“If you hear God’s voice, do not harden your heart!” “Not what You’d Expect, Maybe What You’re Looking For” and “Seeking the House God has for Us.” Tim recently said he has taken to saying he is ‘a liberal Christian’ because, while incomplete, people ‘seem to understand what I mean.’ At University Baptist Church, we’ve become good – no, we excel at describing deep values and directions in a handful of thoughtfully chosen words. Words that speak not only to us, but to others.
Over the weekend (April 21-22) I had the opportunity to say each of these meaningful, potent phrases to people who were not familiar our congregation. How grateful I was for the clarity and depth each of these phrases carries!
We are good – and becoming better – at the short, pithy statement that invites inquiry while still directly and graciously conveying who and what we are.
Are we equally good at that which is not ‘short and pithy’? That which requires more words, more pauses, more questions and dialog? Yes, I think so.
Witness our recent work on ‘Seeking the House God has for Us’.
On Sunday April 22 we were blessed with panel presentation, organized and moderated by Brooke Rolston, to hear from others who have been through a ‘seeking’ process in their own congregations and churches. What a rich store of information and insights these people were for us, and what marvelous questions were asked. ‘Take-home’ messages for me from this panel include: Keep God front and center. Tend to relationships and strive for consensus. But don’t be so protective of relationships that you discount facts regarding the stewardship of your resources. Know the road will be bumpy. Know that with grace, generosity and clarity you can navigate the bumps and care for those who might get inadvertently bruised along the way. If your geographic location is important to you, affirm this. But know it may be a huge challenge to stay in a particular neighborhood given real estate costs. Be clear about mission: hear what God calls us to do, not just what is dear to us. Affirm who you are as a congregation, but don’t be so tied to a particular, narrow identity that you loose the opportunity to learn and renew. Remember that keeping a specific building intact is not, in and of itself, a mission. Sequence your decisions so you don’t box yourself in. This process of ‘seeking the house’ will change you, both individually and as a congregation. And change can be good, and God is present.
Insights from this panel were extraordinarily useful at this time in our seeking process. Here’s why: the opportunities are blossoming! We are blessed with the reality that we have, at least initially, several choices that have simply come our way with little or no coaxing. In a nutshell, and as of this writing:
1. Three congregations, or groups of congregations, are interested in having us join them in some way, shape or form. Each of these invitations has different characteristics:
- Keystone Church, located in Wallingford just north of Good Shepard Center, has invited us to converse with them about how we might share their building, and perhaps more.
- Conversations are happening with University Christian, here in the U District, about having us use their chapel. We could share other things as well if we jointly chose to do so. A great thing about this potential is that our tenure in the UC building could be either short or long term. All require further discussion.
- The University District Ecumenical Campus Community (UDECC) would house a number of distinct congregations and social service groups in a new building taking up the better part of a block here in the U District. We have been invited to continue in discussions with this organization as they approach the feasibility study stage. A monetary commitment from us (most likely $1000), if we choose to make it, will buy us a vote on the non-profit Board that will soon be established to continue planning for the possibility of this UDECC.
- The Working Group addressing development and co-development approached a low-income / senior housing developer associated with our denomination. This particular developer has said, essentially, ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you’. So this possibility is not on the ‘front burner’, but we will certainly welcome their interest if it comes.
- Our Working Group is actively exploring possibilities with adjacent property owners.
- Several members of our congregation, and some friends of UBC, know people who ‘might be interested’ in developing, or perhaps co-developing our property with us. The Working Group is following up with each of these, inviting them to approach us for further conversations.
- The title for our property is ours; there are no registered liens or complications. This is great news.
- Our land and building are sufficiently ‘unique’ that it will require a ‘unique’ buyer / developer.
- If the use of our building were to change from a church to something else, the City will require many things, including all the code updates we’ve talked about in the past, and probably parking as well. This probably makes the sale of our property and building, on their own, less attractive to any entity save another church. And that church would (likely) need to have the resources to repair and upgrade all that which we have been unable to finance to date.
- That said, an eager real estate person has approached us on behalf of another church (we don’t know which one). We have let this person know we are not quite ready to entertain an offer.
‘Not quite ready to entertain an offer…’ Yes. But given what I’ve noted above, we should, I believe, begin working on the things we, as a congregation, need to have in place in order to begin to entertain offers and begin real discussions about real futures.
When do we do this? Soon. On June 3rd, after church, we’ll have a quarterly business meeting. Prior to that meeting, you will receive a report from your Working Groups outlining what we’ve learned to date. Not just about possible sales or ‘physical’ homes, but also about what we’ve learned about ourselves. This report will suggest a series of affirmations of who we are and what we stand for. In addition, we hope to suggest a list of what we need in order to be, that which we affirm. Some of this we know from our mission statement. Some will be informed by the conversations our Mission Support / Peace and Justice team is having with the many who share our space. Some we can glean from our ‘This Old House’ discussions in 2006 and from our responses to the wonderful, weekly messages from our ‘Spiritual Care of the Congregation’ group during lent. Some we will gather from the ‘scenarios’ we worked and played with on March 25, and some will come from insights gained from the panel on April 22. Then it will be up to us, the congregation to work with these until we get it right. And when we ‘get it right’, we will then have a clear framework we can use to both pursue and evaluate real options.
Yes, I’m an optimist. Especially after hearing the panel on Sunday April 22. We have options, we have a future, we are keeping good care of one another and we are keeping God front and center.
With a full and grateful heart to all of you,
Martha