Bridging to the Future

First UCC is blessed with an active congregation that finds many ways to pursue our Christian work. The same people you share the pews with also play vital roles in their families, workplaces and in other volunteer organizations. Our current governance structure calls for more than 110 committee positions to be drawn from the approximately 200 people who worship at First UCC each Sunday. After reviewing our minister’s reports for the last 40 years, each minister has identified the need to change.

We are not unique. As society has changed and more families have two partners working outside the home, churches across the country have been feeling the strain of traditional governance structures. Council leadership, in consultation with Pastor Sandy, have been exploring different ways that we might organize our governance so that we can spend more time “being the church” instead of running the church.

Towards that end the council leadership divided our church’s work into five focus areas or “buckets.” They consisted of Administration, Pastoral Care, Faith Formation, Worship, Outreach/Social Justice. The council spent a half-day advance exploring the model and was then tasked to conduct parishioner interviews. More than 50 interviews were conducted as congregation members were asked what work their committees do, what the priorities should be, what barriers stood in the way, what was most exciting and if anything should be added to their work.

An interesting picture began to emerge. While no two interviews were identical some common themes came to the fore:

· Feeling pressed for time

· Expressing an interest to change, if not sure what that looks like exactly

· Wanting less meetings with richer content

· Looking for more specific tasks with limited time commitments

· Expressing some interest in a volunteer coordinator

First UCC members said their work was important and was satisfying because:

· Being part of something larger then themselves

· Enjoying working with other members

· Doing Christ’s work – in different forms

The Council has acknowledged the need to change our governance and is working on ways that it can be accomplished in light of selecting an interim and then permanent pastor, looking at our long-term fiancial needs and reviewing our staffing model. While the other tasks are more pressing, here are a couple changes that have already been implemented.

Trustees – In order to have the council making more informed decisions, the Trustees have been split into two pods, with one group focusing on the buildings & grounds while the other focusing on budgetary issues has joined the council. In this manner Council sets direction for our church while understanding the financial ramifications of those decisions and simultaneously makes the Trustees workload more manageable.

Christian Education – This group has split into three areas to better focus on specific segments of the congregation. Rather than holding monthly meetings where members sat through two-thirds of a meeting that didn’t impact them, these groups e-mail task oriented information and meet only when decisions need to be made. They’ve divided up much of their work into projects, with a project leader who commits to completing a task they feel passionate about (e.g. flooded supply room clean out).

The Council’s goal is to have congregants spending more time doing what they feel called to do and less time sitting in meetings. As we bring an Interim Minister on board there will be more discussion to help flesh out our new governance model. We will be sharing information with the congregation on-line, during work of the people and with occasional coffee hour talks. If you have thoughts you’d like to share please contact Tracy Fossum at fossum@stolaf.edu or Brad Hoff at hoffx110@umn.edu.