For a moment, stretch back in memory to the first time you joined a meeting of this church. It may have been in this sanctuary or in our old sanctuary, in what is now the Learning Center. What was happening then? Were you comfortable, anxious, pleased, hesitant? Remember those moments.
Who were the first people you met? Along the way, between
that first time and now, what are the most intimate, close friendships you have
formed? Feel the warmth of this community, the people around you.
From back then to now, what have been the important events
of your life that have happened within this community, the rites of passage,
births, dedications, coming of age, weddings, separations, divorces, deaths?
This religious community is privileged to encompass the connections between all
of you and all the people who have passed through our doors. So, now, consider
the influence of this community on you and your children. How are you different having come through
these doors? What impact has being part
of this community had on your children?
We come here to expand our hopes, deepen our vision and
stretch forth our hands, knowing not what we might touch but yearning to link
our lives with other lives. We come to give and to receive. We come here to let faith lure us, and then
to take a leap, and grow wings. This is
the role of DuPage Unitarian Universalist Church.
This week DuPage Unitarian Universalist Church turns
61. I have been here for two
anniversaries. Last year we celebrated
the 60th anniversary by talking to one another about how to help our planet; we
learned more about the various ways some of us and others are working to
preserve our planet and to live sustainably—in big ways and small—
and we acted on ways to help our planet by working on our
property, by making re-useable bags from old t-shirts, by taking old crayons
that might have been thrown away and put in landfills, and making them into
large crayons that can be used again.
This year we are celebrating by reviewing what we have
accomplished this past year, what we are planning to accomplish in the years to
come, and what changes we will have to make in order to reach the future we
imagine.
We developed a strategic plan in spring 2015, based on the
congregation’s dreams for the future of this church; three key themes emerged
from your dreams: Social Justice, Events, and Spiritual and Ethical Formation;
we called the Strategic Plan--Dream 2020.
What I want to briefly share with you is the nuts and bolts
of what it means to identify, embrace, and embark on a vision as a
community. It may not have a big “wow”
factor in the short-term, but the long-term results can be spectacular. The Board decided we needed a team to help us
prioritize the details of our Strategic Plan and help us develop the tools needed
to implement the plan. The Strategic Plan Implementation Team (SPIT) met for
the first time in summer 2015 with a focus on tackling enhanced communication
and interaction among our leaders and committees. Would those involved in SPIT
please stand? Thank you for your work.
From that, a high-energy, interactive discussion took place in October among
church leadership, committee chairs, and staff, allowing SPIT to define the
Plan's key goals and outline initial steps to success within those three areas of
congregation-defined themes or focus areas—remember what they are (social
justice, events, and spiritual and ethical formation). What the team identified
as an overarching goal for our leadership, staff, and committees was to work
toward improving satisfaction of all those participating in our church
community, let me just say that again, to work toward improving satisfaction of
all those participating in our church community. Wow!
Can you imagine that? With that
in mind, SPIT has helped to create and strengthen the underlying organizational
structure for future leader/committee/staff collaboration as an important first
step. This church year, the Board trustees helped their committees consider,
assess, evaluate their maturity, in other words assessing how we work within
our groups and with each other, to better assess and be in a position to be
responsive to, how our programs serve you, our members. This has not been a
"one-and-done" process.
Assessing our committees, their goals, their relevance to members' needs
and leadership's objectives will be ongoing, in order to achieve and sustain
successes. And we are already seeing the
results of greater collaboration this year as the congregation was invited to
learn, discuss, and select a social justice project that engages young and old
in planned activities. In addition,
committees are working to identify more events that will bring new people into
our church, and we are offering more opportunities for spiritual and ethical
formation. SPIT will continue to support
and aid our leadership in achieving DuPage Unitarian Universalist Church
goals. But keep in mind the three areas
we are working as a congregation, which have been defined by the congregation: Social Justice, Events, and Spiritual and
Ethical Formation.
Through the focus of these three themes, your church leaders
will strive to achieve the overarching goal of the Strategic Plan--to improve
satisfaction of all those participating in our church community—they will do
this by:
Embracing the changes
needed to inspire interest, interaction, and participation by all of our
members and friends.
And by helping committees and the congregation understand
the various components of the Strategic Plan and who is responsible for what.
And by attending
relevant events to help learn more about the Total Church Experience, your
total church experince. As it so happens, the Chicago Area Unitarian
Universalist Council will meet May 21st here at DuPage Unitarian Universalist
Church to present a panel discussion on the Total Church Experience. All of you are invited to attend. We are working on a definition of the Total
Church Experience that will help church leadership better understand if, when,
and how our programming meets the needs of our members and friends, wherever
they are in their life and spiritual journeys.
And as we, this
congregation, follow this plan that we have envisioned, we are going to have to
define what success looks like.
All right, I have spelled out what is going on right now in
your church. Embracing the change needed
to achieve these goals will mean that there will be changes in our culture as a
congregation, as a Board, as staff, as committees, as well as all the groups in
this church, a change in the way we do things.
One of the changes is that the leadership and staff in this church will
need to check in with you regularly.
Your lay-leaders and staff are most interested in what is working well
to meet your needs, to provide the church experience that you want here at DuPage
Unitarian Universalist Church. Your
leaders and staff are interested in your Total Church Experience. So if you are asked to work with a team of
people to assess the Sunday morning service experience, I hope you will agree
to do so. If you are asked to fill out a
survey about our events, I hope you will do so.
If you are asked to participate in a project that will help us achieve
one of the goals of our strategic plan, I hope you will do so. I know this process can sometimes feel like
being pecked to death by chickens, but together we will achieve our strategic
plan.
We need to celebrate our achievements so far. After the service, go outside and walk our
property. Celebrate our new labyrinth,
play equipment for the kids, and trail around our backlot decorated with
cairns.
