Before I go, I want to thank you all very much for the party you threw for me a few weeks ago.  I told Pam several times that it was silly to have a party for me and that no one would come, but, as usual, Pam was right!  You were, once again, generous and kind and thoughtful and fun; I will miss that spirit.  So, thank-you for the party and a BIG thank-you to Pam Wheeler-Civita who threw it so skillfully.

There are many thanks to go around, but there’s one that really needs to be public.  Mark Civita was an outstanding president and fabulous partner in leadership this year.  I couldn’t have asked for a more thoughtful, open-minded, get-it-done president.  His willingness to confront difficult situations was tempered by his thoughtfulness and ability to listen to many opinions before acting which resulted in balanced and appropriate responses all year long to a wide range of things.  I know there are many gems in this congregation and I am grateful to have worked so closely with this one.

This blog is being migrated over to Leslie, your new (and fabulously talented) president.  She and Sarah (Communications Chair) and the Board will decide what will happen to it.  At the moment, the hope is that a new blog can be created within the new website.  Stay tuned!

I know this congregation is poised for great things and I know that what’s happening already is quite wonderful.  I am grateful to have been with you for this year.  Until we meet again, walk together in peace.

I’m a member of the UU Fellowship at Stony Brook on Long Island.  This summer I’m going to be bicycling through your area as part of a trip across New York State ( see http://niagarabycycle.info/ )

I’ve laid out maps for my route at the web site but it always helps to get input from people who know the area.  As I’ve currently planned it, we’ll be riding up from New York City on the North County and Putnam bicycle trail on Friday July 29.   I have tentative plans to stop for the night in Mahopac.

So,

* if any cyclists in your congregation are interested in joining us for any part of the ride, they would be very welcome

* if you have any advice about the route or about accommodations in your area, we would really appreciate your input

* if anybody is interested in joining us for dinner or a beer on Fridayevening, let us know and we can get in touch when we arrive in the area

–John Morris

At 4^th Unitarian, ½ time ministry means that our members run our services two out of every four Sundays a month.  This is a lot of work for our little Worship Committee.  As it happens, though, our Worship Associates already did the rethinking the rest of us are doing now about congregational life.  Two months ago, Worship re-invented itself with the idea of getting more folks involved and alleviating the traditionally overworked Worship Associates.

During our annual Service Planning Sunday, Brian rolled out a new plan.  The idea is simple.  This year, before July 31^st, the worship calendar for next year will be set.  In that way, every *champion knows when his or her service is planned and can act accordingly.  In addition, and most importantly, the champions become the Worship Associates for 10 week periods.  Those Worship Associates will meet once as a group shortly before their stint begins and will help each other with whatever is needed for each service.  They’ll agree to support each other and divide up the Sundays to ensure that everyone has the back-up they’ll need.

This leaves our Worship Team the joyful job of thinking deeply about our worship services, a task the Worship Associates in our current model have not had time to take on.  On May 21^st, the new Worship Team did a quick evaluation of current services and identified a few areas of improvement. The Worship Team has decided to have an intentional connection to our musicians in a way the current WA group does not and to the parents of young children to increase the quality of our intergenerational services.

The Worship Team will meet again WITH ALL THE CHAMPIONS on Saturday, July 30^th from 9-11.  If your ministry is Worship, plan to join us!

*Champions are the folks who have agreed to bring a service to 4^th U during the year.  Sometimes they actually preside over the service and sometimes they’re just responsible for hosting our guest speaker.

We’re facing some difficulty.  Bottom line is that folks aren’t stepping up and plenty of things aren’t getting done.  The newsletter is a great example.  We had a newsletter.  People stopped sending information to our editor.  For two or three months, the only information she had was from me.  That’s it.  We decided the newsletter wasn’t working and we’d need to try some new avenues.  As it happens, those avenues have been productive.  We’ve got a blog that is updated regularly and a team creating a dynamic new website.  So, in the vacuum, something new was created, but for a few people, the loss of our printed newsletter is a big deal.  And, we’re having this trouble in other areas as well.  Our poor hospitality coordinator calls dozens of people a week looking for help and some weeks, she can’t even get a return call, let alone someone to help her on Sunday morning.

