February 4, 2010
To: The Authorized Ministers and Moderators of the Conference
From: Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree, Conference Minister
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ who both frees and unites us!
Thank you! First, a huge thank you for the way in which our churches came through with giving to Our Church’s Wider Mission and Per Capita Fellowship Dues despite the difficult economy. With your gifts and those of individuals through Friends of the Conference, combined with major cuts in our budget and spending, we came out favorably at the end of the year. Much work remains to be done to quantify that, but we believe we can move into 2010 with relative stability. That’s good for our churches and good for our national and global concerns.
No one knows better than I that our decision last spring to have two of our Regional Ministers serving half time has been difficult, especially for the Eastern and Fairfield County Regions. We eagerly look forward to the time when those positions can be restored to full time, or to a time when a new design for our life becomes clear. We have heard feedback from some churches and clergy that they feel less cared for, and the truth is that all our churches are receiving less attention as a result of the financial stringencies. As we analyze the results of 2009 giving and receive your pledges for 2010, we are praying for ways to increase our capacity to guide our churches in this difficult era. Some of our churches with greater capacity do not need as much guidance, but the great majority of our churches need our united efforts now more than ever.
And Another Thank You! Yesterday I returned to my desk late afternoon from a series of appointments and meetings and found a file folder on my chair. It was thick with letters for me to sign to thank those who have given so far for Haiti. We have had an outpouring of generosity, both through offerings in our churches and through gifts online at www.ctucc.org. As of today, gifts from individuals range from $10 to $2,000, and gifts from churches range up to over $18,000! To date, we have received and put to work $122,868.
It is in moments like this that we are indeed freed by Christ from holding on to resources that are needed by others and united in our determination to transform life for those in need. Thankfully, because of your ongoing gifts through Our Church’s Wider Mission, the structures and relationships are already in place so that 100% of your gifts go straight to work for those in desperate need of our presence and our caring. The combination of regular giving through OCWM and giving through special offerings means that as the United Church of Christ we are both effective and faithful in our witness in a time like this. We minister there through partners like CONASPEH (the Protestant ecumenical council of Haiti), Church World Service, and the medical mission agency ACT.
Thank you for this outpouring of grace and generosity. Please keep it up – for in our continual generosity, we learn together the way of Christ and give hope to those in despair, food to those who hunger, shelter to those without, and drink to the thirsty. Please visit both our website and www.ucc.org frequently for updates on the situation and the needs for specific gifts or skills.
For the past two years, your Conference staff has been engaged in a process of discerning strategic priorities for our ministries. We began this work before the economic downturn of the fall of 2008, and have found it even more imperative since then.
For several years it has been clear to us that we cannot continue to carry out Conference ministry the way we always have. It is not simply a question of available resources, but a matter of strategic investment of the energy of Christ’s body, the Church. Much is changing in our external environment: new generations that know nothing of the faith yet are drawn to spirituality; new technology that can link us yet also divide or distance us; aging buildings with smaller congregations in many places, yet burgeoning larger congregations in others; clergy who yearn for churches that are eager to be transformed for the present day yet who find that they themselves need transformation as well in order to serve faithfully and well.
So the outcome of our deliberation together is an experiment, a pilot project. We have concluded that we need to invest more time in churches that show signs of vitality. We will not abandon any church in the process, but revise our approach so that we can invest ourselves more in those that can step over the threshold to new and stronger vitality in the years to come. It is our belief, after much dialogue and analysis, that by investing in those who are most ready, through their growth and development, neighboring churches will also be helped on their road to vitality.
Consequently, this winter we are in conversation with seven churches of varying sizes and settings about their participation in the Threshold Initiative. We had a large number of potential candidates for this pilot project, and these seven just happened to be chosen because of our desire that this first round be diverse in particular ways so we can learn the most together. It is our intention that if the pilot works well, we will have a more open invitation process for next year’s churches.
The fundamental idea is that our staff will invest ourselves and our skills in each of these churches over the course of approximately a year. If they discern a need for growth in an area where we cannot offer the best resource, we will find staff from the national UCC, our UCC seminaries, other Conferences and other congregations who can address the need. We will have an explicit covenant with each church, and both the congregation and our staff will have specified understandings of what each will agree to provide.
The churches that become Threshold churches will later become resources to the wider Conference, joining those we will call on in other ways along the way. We anticipate their continuing the learning cycle by becoming teaching churches.
We know that some of you will wonder why your church wasn’t selected and in most cases there is no good answer for that except the needs of the pilot project. Some of you have already stepped across the threshold and we’ll be looking for ways to invite you to serve as models and as teaching churches. Some of you are great candidates for the next round. And some of you are not quite ready and have some work to do in your life together before you could truly benefit from this new ministry.
We will “go public” with the names of the Threshold churches as soon as they have each completed their decision-making process. Until then, we’d like them to be out of the limelight and able to deliberate well.
In order to ensure that we are able to invest ourselves in this work, we began almost two years ago talking about what we would no longer do. That is perhaps the hardest decision of all because we are committed to this ministry and its importance in building strong churches and strong covenants among us. Our conclusion so far is that we will need to amend our approach rather than eliminate portions of our ministry. Through a combination of incremental changes, we will carve out the time that is essential so that all of us will learn together what it takes to be a vital church in this decade.
The Special Commission on Conference Sustainability (voted by the Fall Meeting) has had its first meeting and has several more scheduled. They will present a preliminary report on May 8th. They are off to a great start and are digging into important issues related to the life, work and viability of our Conference. A story about them will appear soon on our website.
Our Spring Meeting in Madison on May 8th will dovetail with our pilot project for the Threshold Initiative and will feature the Rev. Steve Sterner, executive minister for Local Church Ministries, and the Rev. Cameron Trimble, co-director of the Center for Progressive Renewal. They’ll be helping us think about and experience seven ways for the church to thrive in this challenging time. I’m sure you’ve seen the poster and other publicity. Please remember that both delegates and visitors are welcome. Indeed, our strong suggestion is that you plan to send a delegation of key leaders to help reshape the life and vitality of your church, spurred by this day together. (This year, by the way, you will preregister for workshops so we can eliminate all that confusion…)
And next fall, October 22-23 will find us back at Middletown High School (we are awaiting the contract) where we will hear a keynote address from Robert Orr, Assistant General Secretary for Strategic Planning and Policy Coordination at the United Nations, a position which makes him the highest ranking US citizen at the UN. Robert Orr grew up in the UCC and was a youth delegate to General Synod, which planted in him his passion for both the church and global concerns. Since 2010 is the 200th anniversary of the founding of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission, we will commemorate that milestone by looking forward to the next 200 years of global mission engagement!
Weekly our staff prepares an electronic Spirit Calendar offering you spiritual reflection and a list of prayer concerns. If you are not receiving it already, you can sign up by going to www.ctucc.org/FIDO. In the past I included prayer concerns in my pastoral letters, but have shifted that over to Spirit Calendar so it will be more up to date. There are many across our Conference and around the world in need of your prayers and I invite you to join us in this way.
David and I wish to thank you for your steadfast prayers for us over these eighteen months of our bouts with cancer, and for our daughter, Elizabeth, who is still recovering from a massive stroke suffered in December. Prayer is powerful, and we are grateful.
May Christ accompany you in your daily life and work, in the decisions you make and the gifts you share. May the Holy Spirit inspire you to ever deeper dedication to the Biblical vision of shalom/salaam for the world, the church and every person. And may God grant you peace and hope!
