oUUr Grand Master Plan

Articulating a Vision for First Parish in the 21st Century

I - Create a high quality, three-part three-hour Sunday Morning Program, consisting of...

• Accessible, engaging, and inspiring Public Worship

• A top-notch Religious Education program for our children

• The practice of “Radical Hospitality” and intentional outreach to visitors and newcomers, including regular orientation sessions and a well-defined “Pathway to Membership.”

II - Small Group Ministry [SGM]

a Small Group Ministry is any program intended to serve a group of 8-12 individuals, and can take a variety of forms:

• Affinity Groups [AGs] are small groups that are organized around a shared activity or interest. Affinity Groups at First Parish currently include *Connections, Soulful Parenting, and the new “Fibers” group.

• Covenant Groups [CGs - also sometimes known as “Chalice Circles”] are more “generic” SGMs organized around a covenant or mutual agreement to follow a particular process and practice, which includes:

a) a commitment to reliable attendance at regular meeting times, which can be either monthly or bi-weekly, depending upon the preference of the group.

b) the intentional cultivation of deep and meaningful interpersonal relationships among group members, through the use of an opening “check-in,” and other trust-building activities.

c) a process of on-going education and spiritual “self-culture,” through the use of facilitated, topical discussions. Ideally, at least one of these topics each month would be the same for every group in the church, in order to facilitate a larger, secondary conversation among the entire congregation.

d) annual service projects -- generally at least one within our church community, and another in service to the larger community.

• Life Long Learning (LLL) offerings can also often function as Small Group Ministries, although generally they are of too short duration to create the kind of deep, interpersonal relationships SGMs are intended to cultivate. But often Life Long Learning classes provide the seed for the formation of a new Covenant Group, thus expanding the SGM program organically.

III - The Community Care Ring

the Community Care Ring might best be thought of as a series of concentric circles, with the ministers and the chaplains at the center as “primary pastoral caregivers,” and the other circles expanding outward to embrace the entire congregation

• The Steering Committee is a sub-committee of the larger Membership Committee, and is primarily responsible for initially organizing the Care Ring, monitoring its activities, and recruiting individual church members to serve in the other capacities listed below.

• “Neighbors Indeed” are essentially case coordinators, who are responsible for monitoring the needs of their client(s) and matching those needs to services offered by the congregation. They are also compassionate friends who have the time to form a relationship with their client, and to be present as an “active listener” in order to help them remain connected to the larger community.

• The “Helping Hands” list consists of the names and contact information of church members who have volunteered to provide specific services to those who need them. These services might include: transportation (to church, shopping, medical appointments, etc); the preparation and delivery of simple meals; emergency child or pet care; or even just writing cards or making calls to church members who are ill or shut-in.

IV - Faith in Action

this is our “public” ministry to the larger community, where we demonstrate our values by volunteer service to those in need, and the advocacy of policies which would help address those needs in a more comprehensive and systematic manner.

• The Steering Committee is responsible for organizing and managing the entire program, monitoring its activities, and recruiting new volunteers and coordinators.

• Project Coordinators are individuals (or groups of individuals) who have taken on the responsibility for specific Faith in Action projects.

• Volunteers are individual church members who have indicated interest in becoming involved in this area, and who can be called upon by the Coordinators to participate in specific activities or events.

V - The Pathway to Leadership

too many churches see their job as finished when somebody “signs the book” and officially becomes a member of the congregation. Here at First Parish, we feel like our job is just beginning....

• part of our mission at First Parish is to help each of our members find a “job” or vocational call within the congregation that is right for them, and will help them grow both spiritually and in devotion to the values and principles which give their faith meaning and purpose.

• it is also our hope that these volunteer ministries will grow in scope over time, as our faith itself grows and deepens, and we become more authentically “spiritual” in our lifestyles, with the ultimate goal of finding that place where (in the words of Frederick Bueckner “the heart’s deep gladness meets the world’s deep hunger.”

• some ideas for getting more deeply involved can be found at Volunteer Ministry Opportunities at First Parish. Or you may have another idea which inspires you deeply, in which case it is the job of the church to help you find a way to bring your vision to life. In either case, our entire community is enriched by the participation of each of our members, just as we hope that the lives of each of our members are enriched by their participation in this community.


NEXT STEPS

The Executive Committee is the “hands on” lay leadership group most responsible for driving and steering this entire process. Working in close cooperation with the ministers and other support staff, the Executive Committee anticipates current and future needs, and develops specific action plans for addressing those needs.

The Governing Board is responsible for reviewing, discussing, modifying and approving the proposals of the Executive Committee, and in addition is responsible for communicating and implementing those decisions back through the various councils and working committees

The Personnel Committee and Leadership Development Team (formerly known as the “Nominating Committee”) are responsible for analyzing our staffing needs based on current staff skills, and the skills of our lay leadership team.

The mission of the Finance Council is to “manage scarce dollars with common sense,” while at the same time cultivating an attitude of abundance and generosity, and developing the additional resources which will allow us to fulfill our larger mission as a faith community.

The Committee on Ministry is charged with maintaining a view of “the big picture,” and of using the “Assessing Our Leadership” evaluation tool in order to make certain that we are still on track.

The Board of Trustees are responsible for managing our endowment funds, and for supporting the programatic mission of the church by maintaining the facilities and through whatever other means seem appropriate and are allowed by the terms of the trust.

The Worship Council, Membership Council, Life Long Learning Council, Faith in Action Council, and their various committees and sub-committees all have specific areas of responsibility as defined by the plans approved by the Governing Board, some of which have already been described earlier. Each of these councils has in essence been asked to redefine itself as a “task force” around a few specific objectives, and to take responsibility for their successful implementation.

THE ECLECTIC CLERIC - “Janus is a two-faced God.”

Statue of Janus at the Vatican

Say what you like, I am a natural born April Fool. It just seems so much more sensible to begin a new year in the beginning of spring, when life is resurgent and new opportunities in the air, than to stay up until midnight on one of the longest and darkest nights of the year in order to ring a bell, blow a horn, and drink a little champagne. The dead of winter is just that: Dead. A New Year = New Life = Spring.

But those old Roman calendar makers disagreed. And there is one advantage to starting the new year in the dead of winter. Winter is a season that looks both forward and backward -- ahead to the opportunities which await us in the coming year, but also back on the achievements and regrets of the previous, and what we might learn from them. This is why the Roman god Janus was always depicted with two faces -- one face looking forward, and the other retrospectively back to the past...not just in nostalgia either, but with an honest and critical appraisal of what has gone before.

In 2008 I went through so many changes in my life I hardly know where to begin. My cancer diagnosis, months in the Hospital and Rehab, giving up my apartment for two rooms in the assisted living center, not being able to walk, not being able to drive, and, of course, the death of my beloved dog Parker in October, after 13 years of near-constant companionship. These are just the more noticeable things; they do not exhaust the list by any means. Perhaps most significantly, here were also my inner struggle over the issues raised by applying for disability insurance, in effect acknowledging that I could no longer do this job I love without help, and creating the opportunity to get that help and still do as much of my job as I am able.

But the real miracle of 2008 has been the way that this community has rallied around me in my illness, and inspired me to do everything in my power to fight this disease, and to stay focused on the big dreams we have shared together about the future of First Parish and our role within the larger Portland community. So even as we gaze retrospectively upon our past, let us also look with vision and imagination toward the future, as we work together to become both the kinds of people, and the “community of memory and hope” that our heritage and our destiny summon us to be.