People are stretched too thin.  In taking a look at congregational life, I realized we simply have too much infrastructure for such a small congregation and have been proposing ideas to help alleviate the stress.  This should be a place of joy and comfort and inspiration!  For some of our members, it’s just become a chore and the primary task is setting limits and learning how to say “no” because there’s just too much work and not enough fun.  A core group is doing a lot of feeding, but they are not getting fed.  The approach has been to figure out a way to get the new people to step up, but for a series of reasons, that isn’t working.  The primary cause of the ineffectiveness of that approach is that there’s just too much to do and not enough people; the structure itself is as fault.

The Board’s been wrestling with this issue.  The Committee on Ministry’s been wrestling with this issue.  Every committee has been wrestling with this issue!  Ultimately, this new approach was agreed upon by the COM and the Board.  We’re not going to talk about committees, we’re talking about ministry!  Shared Ministry!

Instead of assuming we have to have the 13 committees we currently have, we decided to get people together to talk about what our ministry is and how we’re going to engage in THAT.  The COM went through a process of discernment and agreed to the five ministries or five pillars  we’ve been talking about: Worship, Pastoral, Religious Education, Social Justice and Stewardship.  During the Town Meeting, we asked each person to decide what their ministry will be FOR ONE YEAR.  The commitment is for one year only!

We divided up into 5 teams and each group took on the task of defining their ministry for the next year.  Over the course of the next week, I’ll be sending more information about each one.   Over the next two weeks, I’ll continue to contact those of you who have not chosen a ministry to ask how you’re going to engage in the work of our congregation next year.

Here are answers to some questions we heard during and after the meeting:

1.  Can I do more than one?  No.  We’re talking about inspiration; what really moves you.  Like a few of you, I’m moved by all of this stuff; I love this work!  But, for next year, we’d like to be realistic about what we can each do.  So, yes, only one, please!

2. What if you’ve already committed to something?  Forget it!  OK, don’t totally forget it.  Here’s how it works.  If you’ve agreed to do something that needs to be done, the new Team will decide if that’s something that they can do without you.  They are free to ask you to continue doing it, but you are VERY FREE to say no.

3. Does this include committee chairs? This includes committee chairs!  Just because you’ve been a chair for 20 years, doesn’t mean that’s what you’re doing next year!  Dorothy stepped down from Membership, but will remain on the Pastoral Team, Gerry stepped down from B+G, but will remain on the Stewardship Team, Beth stepped down from Social Action and has joined the Worship Team, Brian is no longer part of Worship, etc.

4. When does this new structure go into effect?  July 1^st.

One of the larger concerns seems to be around making sure some things are done.  The challenge the Committee on Ministry wants to pose is not what has to be done, but what inspires you.  We don’t want to be, nor does anyone want to join, a congregation committed to a task list.  We want to be a congregation inspired by our ministry.  Yes, it’s possible that we won’t have coffee one morning.  Or, it’s possible that someone decides that theirs is a ministry of hospitality and coffee is important and he or she or they will make coffee every Sunday as their ministry.

In many American lives, good people wish we had time to do the things we want to do.  Personally, if I had the time, I’d have been more active in the anti-racism work of the county this year.  Maybe, for you, you’d have started your own vegetable garden or spent more time with the elderly woman next door or hung out with your kids more.  But, instead we did laundry and cleaned the kitchen and ran errands did all those endless things the American life is filled with.  As a congregation, we not only have a choice, we have an obligation to be alive together in a different way.  There are a few “must do” tasks, but there are 70 of us.  We can get a few of those things done and still have the energy for the larger work of being alive in this world!

We’re letting go of expectations and asking ourselves what we really want to do, who we really want to be.

What is your ministry?

