When I was doing my internship in our
congregation in Concord, Massachusetts, the Senior Minister there, my friend
and mentor Gary Smith, started off one sermon in a way I’ve never
forgotten. He had a knack for that. Usually ended them well, too. On this occasion he looked out at the
congregation and said, and I paraphrase because it was nearly twenty years ago
now:
The dinner party
was a success. Everyone had a great
time. The guests have gone home. We’ve cleaned up the table. The dishes are done. We’ve turned the porch light off. And it’s just us. It’s just us, just family, sitting around the
kitchen table, and we’ve got to talk.
What followed was a sermon challenging
that congregation to step up to the plate in a way it hadn’t recently. Their pledge drive had just come in seriously
short, and it was time for some serious conversation around that kitchen
table. Just family.
Now it’s our turn.
In the first congregation I served, up
in Yarmouth Maine, we created a term for it – “it” being the fairly constant
state of not quite getting enough money from our pledge campaigns to fund the
budgets we wanted to. We called it,
“muddling through,” and I can remember one memorable year when our treasurer
presented to the congregation both our “dream budget” and our “muddling through
again budget.” That’s what we actually called
them that year.
I was ordained nearly twenty years ago,
and in that time I’ve served three of our congregations. In my training I also had experience at both
a student ministry site and an internship site.
So that’s five congregations I know pretty well. Then there was my first UU church, my home
church, The First Parish in Waltham Universalist Unitarian Unitarian
Universalist Church, so that’s six. And
then, of course, during my years on the UUA staff I got to see quite a number
of our congregations both up close and from a distance. And then, as you can imagine, when we clergy
folks get together we like to kvetch (and gloat) a bit, so I’ve heard about . .
. well . . . countless others.
And what I can say, from the vantage
point of all of this experience, is that just about every congregation
struggles with money at least some of the time.
In fact, I once read a book on church finances that said one of the ways
you can tell the health of a congregation is whether or not it sees its money
troubles as a crisis or as just one
of the realities of being a church.
Well friends, we’re looking at the
“reality of being a church” . . . big time.
Last spring the Board brought to the congregational meeting a budget of
a little over $600,000. That was roughly
a $63,000 increase over the actual results of last year – a 12% increase, give
or take. And that increase, believe it
or not, was not because we were proposing to do some grand, new, exciting
things; it wasn’t because we were revolutionizing the way we’re doing church in
Charlottesville. It was largely because in
the previous year we’d added some staff and
we’d realized that we really ought to be compensating all of our staff fairly –
salaries and benefits. There were also some
minor increases here and there, and we wanted to add a ten-hour-a-week youth
coordinator position and increase our Church Secretary’s hours a bit. But that was it. It’s important to realize that that wasn’t
some kind of “Dream Budget.” It was, in
fact, despite the increase, really a kind of “muddle through budget.”
Where there was a real jump was in the
area of pledging. We had hoped to be
able to increase our pledge revenues by about $90,000, but this was really
because we knew we were going to have to compensate for the loss of rental
income from the Molly Michie Preschool, which has rented our basement but is
moving out, and from U-House, which we were hoping soon to sell (and, as you
heard earlier, we just have). Since the
largest percentage of our revenue is from the pledges of members – both formal
and informal – that’s where we looked to make up this difference. And we were so confident that the increase in
energy and satisfaction we’ve been feeling these days would generate this kind
of enthusiastic generosity that we decided to run a low-key campaign.
A mistake, as it turned out. Yet even now, after we’ve literally spent months trying to contact each and every
person who had not pledged during the campaign, we are still looking at less
pledge income this year than last. The revised
budget that was presented for a vote at that congregational meeting a couple of
weeks back is actually smaller than
last year’s, and even with that there’s the possibility that the Board may need
to tap our reserve funds, and your staff was directed to come up with some
$20,000 in additional cuts should the need arise. As of right now, it looks like they well may
be needed, and those cuts include reductions in compensation – a quarter of it
will be coming out of my package – and may eventually include hours as well. Already we did away with plans for that much
needed youth coordinator and we’re keeping the Church Secretary at the hours
she currently has.
