Bill McKenney
Chair of the Parish Board
Recent Board Notes
| The Implications of Believing in a Mission |
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| Wednesday, March 14 2012 18:57 |
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At last Sunday's congregational meeting there were two items on the agenda, both focused on the long term. The first order of business was to endorse the ordination of Meg Soens in our sanctuary on June 10. The vote was unanimous! While June 10, may not seem like long term, that is really just the beginning. Bringing Meg into the community of ministers is an important way we ensure the future of Unitarian Universalism. It takes brave individuals and supportive communities to keep this faith vibrant for the long term. The second order of business was to discuss First Parish’s long term plan. One of the great things about our congregation is that we have substantive conversations at these events and the sharing of insight and opinions improves the end result. I have posted the Board's presentation to the FPLexBiz group and on the website. We’ll have a printed version available in the church office as well. Below is a condensed review. When trying to draft the long term plan we immediately ran into a problem: missing mission. What the Board has done is adopted the first part of our Unison Affirmation to try out as a Mission Statement to help guide us. “Love is the doctrine of this church, the Quest for truth is its sacrament and Service is its prayer. We will be known for this in the world.” We chose this language because most of us know this by heart and wholly endorse the meaning. We discussed the implications of believing in a mission. There was a lot of good input that we will incorporate into our thinking. (Thank you, Marshall, for taking copious notes!). The big takeaways for me are that this is a real change in our thinking and that it will lead to a change in some of things that we do. From this process we looked at how to plan for the future by putting things into four buckets: Things to Keep Doing; Things to Stop Doing; Things to Avoid; and Things to Start Doing. I encourage you to review and talk about these ideas; this is the basis for our plans going forward. Finally, we discussed preliminary three-year goals: increase and deepen the congregation's spirituality; expand the realm of what we consider community; develop an organizational structure that supports adaptability, growth and change; make our facility more welcoming and suitable for our mission. Like Meg’s ordination, this is the beginning of the process. We need to continue the discussion and flesh out ideas. From this process we’ll be able to offer more details on ideas and initiatives. And through it all, your engagement helps improve the outcome. |