I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church

One Woman’s Perspective
By Ashley Lasbury, President


These spoken remarks were made to a group of 55 or so of the most active members of First Parish on the morning of January 9th. Now is the time to widen the focus and share my concerns and vision of our future with the entire congregation. After presentations by Kitsy, Will and myself, the larger group broke into small “passion groups” to generate edgy, creative ideas to rethink “how we do church”. Those ideas will be shared in the near future. Again, my presentation was spoken and I have written it as it was delivered. Peace.

I refuse to lead a dying church! I. Refuse. To. Lead. A. Dying. Church! Anna, our VP, refuses to lead a dying church. Val, Brownie and Stephanie refuse to lead a dying church. The entire Governing Board of First Parish refuses to lead a dying church and it is my hope that by the end of the morning you will refuse to be members of a dying church. I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church is the title of a book by Paul Nixon that most of the leadership has read or is in the process of reading. Long before I heard of the book, those words summed up what was in my heart. You were invited here this morning because in church-speak you are “stakeholders” of First Parish, the backbone and beating heart of our community. And I don’t know about you but I am tired of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Straight Talk

My remarks this morning are a combination of John McCain’s Straight Talk and Obama’s Vision of Hope. First the Straight Talk. As a community, First Parish is healthy. The information from the cottage meetings clearly indicates that we are a healthy congregation and we are optimistic about our future. Just walk into coffee hour any Sunday and you can’t help but feel the vitality and energy swirling in the air! But the institution is not so healthy. I maintain that the institution may not be sustainable in its current form for very much longer. Our numbers are in decline. This is not just our reality but is challenge being faced at the association level as well. Unitarian Universalist churches have been in decline since the early 70’s. This trend is affecting main line Protestant churches across the country. Right here in our city the church building on Chestnut Street has become a restaurant. Another is deciding whether it can afford to keep its doors open for much longer. Since our high water mark in the early 90’s when First Parish was the fastest growing mid-sized congregation in the UUA, our numbers have slowly declined. Membership is down, church attendance is down and pledge income is down.

One of the inconvenient truths I wanted to speak to you about this morning is money. During the last budget year the leadership had to cut $40,000 out of our budget. We have taken a pledge not to dip into the endowment; that is a path to certain ruin. We also vowed to create a realistic budget, not one based on the hope that an “angel” would swoop down and pull our collective nuts out of the fire. So we cut $40,000. $20,000 of it was hard; the other $20,000 was easy as our interim ministers do not require us to pay them benefits. If you have not thanked Will and Kitsy you may want to consider doing so. We are getting top-notch Interim Ministerial guidance for very little money. In a few months when it comes time to create the 2010/2011 church budget the leadership will have to build back in that $20,000 as you can be sure that our new minister is going to want benefits. That is our challenge, but I am not here this morning to talk to you just about money.

Why Now?

I know many of you are wondering why we are talking about these issues now. Why shouldn’t we wait until our new minister joins us? Very simply, I don’t think we have the time to wait. We have only 5 months left in this all important Interim year and we must use the time wisely. We must start to make changes NOW and not wait until some undefined point in the future. There are at least two reasons. The first is that, as Kitsy will tell you, any minister new to a congregation will spend the first year of their ministry just getting to know the congregation and letting the congregation get to know them; establishing a foundation of trust; not making any sudden changes or moves. But if the congregation is already in the process of growth and change; if, as Will says, “The train has already left the station, then the new minister will be able to just hop on board.” We cannot wait yet another year to start to meet our challenges. We must start now. We must get this train moving out of the station NOW.

The second reason is that we must not be a “minister-centric” church. That is not a healthy model. We have been in the past and we have seen the results. Members have become so tied to the minister and not the community that when the minister leaves, they leave as well. We must instead become a “mission-focused” church. To that end, the Governing Board has created a provisional Mission Statement for First Parish that I am pleased to present to you this morning:

At First Parish Unitarian Universalist church we are called to:

Grow in Spirit;
Nurture Community and
Help Heal the World

We aimed for simple, simple enough for our youngest to remember. I like this mission. It is a mission I can sink my teeth into and it gives us a place to start. Not perfect but pithy and deep. As a mission focused church, we are not waiting for one person to rescue us, to save us or to fix our problems. We can and will do that for ourselves. As Will likes to remind me, “A good minister gets out of a congregations way.”

Rev. Peter Morales, the new President of the UUA, wrote about this very issue in his first editorial for the UUA World magazine in September. If you have not read it, please do so. You can find it easily on-line. He wrote that in order for the denomination to survive we must fundamentally “rethink how we do church.” That was his challenge to us. To fundamentally rethink we do church. It is our great challenge.

A Walk in the Forest

If you will indulge me, I would like to place us all metaphorically in the forest. We are on a path in the woods. The path is wide, well marked and well traveled. We can clearly see where we are, where we have come from and where we are headed. The path is easy to walk. It is safe, well lit and above all else, it is comfortable. We know this path. But if we continue to walk this path we are going to have to make some hard financial choices in the near future. 90% of our budget is comprised of staff salaries and when we have to make cuts in the budget in the future those cuts will be made from staff. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing. If we choose to cut the position of Office Facilitator then we would have an office run by volunteers. Many churches do it and do it well. We may choose to cut the position of Music Director and have a choir led music program. Certainly our choir is up to the challenge based on the wonderful music we were blessed with during Summer Services. Again, not a bad choice. Or we may choose to go without a DRE and have a completely parent run RE program. Many churches do it and do it well. One final possible choice is that we decide we cannot afford to pay for a minister. We would have either part-time ministerial coverage or become a completely lay led congregation. Not a bad choice. Many churches in the UUA are lay led and the congregations are vibrant and healthy. Allison comes from a lay led congregation and she can speak to the advantages of this choice. I am not trying to scare any of you but I do want to make it very clear that if we continue to walk the safe, comfortable path we are on then we are going to need to make some hard choices in the future. I want us to make those choices with our eyes open.

A Vision of Hope

But there is another path. It would require us to make a turn off of the beaten track onto a path that is less well marked. A road less traveled, if you will. This path is harder to walk. It is at times dark and scary. It is filled with obstacles that we may be required to go over or around. We may become lost at times but I have faith that we will find our way back onto the trail. This path is going to make many of us uncomfortable. It is the path of Intentional Dynamic Growth. No, not just growth for the sake of growth; because this path has a bright, shining light at its end that is guiding us, leading us on. This bright, shining light is a Vision for First Parish of Abundance. A vision of abundance! You can plug in any word or words that work for you but I like: Abundant love. Abundant membership. Abundant fun. Abundant fellowship. Abundant money. Abundant folks in the pews on Sunday morning. Abundant hands to service. A future of Abundance. And if we choose to walk this less traveled road and if we become frightened and uncomfortable we can turn to each other for comfort. Because we would not be alone. I believe that we can reach that future of abundance for First Parish if we bring our collective passion, creativity and above all, courage to this challenge. Together, with the congregation will powering the train, we can travel very far indeed.

Thank you.