE BOARD-LED SERVICE ON JUNE 12, 2011 –
PENTECOST SUNDAY)
In the first part of the
Message, John Sallmen spoke about what the Board sees as its priorities and
what the implications are for our church life. Chair Wayne Dawson and Treasurer Lynne Raybould then engaged in a
dialogue on the subject of Mission-based Budgeting. Below are highlights from their comments.
I
am pleased to speak on the subject of what the Board sees as its priorities,
and what the implications are for our church life. One high priority of the
Board is to set policies to guide the different Teams as they carry out their
work ... work that, as you will hear, arises from conversations with you, the
congregation. That’s important. A second priority is that decisions at the
Board are made through a process of discernment, without being in a hurry,
listening respectfully, and not voting until everyone is ready – discernment
attempts, prayerfully, to identify what we feel ‘God wants us to do’. But the Board is leading the service as an
expression of the Board’s highest priority.
Our Chair, Wayne Dawson, strongly encouraged us to lead a service early
in the time that Rev. Margaret is away.
For some time, the Board has been coming to the understanding that the
work of the Board is not separate from a spiritual dimension, but everything
that it does is spiritual. Thus, the
Board has determined that its highest priority, its primary function is to
provide spiritual leadership to the congregation and to provide opportunities
for the congregation to grow in spiritual understanding and practice. And further, the Board has decided that it
will measure its leadership effectiveness by the spiritual health and growth of
the congregation. Thus, the Board needs
to model spiritual health and growth even as we know that there are those in
our congregation who already model spiritual discipline and practice.
And spiritual growth most often comes at times of challenge and change. Isn’t it interesting that the service led by
the Board falls on the day of Pentecost, the birthday of the church – the day
when the Spirit was poured out on the disciples – certainly a life-changing
event for the disciples and for the church.
The Revised Standard Version tells the story this way. ...
suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled
all the house where they were sitting.
And there appeared to them tongues, as of fire, distributed and resting
on each of them ... and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to
speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. No matter what translation we use, the
experience that the disciples had was one that they did not invite. They didn’t know that it was coming. They had no say in it. They had no control over its arrival. And if I had been there, I’m not sure that I
would have liked it. What are we to
think of the fact that the coming of the Spirit is compared to the rush of a mighty wind? It might suggest that the coming of the
Spirit does not always conform to the nice, comfortable, orderly and gentle
ways that don’t challenge us much but sometimes comes unbidden and has a
certain wildness and scariness to it and demands that we move forward. The Spirit in the form of a mighty wind gets our attention. Peter seemed to take this kind of God’s
activity in stride. In his sermon he
said that the prophet Joel had declared that God would pour out his Spirit on every
kind of people. He had faith in God’s
leading. And thus began the church’s
journey which continues to this day.
The Book of Acts records the journey of the early church. It tells of the growth of the church, of the
opposition to it by the rulers of the day, the difficulties it experienced when
newcomers joined, and how it dealt with those difficulties. And everything happens empowered by, and
under the guidance of, the Spirit. You
might want to read the Book of Acts. The
Message is easy to read and you’ll be inspired by the passion that the
disciples had for the Gospel. You’ll
also notice that sometimes the church had smooth sailing and sometimes it
didn’t. Most of their internal
difficulties arose because they got new members who thought differently than
the original members. Does this sound
familiar? I heard a minister say once,
that whenever one new person arrives at church and decides to make that place
his church home, the whole place changes.
Something for us to think about.
When
disagreements arose, how did the early church settle them? Members did their best to discern the will of
God. First, they gathered – we aren’t
told if some stayed away - they gathered together – sometimes they called a
special meeting; they presented their arguments back and forth - sometimes
heatedly (with great passion); they listened for wisdom from their leaders and
from each other; they prayed; they came to a decision - sometimes they
compromised; they elected people they trusted to carry out certain work; they
did their very best to try to discern God’s will. And they changed; and they grew. Speaking of change, have you noticed the
yellow ribbons at the Pen Centre that are wrapped around pillars that are to be
re-covered? The yellow ribbons say change is a beautiful thing. Can that be true, not only for a mall but for
a church?
It’s
not surprising that the Church of today tries to discern God’s will to bring
about renewal. Niagara Presbytery, in an
attempt to discern what was best for Mountainview, appointed a reviewer, and
later an Interim Minister, and soon a Transition Team and a new Board were
formed to work with the Interim Minister to carry out a long list of
tasks. I’ll paraphrase a few.
