Your Questions, My Answers Last month's Question Box service on July 13th provided a kind of "window" into the thinking and concerns of those church members and friends who submitted questions. For those of you who had to miss that service, here's a quick recap of those general areas of interest, with my responses. (For the record, these are rewordings and consolidations of several questions that were part of the July 13th service.)
What's going on with our Consulting Ministry, and what's in the immediate future?
The Board of Trustees and I have agreed in principle to a new contract for another year of Consulting Ministry, with an understanding that the contract can either be renewed for another year or so, or, after appropriate congregational input, become a Settled Ministry. The Board has appointed a Negotiating Team consisting of Past President Ann Maclaine, Worship Team representative Jyaphia Christos-Rodgers, and Church Ministries Team representative Rev. Dr. Jane Mauldin who will meet with me in the coming weeks to work out all the details of a new contract for the 08-09 church year. There is no possibility of a contract NOT working out for next year. I want to stay as your minister and am very willing to be flexible.
For the future, I am not interested in serving any other church in the UUA. My commitment until the time of my retirement, some 10-15 years from now, is to First Church and to New Orleans. But Settled Ministry (for any UU minister and First Church) will require expectations of meeting the UUA Compensation Standards for small churches in a low-paying area, that First Church may not yet be ready to attain, and I believe there is work to be done on all sides on understanding what "support" for permanent settled ministry would mean. But, as I have said many times, and mean with all my heart, I am never leaving New Orleans again.
What would help First Church to have longer settled ministries, rather than a series of shorter ones?
Some aspects of this are addressed in the above question. Certainly at least a part of what convinces a minister to stay in one church is compensation (salary and benefits). In addition, or even in contrast, ministers and congregations who are able to work together for the good of all, who know how to support and encourage each other, who are willing to periodically "reinvent" the ministry, are more likely to have a long relationship. Congregations with strong and healthy lay leaders who know how to shoulder their share of the ministry, who know how to maintain good boundaries for congregational well-being, are more likely to enjoy long ministries. On the other hand, other considerations, some not in the control of either the congregation or the minister, can come into play. For example, ministers with children will be concerned about the quality of education available; some minister may be anxious about crime levels in a particular area. The best thing First Church can do to go back to periods of long ministries (such as the church had with Parson Clapp and Rev. D'Orlando, for example), is to work on the things that are within the congregation's power to change -- compensation levels, leadership training for lay leadership, and strengthening the congregation's understanding and bearing of their side of the shared ministry.
How can this church (or any UU church) pull together in the face of our many differences? And how can the church work with congregations of other faiths who disagree with us on fundamental issues?
In the same way, we can work together with any religious group as long as we focus on the things that bring us together rather than on the things that might separate us. Whether Roman Catholic, Protestant Christian, conservative Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Bahai, Buddhist, Pagan, or Hindu, there are issues and concerns we all care about and that we can agree to work on together. Our interrelationships will be transformational and we usually find we have more in common that we originally thought. (And we often find that we have more "hidden allies" than we expected.)
What is my vision for First Church?
This was a hard question for me, for, in truth, a Consulting Minister is not really supposed to have a vision for the church they are temporarily serving. But while I am at this point a Consulting Minister, I am also a First Churcher who has long loved this congregation, and I have hopes of serving this congregation for a long time to come. So I do have a vision for the church that I am striving very hard not to "press" on y'all in this consulting period.
In some ways, it's a "Back to the Future" vision -- that is, my dream for First Church's future involves a kind of return to the congregation's past. In the church's history, both past history and fairly recent history, the congregation has been on the forefront of justice concerns, the church has been famous for the quality of its worship and preaching, the congregation has been beloved for the frequency and warmth of its intergenerational social and fellowship events, the church has been known for its commitment to terrific and New Orleans-specific music. When I dream about First Church's future, that's how it looks to me.
I am honored and excited about our second year together, and feeling VERY optimistic about all that is going on and all that is planned. Thank you for allowing me to share your lives with you; thank you for allowing me to serve you as your minister. I look forward to this year.
In faith and love,
Rev. Melanie
