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- This new feature of the Innovation Now Newsletter answers a question in this issue regarding The Basics of
Running a Good Volunteer Organization and Strategies for Meeting Management? Watch future issues for additional resources because YOU asked!
- Lunch & Learn for Leaders | Discerning Your Church's Future: Thursday, February 16th from 12:00 PM-1:00 PM (REGISTER)
- Church Leadership Training: Saturday, February 25th from 9:00 AM-12:00 PM (REGISTER)
- Ministers of Color Affinity Group through Together We Thrive: February 25th, April 15th, August 26th, October 28th, December 9th, and January 20th, 2024 from 10:00 AM-12:00 PM (REGISTER)
- Microaggressions in Ministry | Author Zoom Discussion: Wednesday, March 29th from 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM (REGISTER)
- Noteworthy Offerings:
- Grant Writing for Congregational Leaders: March 6th from 12:00 - 1:30 PM (REGISTER)
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The Ingredients of Future-Oriented Collaboration:
An Interview with Mr. Barry Shelley
We hope you’ll join us for Collective Leadership and the Ingredients of Future-Oriented Collaboration with Mr. Barry Shelley at our March Lunch and Learn. Barry will offer the one-hour webinar on March 16, 2023, from 12 noon - 1 PM. To register click here.
In this interview, Barry introduces himself, shares a bit about his work and his approach to meaningful and effective collaboration. Insights gleaned from his work are promising for successful practices of collaboration within our congregations.
Karen: Barry, thank you for your time today. We’ve been in lively conversations since you first reached out to engage the Center for Transformational Leadership (CTL) of the Conference about a resource for our work in innovation and transformation. Would you introduce yourself to our readers?
Barry: For our purposes here, perhaps I can best introduce myself as a seminary-trained political economist whose vocation has been framed by a commitment to social justice advocacy and a keen interest in leadership that generates genuine and effective cooperation and transformational outcomes. I have learned from both suffering the consequences of poor leadership as well as... (CONTINUE READING) (6 Min Read)
Together We Thrive:
Looking Ahead
Together We Thrive is not just the name of a Lilly Endowment funded initiative here in The Southern New England Conference, in many ways, it’s a statement of aspiration. In the post-modern church, clergy thriving is essential. Together We Thrive is a name and a statement born of a collaboration formed in 2018 with ecumenical partners from the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts and the New England Synod of ELCA Lutheran churches. The grant funded organization and its initiatives function with an Advisory Team, A Director, Rev. Heather Ramsey Mabrouk and part-time administrative staff. You may recall that in October 2018 this initiative received a $1 million Lilly Endowment Grant for Thriving in Ministry, submitted through the historic Massachusetts Conference, United Church of Christ. Together We Thrive was formed and the ministry began among and between the ecumenical partners to serve the needs of clergy, and thus to impact our churches. When a clergy leader is thriving, their leadership, creativity, passion, innovation, engagement, and ability to serve broadly and deeply is at its best. Coach training, Affinity Groups, Bowen Family Systems training, and educational intensives have been offered throughout the term of the initiative.
Together, some good work has been done! Over the last year, the Director, Staff, and Advisory Team have been discussing and discerning what types of sustainability are possible. What programs may be able to be embedded and sustained by one of the partners? What type of cultural shift can continue to be nurtured... (CONTINUE READING) (3 Minute Read)
Resiliency Time Capsule Stories:
A Tale of Two Mansfields
Video Story from First Congregational Church
in Mansfield, CT
and
A Story of The Congregational Church
of Mansfield, MA
An Interview with Rev. Ruth Shaver
For Rev. Ruth Shaver, the focus of her church work during the pandemic mostly involved maintaining a sense of community. Ruth was living in North Conway, NH at the start of the pandemic and joined the Mansfield congregation in August of 2020.
In the church, Ruth became the technology person. She started a YouTube channel, had a Facebook group going strong, and worked to create a much better website. The church tried the app for music called Acapella but found that it was a little too complicated with the technology that they had at hand. This caused them to update their technology, such as buying new computers and microphones. Using this technology, the church put on a multipart digital Christmas pageant, all on re-recorded video. This was stitched together carefully by Ruth. For instance, one man did a reflection as Joseph. Then others... (CONTINUE READING) (4 Minute Read)
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BUILDING A LEGACY:
Learning, Discerning, and Leaning In
Eighth in a Series of Blogs by Charlie Kuchenbrod
Is it time to look at completing the work of this congregation faithfully and well? This question may be raised and discussed first among leaders, but at some point the conversation will expand to include everyone in the congregation. It is not unusual for people to resist the completion process. It is not unusual for people outside of the leadership circle, people that may not even participate much in the conversation, to grumble the loudest. For some reason, they clap their hands over their eyes and ears, but not over their mouths. “La, la, la, I can’t hear you!” This can be very frustrating for leaders, especially when anger over unwelcome change is directed at the leadership (CONTINUE READING) (3 Minute Read)
Previous Topics (Click Here To Access the Legacy Blog Series):
- Part 1: Who is this series for? When should churches start thinking about legacies?