The Leadership at Mountainview will: a) provide opportunities for healing among
current and past leadership and between congregation and Presbytery; b)
review policies and procedures… c) restructure the Mountainview Council
and its committees... d) do things in such a way that the congregation, those
serving on Council and its committees,
and those otherwise exercising leadership become familiar with the
language and practices of spiritual discernment. What an unbelievable task that
the Interim Minister, the Transition Team and the new Board has been and is
charged with. What an opportunity for us
to be a part of our own personal and our church community’s spiritual renewal
and to move forward in faith, like Abraham, not knowing exactly what the end
is.
The
past 2 years we have had workshops, worship services, conversation cafes,
congregational meetings, some 9 or 10 congregational events designed to fulfill
these tasks and lead us to renewal. And
we carry out the process of discernment when we prayerfully elect a nominating
committee, when we consider deeply whether we wish to put our name forth or to
let our name stand for election. Most
recently, the congregation elected members to sit on a Joint Search Committee,
the entire process being carried out with prayerful consideration .
I
read the words, review, restructure, healing, discernment – and there are
others – conversations - common vision -
These words all suggest the possibility of renewal and suggest a word
that we hear everywhere - change. Can
change be a beautiful thing?
I
said earlier in my message that the Board has decided to measure its effectiveness
by the spiritual health and growth of the congregation. I want now to call upon Wayne and Lynne to
expand on this statement …
Lynne: Wayne,
if the Board measures its success by the spiritual health and growth of the
congregation, then its primary responsibility must be to focus its work on the
congregation’s spiritual health and growth. Would you not agree?
Wayne: I agree
Lynne. It doesn’t mean that we don’t manage the church finances and other items
in a business-like fashion. Rather, it just means that our focus and energies
should be directed as much as possible to spiritual growth issues, and that our
Mission, Vision and Vision Path work should reflect this responsibility.
Lynne: Let’s talk
about our Mission/Vision/Vision Path. My understanding of these words is that
Mission is really just about ‘who we are’ and ‘who we want to be or become’.
Vision is then a set of objectives stating where we want to get to in, say, three
to five years that would help us to be closer to actually modeling our mission
statement. And then, Vision Path, is really just the specific activities we
plan to do to achieve that Vision. The three of them together,
Mission/Vision/Vision Path, might just be seen as a church version of a
“business plan”.
Wayne: You are
absolutely correct Lynne. Mission/Vision/Vision Path identifies what we want to
do/become and provides a roadmap for getting us to that destination - in other
words, a church business plan. But don’t
be fooled, it’s not the same as a commercial plan. A commercial business plan
is developed by the company’s Board of Directors on behalf of what it perceives
its shareholders would want, and then the shareholders ultimately approve that
business plan at their annual meeting. The question I have for you is, “Who are
the shareholders that would approve a church business plan?”
Lynne: I know
many would say our shareholders are the congregation, and technically that is
probably accurate. But when I think about this more deeply, I realize that the
congregation is not really the ‘shareholder’ of our church. The head of our
church is Jesus and we really have only ‘one’ shareholder - JESUS. WOW, that line of thinking changes
everything. Because the congregation’s job, along with the Board, would then
really be to discern what Jesus would want us to do as a congregation in our
local community. It kind of takes away from what “I think” we should do …
doesn’t it?
Wayne: Yes, through
study, thoughtful discussion and PRAYER we need to figure out what “God’s plan
is for Mountainview United Church in the coming years”. This can be a difficult
and unsettling process because God’s plan is often quite different from the
plan we would personally want or even a plan that would feel most
comfortable. We have already discerned our “mission”, that is, that God
would want us to be a community church that is service oriented and extremely
welcoming to all. I envisage that as us being an open beacon of faith in our
community that draws others into the experience of Jesus and community service.
Lynne: I
understand now why our Mission Statement work was done as part of a Sunday
Service – to try to have ‘God’s’ influence on our decisions.
Wayne: Yes. Lynne,
now as Treasurer, do you have any ideas of how we might change the budget
process to better reflect this direction, while still being fiscally
responsible.