And let’s celebrate that about 20% of our congregation,
maybe more, is working on, learning about, reading about, or attending programs
on our social justice initiative, Racial Equity.
And we had a very successful Art Show this weekend;
And we have had increasing numbers of people coming to our
folk music coffee houses;
And we have thriving spiritual direction groups and more
leaders for the groups are being trained so we can offer even more spiritual
direction groups. And new people are
joining us here; we are averaging 15 new visitor information sheets a month; we
are averaging 74 returning visitors a month; and since August of 2015, 13 new
members have joined us. So many things to celebrate.
But you must know we have to challenges to face as
well. While we had 18 new families
pledging this year; and we have lost 7 families. While we have brought in more money in this
annual budget drive than last year, we are still short 33 thousand
dollars. And the only place we can cut
is our staff budget; we will have to cut staff and reduce staff salaries and
benefits. And these staff cuts will have
an impact on our social justice, events, and spiritual and ethical formation
initiatives. I don’t tell you all this
to make you feel bad or guilty; I tell you this so that you can make informed
decisions as a community. Everyone one
of you has the power and responsibility to do something to aid in this
situation; what that looks like for each of you is up to you. But I know we will pull together to face this
situation; I have faith in you.
Even as we have challenges to face, there is much to be
proud of as a congregation. You have
accomplished a lot toward building a foundation for your strategic plan. And you have begun accomplishing some of the
goals you set for yourself last year. I
joined this congregation, at least in part, because I saw in you that you
wanted something more than you had. You
want to grow in numbers; you want to offer more programming; you want to
provide high quality worship and lifespan religious education. And you are willing to risk making mistakes,
to attempt new ways of doing things, and to keep working toward your
goals. You decided to be an
intentionally pluralistic community, offering various opportunities for ethical
and spiritual formation. So, it’s no
surprise we have the Jewish Heritage group, the earth-centered DUUCKIES, the
Jesus Seminar Book Club, the Humanist group, and a Buddhist Sanga all
co-existing and thriving here. We now
have Wednesday contemplative (con tem plau tive) services twice a month. And DuPage Unitarian Universalist church has
committees that are willing to redefine what they need to do in order to
achieve the goals of the strategic plan—one example is the Visitor Relations Committee,
which has been learning more from Unitarian Universalist churches around the
country about how to make people feel welcomed when they walk through our doors
and making some real changes in how we greet new people. And one of
your Board members, Tom Chockley, spear-headed a mentor program to help
new members find their way into being part of this congregation, paring
established members with newer members.
This is not a static congregation. We are on the move. And your leadership is listening to you as we
move forward. I make it a priority to
listen to members who want to give me feedback and so does your Board and your
Committee on Ministries (COM). We want
and need your feedback; we want and need your participation; we want and need
your willingness to adapt and change with us.
What I want to end with is an excerpt from Michael Durall’s
The Almost Church: Redefining Unitarian Universalism for a New Era. Durall has a vision for what Unitarian
Universalism will be in the future if it is to thrive. Some of what he says, you will notice, we
already do here. And while you might not
agree with all that he has to say, what he has to say will inspire and
challenge you, will lead to further conversations that we all need to have, and
will call us to be prepared to adapt to further changes as we work toward our
many goals as a thriving church community.
He writes:
“The people who come to (Unitarian Universalist churches in
the future) will be of all ages. These
places will be noisy and boisterous, full of excitement and energy.
Worship will be highly participatory. People will stand close together, sing
loudly, [dance] and perhaps have their arms about one another’s shoulders. The music—jazz, blues, rock and roll—will be
live, performed by first-rate musicians.
The lighting will be colorful and dramatic.
Worship services will last two or three hours, [I thought I
would see some of you fall out of your chairs when I said that] like services
at Gospel churches today. After the
service, people will stay and share a meal together, prepared by a high quality
caterer. Potlucks will be a relic of the
past…
These churches will not display a ‘theology of
entertainment.” Young Unitarian
Universalists have rejected the excesses of a consumer mentality, and their
theology now includes a strong moral code of right and wrong, taken from
religious and secular sources…their religious values will be strong and
unwavering…
Services will be held Sunday mornings, in the afternoon, and
in the evening. The church will also
host mid-week services that start as late as 10 PM. Smaller groups will also meet for worship in
apartments and houses, reviving the ‘house church’ model of worship…
These churches will follow the advice of church-growth
writer William Easum… They will not have
a Board of Trustees to determine policy; the highly paid staff will provide
overall leadership. Young people in
their twenties will be encouraged to create imaginative ministries on their
own. The emphasis is on empowerment, not
governance, just the opposite of Unitarian Universalist Churches today…
These new congregations will send shock waves through the
communities in which they minister because they will focus their efforts on a
single cause—the least fortunate among us.
Their model will be the Salvation Army, but without the requirement that
recipients adopt a particular theology.
These churches…will provide showers, clothing and food to those who are
in need…
The people in these congregations will break the current
cycle of those whose dominant image is being served [in other words coming to
church to get something or get some need met], rather, [their focus will be] to
serve [‘the other’]—[in other words, the people beyond these walls who need our
help].
These new churches will draw newcomers because people will
want to be associated with them. The
ministers of these congregations realized long ago that the mission of the
church could be stated simply: to change people’s lives in some fundamental
way. They will also realize that the
vision of Unitarian Universalist churches in the early years of the
twenty-first century is not to promote autonomy of the individual and to seek
truth. Their vision is a deeper
spirituality through service…”
Durall ends with: “I hope people of all ages will be allies
in this transition. Together, we can do
far, far more than any of us have imagined.”
My friends, how does this vision speak to your heart? To your imagination? To your dreams?
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