- Part 2: Completing Ministries Faithfully and Well
- Part 3: Affirmation of faith. Does God ever yearn for a church to complete its ministry?
- Part 4: Fruitfulness. Locked up assets; releasing locked up assets
- Part 5: Theology of Legacy Churches
- Part 6A: Changing the Narrative: Moving from “Decline, Failure, Closure, and Death” to “Maturity, Legacy Building, Ministry Completion, and Resurrection.”
- Part 6B: Changing the Narrative: Moving from “Decline, Failure, Closure, and Death” to “Maturity, Legacy Building, Ministry Completion, and Resurrection.”
- Part 7: Palliative Care
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MissionInsite Walk-Through
with Rev. Alex Shea Will
Curious about how to use MissionInsite to better understand and access your community? In this video, Rev. Alex Shea Will, Area Conference Minister for the Northeast Region, walks us through the latest iteration of MissionInsite, an online tool that helps identify community needs, serves people strategically, and invites community participation.
MissionInsite, by ACS Technologies is a demographic program that can help congregations and ministries know their neighborhood and mission field. It is available through a subscription that the SNE Conference has purchased and uses information from a variety of sources to provide data about our churches, conferences, and associations. Churches should upload their congregant information and use this information to make available different “layers” or “theme maps” around a specific user-defined area, helping leaders to bridge the gap between data and decision.
With your faith-based nonprofit’s data and current demographics information, you can understand your community and the people you serve!
A Dying Church's Gift Inspires a Young Congregation to Help People Experiencing Homelessness
by Julia Duin
A dying Lutheran church in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland had a difficult decision.
Should they close and sell their property for the millions of dollars it would net in Seattle’s red-hot real estate market?
Or should they hand the assets to another congregation to reconfigure it into something more befitting a 21st-century church?
Trinity Lutheran Church’s decision to give up its property to new owners nearly a decade ago led to the planting of Salt House, an enterprising, high-tech Lutheran congregation.
With core values of generosity and radical welcome, the progressive church has embraced LGBTQ folks and established a fund for reparations. Among its biggest commitments: sheltering people experiencing homelessness. Today, its campus includes a day center in the church basement and a 24-hour shelter on land it sold to the city.
The original gift of the building and assets is now part of the congregation’s DNA, helping drive decisions about who and what they will become.
“This whole ability to start Salt House was from the generosity of the dying community that wanted new life to be started here,” said the Rev. Ryan Marsh, a Salt House pastor. “So who were we to stint on generosity? We are loved by a generous... (CONTINUE READING) (12 Minute Read)
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Reflective Leadership Grants
Leadership Education at Duke Divinity
The Reflective Leadership Grant supports an opportunity for structured reflection for lay or clergy leaders of Christian organizations that are advancing their mission following the multiple pandemics — COVID-19, racial inequity, economic disruption and mental distress — that emerged and/or intensified throughout the past few years.
While all leaders are encouraged to practice some form of ongoing reflection, this grant aims to support those leaders whose work has made a demonstrable contribution to their organization's mission. These leaders are at a pivotal moment for stepping back and reflecting on what has been accomplished, what is changing and what is stable. The Reflective Leadership Grant allows leaders to (CONTINUE READING)
Thriving Congregations Initiative
Lilly Endowment
Through the Thriving Congregations Initiative 2023, Lilly Endowment seeks to support charitable organizations in the United States in developing new or strengthening existing programs that will work directly with congregations to help them assess and adapt their ministries to their changing contexts as they move toward a post-COVID-19 pandemic future. The Endowment is especially interested in programs that (CONTINUE READING)
We recently received this question from a leader in one of our congregations. They asked:
“I am looking for something very specific: a series of videos that our church members – and particularly committee chairs – could watch about the basics of running a good volunteer organization, and leading a small group to have meetings and get things done – setting goals and an agenda, taking minutes, managing the flow of discussion, keeping folks on task, dealing with conflict sensitively, etc. Sort of a crash course in Roberts Rules of order, but updated and simplified?”
We shared the following resources in answer to the inquiry. While we aren’t aware of anything as specific as a video series we'd be comfortable recommending, we believe that the following resources may be useful:
- Church Leadership Training: The CTL is hosting a training on February 25, 2023 to address the essentials of three roles: the Moderator/Vice Moderator, the Treasurer, and the members of the Pastoral Support Committee- previously known as Pastor-Parish Relations Committee. The program will be free of charge, be held on Zoom from 9 AM through Noon, and will be useful for anyone in or considering these roles in their local church. You can learn more here.