Lynne: Well, I
have just read a book called “Not Your Parents’ Offering Plate” by Cliff
Christopher that talks about Mission or Program Budgeting. It fits perfectly
with this direction and is being used by many successful churches of all
denominations throughout North America. The primary message in it is that
people will give enthusiastically for a cause, a goal or a program that is
achieving real and visible results. However, churches or charities that
continually cry hard times and ask for money to just ‘keep the doors open’ get
only a limited and barely sustainable response. The concepts in this book are
also in line with something called NARRATIVE BUDGETING that many United
Churches are using or starting to use to better communicate this with their
members.
Wayne: What is
program budgeting and explain to me what this could mean for our church?
Lynne: The budget
is broken down into fixed costs and mission costs. Fixed costs are primarily
the building and its maintenance, plus a few other items. Mission costs relate
to each of our programs. For example, one of our mission oriented programs is
guaranteed to be ‘creating worshipful experiences for members to grow in faith’
or, at any rate, something along this line. The organist salary, part of our
clergy’s salary, etc. would be assigned as part of achieving this mission
objective. This allows the congregation to understand exactly what their Sunday
offering and the time they spend volunteering is achieving in this church.
Wayne: The goal
then is to minimize the fixed costs and to decide on what mission oriented programs
you want and to prioritize them for funding.
Lynne: Yes.
Wayne: The building
is a major cost. It is necessary for us to have a home and a place to worship
to carry out our programs. But at the same time, I can hear Jesus saying: “Yes,
the building is good folks, but it doesn’t do anything to achieve the type of
things I and my father would want to be done in this faith community. I am
interested in what you are doing to increase your faith and understanding in me
and my father, what you are doing to increase my presence in the local
community, how much are you ministering to the sick and disadvantaged, and what
you are doing to encourage social justice in this world I have created!”
In
that light, we are looking at ways to cut our fixed costs to enable us to
maximize our program budgets. We will be trying out many new ideas in the
coming months. The first two examples of this are: we have applied and have
been accepted for receiving the higher kilowatt-hour rates for producing
electricity by solar panels on our roof. There is still much to investigate and
things to overcome before this could become a reality. We have agreed to have Niagara College
student teams, as part of their regular studies, prepare a plan for us to
naturalize some of our grounds to minimize maintenance costs (this also
recognizes that we no longer have a young membership that can volunteer for
this kind of work). We will need to explore many new ideas and initiatives such
as these as we move into the future. Some of these ideas may work out and
others may have to be dropped upon study … but we need to be continually
challenging ourselves
Lynne: Minimizing
fixed costs is a ‘no brainer’ Wayne. But how is the Board planning to help the
congregation discern what programs Jesus would want us to concentrate on in our
local community? Is there a process we could use to help us?
Wayne: In addition
to three sessions on marriage policy, we are organizing three conversation
cafes after church services this fall for this specific purpose. The board has
set aside Sep 18th for the Worship, Outreach & Christian Development Teams; Oct 16th for the Membership, Pastoral Care &
Communication Teams; and, Nov 6th for the Finance &
Property Teams. We hope they focus on a ‘discernment’ or ‘what Jesus would want
us to do’ approach through prayer, learning and constructive dialogue. Once the teams have proposed a program to the
Board (actually three programs: the sky is the limit one/a more middle of the
road one/a bare bones one), the Board will have to put together a mission
oriented program and budget package for congregational discussion and
prioritization – possibly a conversation café in January. By the time it gets
to the congregational meeting, the budget and programs should be well defined
and the approval process somewhat anti-dramatic by then. To put it in more
blunt terms, we are providing an opportunity for everyone to participate and
ensure their views are part of the congregation’s church mission programming,
and disagreement of the decisions made from those who have chosen not to
participate will be hollow at best
Lynne: It will be
important for the finance team to be able to identify where the costs should be
allocated to communicate this more narrative budget to the congregation. It
certainly will be more enabling for members of the congregation to know where
their money is going and what it is achieving. For example, how much of our
total budget is really going to worship, to outreach, etc.
Wayne: And
hopefully Lynne, it will be aligned with what our Father in Heaven would want as well.
In
summary, the Board has chosen a path of measuring the success of its leadership
on the spiritual health and growth of the members; and to ensure its success by
developing, with the congregational members, a mission/vision/vision path and
related mission oriented programs which are compatible with this goal.
On
this day of Pentecost, we are hopeful that congregants will also take some time
to look at their personal contribution to enabling this spirit within our
church community; and to commit to continue this contribution by participating
in the conversation cafes and decisions we have to make in the coming months.
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