We have at least 130 members. We have a full time, called minister. We have a ½ time professional religious educator. We have a choir and a ¼ time professional music director. The building is so busy it’s nearly a community center. We are mission centered, meaning we know who we are and what we’re doing together. We are known in the community for our social justice work.

Our Board and our Committee on Ministry are working hard to move us in this direction. On Saturday, we took an important step by asking each member present to define their ministry in the congregation and how they want to engage that ministry. I am going to send a series of emails as well as put these things on the blog to help those not present to determine what your ministry is going to be and how you can connect with that work. Please remember, as of July 1st, we are doing things differently!

The work you think you’re committed to doing is not necessarily your work anymore. You have a choice!

I’ll be going to the March, staying for the rally and then for the City Council Meeting which begins at 7:30.  I hope to see some of you there.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs –

ask yourself what makes you come alive,and then go do it.

Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

-Howard Thurman

Today’s Town Meeting was a critical step toward becoming the vibrant, healthy congregation we envision for the future of the 4^th Unitarian Society of Westchester.  Instead of talking about how things are and looking back over the year and remembering decades gone by, we started with our future and asked how we’re going to get to where we’re going and most importantly we asked the question, “What inspires us”.

Our Fellowship has a heavy infrastructure that is requiring all 70 members to hold it up.  Too many of us are exhausted from the burden of all this work, so today we asked everyone to put down whatever pieces they are carrying and ask one key question:

What is Your Ministry?

We weren’t asking “What can you do?” or “How much more can you give?”  We’re asking what your ministry is.  Forget your commitments, forget the people you’re afraid you’ll disappoint, forget what you think is needed.  This is a congregation that shares ministry, not task lists.

What is Your Ministry?

The Committee on Ministry has defined the ministries of the congregation.  We see that there are five primary ministries.  They are: Worship, Pastoral Care, Social Action, Religious Education + Stewardship.  The groups divided up and started talking about what we need to do in each area to get to where we’re going.  Forget the current structure.  Forget what you think has to be done.  We thought only about where we’re going and what we want to really be part of.

It was a first step, but a very interesting and exciting one.  If you weren’t there, though, we need to get you connected; we need to know what your ministry is!

A lot is changing.  No longer holding up a heavy structure filled with congregational expectations, we are each committing to engaging our passion.  That’s all.  What is the one thing you want to do next year?

If you weren’t there with us today, you’ll be hearing from me.  We’ll have some follow-up meetings, some ways to get you connected.  Stay tuned to the blog and your email.  In the meantime, ask yourself…

What is Your Ministry?

Rev. Harper will speak on how we can turn your facility into a environmentally friendly center. We would like to invite the leadership of local religious institutions to HVICC to learn fromRev Harper on how to benefit our community through environmentally responsible
management at our centers.

Fletcher Harper, an Episcopal priest, is Executive Director of GreenFaith, an interfaith environmental coalition. An award-winning spiritual writer and nationally-recognized preacher on the environment, he has developed a range of innovative programs to make GreenFaith a leader in the fast-growing religious-environmental movement. A graduate of Princeton University and Union Theological Seminary, Harper served as a parish priest for ten years and in leadership positions in the Episcopal Church prior to joining GreenFaith.

Founded in 1992, GreenFaith is a leading interfaith coalition for the environment. GreenFaith inspires, educates and mobilizes people of diverse religious backgrounds as environmental leaders. Through religious-environmental education programs, by greening the operation of religious institutions and the homes of its members, and through legislative advocacy and values-based environmental activism, GreenFaith helps religious institutions and people of all faiths put their belief into action for the earth. 

Becoming an Anti-Racist Faith Community:

Journey Towards Wholeness

 Joseph Barndt

 A call to gather a multiracial interfaith community of clergy, lay leaders and community committed to undoing racism. We will share aspirations, organizing experience and understanding of institutional racism within communities of worship.

 Community Church of New York

40 East 35 St., between Park & Madison

The Assembly Hall

Friday, May 20^th, 2011

9:30a.m. – 12:00p.m.

Coffee and free registration @ 9:00AM