- "Leader's Box": While we await a new Manual on Church, we continue to use the updated “Leader’s Box” materials for congregations who’d like written information to share with their leaders about the basic functions and essential tasks of various roles within the church. These can be downloaded and printed for use throughout your church. Click here to access PDF versions of the documents
- Sample Materials: The following are document samples that you may use as models to guide and organize your meetings:
- PRC Recorded Webinar on Guiding Effective Church Meetings: As a subscribing Conference, these webinars, both upcoming and recorded, are free to our churches and their leaders. You may find this one with Jim Merhaut to be useful – it’s entitled Church Meeting Magic. Jim is a professional coach and consultant with Vibrant Faith Ministries. In addition, this link will bring you to all their webinars which are organized into broad categories. You may find the category of (Church) Management and Organization to be particularly helpful.
- Lewis Center for Leadership Resources: Here’s a link to the Lewis Center for Leadership and some of their resources which may be useful. One in particular, 50 Ways to Multiply Your Church’s Leadership Capacity, may be useful. While a “50 Ways” list is broad and not deep, it may suggest strategies to your key leaders that remain useful and are simple next steps to incorporate in their leadership.
- Simplified Roberts Rules of Order: Finally, as to the simple version of Roberts Rules of Order, here is a downloadable PDF from Cornell University with the essentials.
We hope that other churches seeking guidance on effective meeting management will review and benefit from these materials.
Discerning Your Church's Future
with Karen Ziel, Assistant Director
of The Center for Transformational Leadership
When you consider your church, do any of these statements resonate with you?
- There is concern about the future of our church.
- The church needs to consider new possibilities-what options and resources are available to transform our work.
- The congregation is going to need to make some important decisions about the future soon.
- The church is at a threshold moment and needs to know how to move forward.
- The church is ready for renewal but isn’t sure how to start.
If you agree with any or some of the above, please join Karen Ziel, Assistant Director of SNEUCC’s Center for Transformational Leadership to learn about the options and resources available to your church in this moment. Karen will present an overview of the assessment and discernment tools and support that can be offered to our Conference congregations through the Center for Transformational Leadership.
Lunch & Learn events are brought to you at no cost through your proportional giving!
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Church Leadership Training
The Center for Transformational Leadership is pleased to offer basic training over Zoom for new and returning moderators, assistant moderators, treasurers, and pastor-parish relations committee members. This event is offered at no cost to participants through proportional giving.
Registration closes TOMORROW so be sure to register now!
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Ministers of Color Affinity Group
Registration is now open for the second affinity group created specifically for ministers of color and is open to all who identify as such. The group will be led by Rev. Dr. Danielle Buhuro, an experienced pastoral care practitioner, author, and scholar.
The 2023 affinity group follows the Conference's first affinity group for ministers of color. That group culminated in August, and participants indicated a desire for the group to both continue and expand to include additional individuals. The facilitator and curriculum are both different from the earlier group, making this appropriate both for past participants and new attendees.
The cost is $100 for six Saturday morning sessions to be held from 10 am til noon on February 25, April 15, August 26, October 28, December 9 and January 20, 2024. An overnight retreat will take place June 23-24.
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Conference-Wide Lenten Book Study on
Microaggressions in Ministry
This Conference-Wide book study is for people in congregations who want to learn how to be more welcoming, more inclusive, and more attentive to the way God is calling them to accompany ALL people along their spiritual paths at church. Read along with Executive Minister of Programs and Initiatives, Rev. Dr. Chris Davies, by registering today.
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If you are not yet familiar with a lot of the Racial Justice language used in conversations of DEI, this book study is for you.
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If you have questions about ongoing LGBTQ inclusion, this book study is for you.
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If you desire clear, specific, actionable things for your congregation to be more welcoming, this book study is for you.
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If you proclaim your church to be welcoming towards women in leadership, multiracial/ multicultural, open and affirming, or say “All Are Welcome!” then this book study is for you!
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Or, if you are simply exploring how to live more fully into a Christian call of witness and welcome, then this book study is for you.
Please register for more information including
a reading schedule with discussion questions.
**SPECIAL** The First 50 people from the Southern New England Conference to register will receive a FREE copy of the book mailed to the address provided in registration! After the first 50 people, SNEUCC will provide a code to each participant to buy a book at a 40% discount from the publisher.
Joining along in the book study itself is free. For Authorized Ministers and Members in Discernment, this study can include an add-on portion for a certificate of having attended a Racial Justice Training of 6 hours; priced at $49 for SNEUCC members and $65 for welcomed guests.
The book study will culminate on:
Wednesday, March 29th, from 12 noon – 1:30 pm ET
with a zoom conversation hosted by Rev. Dr. Chris Davies with the authors Rev. Cody J. Sanders, Ph.D. and Rev. Angela Yarber, Ph.D.
NOTEWORTHY OFFERINGS