Now I’m pretty far into this sermon this
morning and I’ll bet that many, if not most (if not all, actually) of you are
expecting me to start asking anyone for money.
“Increase your pledge if you can!
Pledge if you haven’t!” Right? Well, I’m not going to do that. I’m really, really not. Some of you have already given generously,
some “sacrificially,” as we call it.
You’ve done your part and I’m not, absolutely not, asking you to do
more. And some of you have not given
anything, and I trust that you have your reasons. There has been more than enough time for you
to be swayed if swaying were possible.
So I’m not asking you to do anything more, either.
So what am I asking? I’m asking us to realize that all of this
means something. I’m asking us to
realize that all of this means something, and that we – you and me and all of us together – really need to figure out
what it means.
It means something that one quarter of
our members – fully one-out-of-every-four members – makes no pledge of
record. Nothing. I know that some people donate their time and
talent instead of money, and I in no way want to discount that. Oh for our volunteers. Bless you.
We need you. But for there to be no
pledge of record – not even $1 a week, not even $1 a month, not even $1 a year!
– to have no pledge of record from 25%
of our members? Well, that means
something. I don’t know what it means,
but we, as a community, need to figure it out.
It might mean that the economy’s changing, and money’s tight. It may mean that some folks think that a
small pledge won’t matter much. It might
mean that people figure someone else will take care of the money stuff or,
maybe, that we’re doing okay and don’t really need the support. (You know, the way a lot of people feel about
NPR.) It may mean that some folks are
displeased about this or that and want to send a message by withholding their
pledges. It may mean that we don’t have
a culture here – yet! – in which
people realize that their pledge is only partially about paying bills but is
really about being connected. I don’t
know what it means, but when I checked in with the UUA staff about pledging
trends around the country every one of the consultants who responded said that
having a quarter of your membership without a pledge of record should be cause
for at least some serious reflection.
Friends, we need to figure it out.
And it means something when our church
leaders personally call folks who pledged last year but not this year and don’t
ever get a call back. Even after several
tries. It means something. Again, I don’t know what, but we need to
figure it out. Because when someone
chooses not to return a call from another member of their church family, well,
it’s not about possibly lost revenue at that point. It’s about lost connections. When a leader repeatedly calls a member (and
I’m actually talking about 30 or 40 members) and hears nothing back it’s a sure
sign that something’s broken, but, of course, we can’t tell for sure what
because, after all, the calls aren’t being returned. We need to figure this out.
You know, as Adam and I talked about
this service this week he made a really good point. Some of you know that Adam’s not only one of
our new Worship Weavers but that for several years he led our canvass efforts,
so he’s given this a lot of thought. And
Adam suggested that I honestly and openly tell everyone a bottom line
truth. You see, there is a figure that’s
absolutely necessary if we want to have a church. And that figure is $0.
That’s right. We can have a church on no money at all. It’ll look a lot different than TJMC does
right now, but we could do it. There’s a
great story, probably apocryphal, that’s making the rounds on the Internet
right now. I won’t go into all of the
details, but it ends with a preacher looking out at the congregation and
saying, “I look out and see a group of people, but not a church.” He’s supposed to have dismissed them to go
home and think about it until the next week.
Well, we can have a church
with a budget of $0, but we can’t have one if we don’t have committed, engaged,
involved, and connected people.
And that’s
what I’m asking for this morning. Not
more contributions, but more commitment.
Not more pledge envelopes, but more people engaged. And by this I don’t mean busier people. Some of you out to have a bunk installed you’re
here so often. A lot of people are doing a whole lot of things, so that’s
not the commitment I’m talking about. But
when it comes to “owning” the mission of the church? When it comes to even knowing, clearly and with certainty, the mission of the church and
making sure we stay true to it? Who’s
committed to that? The financial
situation we find ourselves in right now is, in and of itself, not such a big
deal. The budget will work itself out,
or it won’t, but either way no doubt the universe will keep unfolding as it
should. But the financial situation we
find ourselves in right now means
something, and we really need to figure out what.
What kind of church do we want to be? What kind of church are we, actually, now?
It turns out that this is a perfect time
to be asking ourselves these questions, because we’re starting our Strategic
Planning Process and it’s designed to investigate two fundamental question –
what kind of church do we want to be in five, ten, twenty years and how do we
want to get there? The foundation for
all of that, of course, is knowing what kind of congregation we actually are
right now.
TJMC prides itself on being a growing,
vibrant church. We know that our space
is too tight, we’re bursting at the seams, and many of us are imagining
expanded space, new buildings, increased professional staff, more real
engagement in justice work in our community.
Our Staffing Task Force of a year or so ago discovered that we are
actually currently understaffed for
this sized congregation, and that if we really want to grow we need to not only
catch up to where we should be, where we need
to be to support what we have, but need to be thinking about “staffing for
growth.” And if we’re to grow we really,
really need more space. Many of us are
really excited by the possibilities in all of this.
And yet, this year’s budget is currently
less than last year’s, and for the
past several years our budgets have been essentially flat. Stagnant.
By that measure, at least, we are not vibrant and growing. We’re not even really “muddling
through.” We’re treading water. And some folks think that we’re showing signs
of getting tired.
Now, this may surprise you to hear, but
it’s not the worst thing in the world for a congregation to stop growing – in
numbers and in budget. There are other
kinds of growth. Pruning back a wild and
scraggly bush is not a sign of defeatism, but rather an excellent strategy for
promoting greater health. We are currently
a roughly 450 member congregation. That
means that roughly 450 people have taken the step of formalizing their
membership and have “signed the book.”
Some of those are not particularly active, and there are lots of active
folks who haven’t taken that step, so this is not necessarily a very useful
number, but we are currently a roughly 450 member church.
Another, and many think more useful,
number is the average Sunday attendance – this we’d get by literally counting
every person, of whatever age, is in any part of our church on a Sunday
morning. Do this for a year and then
divide that number by 52. We’ve never
done this to my knowledge, but I’d wager that the figure would put us squarely in
what’s called the “Program Sized Church.”
This is a congregation with an average Sunday attendance of between 150
and 350 people. It’s worth noting that
only one-in-six UU congregations is in this category. Only one in six.
It’s worth noting, too, that the
transition from “Pastoral Church,” the next size down, and “Program Church” is
notorious for floundering congregations.
It doesn’t just happen. It takes intentionality and courage; it takes
faith and trust; it takes will. And for
the vast majority of congregations trying to make that step it takes time – years
can be spent caught on that hump, stuck on that plateau, hoist on that petard,
stranded on that sandbar. Just as we’ve
been for the past several years. Just as
we are, apparently, right now.
I want to reiterate – I am not asking
anyone to pony up more money so that we can make that leap. That would presuppose that we really want to,
and that all it’d take would be money to make it happen. As Adam said to me this week, “we don’t
really need any more money. Before we
ask people for more money we need to really decide if we want it, and we need
to decide what we want to do with it.”
I can honestly say that out of all those
congregations I’ve known over these last two decades, none has been a better
congregation than this. None has had more
promise that this congregation has; none more possibilities. Think about the testimonials you hear on a
pretty regular basis during the time of Joys and Sorrows – people saying how
much this church community means to them.
Think of the energy you feel in this sanctuary on at least most Sunday
mornings, and the excited hum you hear from the rooms where our RE program is
taking place here and at Summit. Think
of the growing throng of students from UVA, and the parents, and the
grandparents, and the great-grandparents, and all the kids who call this place
“home,” who find here “family.” Some in ways they’ve never known before . . .
have never known were even possible. And
think of all the good work that TJMC is involved in – in Charlottesville and in
the wider world – making a real and positive difference.
We have been entrusted with an
incredibly powerful resource, and it is up to us to decide how best to utilize
it. Those who have come before us are
trusting us to hand this community of faith on to those who have not come
yet. I can say with complete certainty
that it is not more money that we need.
It is greater clarity of vision and greater clarity of purpose. And that we can only get by coming together and
making it so. We have a year ahead of us
in which to do just that. May we do that,
and may our future be bright.
Pax tecum,
RevWik
