The Summer of 2022
What are we working on at Grace United Methodist Church? There are many things happening, even as we are in the middle of the summer months, but I thought I’d spend a little time doing some regular updates to keep people informed of all that is happening here at Grace. Here’s some highlights of what this week holds for us:
There is a funeral for a member of a local United Methodist Church. I will be presiding at the funeral and interment, connecting with new families that live in our area. Though the goal is squarely to honor the life of the deceased, I recognize there is deep value in connecting with the extended family and supporting them through their grief. Part of the reason the church exists is to support people through a variety of stages in life, from birth to marriage to death, and to offer a place for people to grow spiritually throughout.
The Staff Parish Relations Committee met on Monday evening. We welcomed a new member, Peggy Chagares. Thanks for being a part of the team, Peggy! We also adjusted the schedule for the rest of the year, including staff reviews. We reviewed the pastoral appraisal given by the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference. There was also some discussion about the team that would be used for walking us through selecting a new Christian Education director for our Sunday School. I’ll be the point person for much of that effort over the next couple of weeks. One last item of significance for SPRC was a review of the employee handbook. Its been a few years since we updated it, and the committee came up with a plan for how to tackle that important project.
One of the key things we can do during the summer is take a deep breath and reflect on our plans for the next year. Several leaders gathered a few weeks ago to discuss worship, sermons and the schedule for the church. The sermons and Bible studies are set for the year. Next we have to meet with a couple of our creative types to come up with art and graphics for all of the series. We noticed last year that doing a new image every single week was pretty exhausting for our volunteers. We are looking forward to changing it up this year by having one key image for each series that can easily be updated by the office staff from week to week. We are also reviewing our list of events for all of 2022-23, with some of your favorite events like the tricky tray and cookie walk, and also looking at adding some new events to the year as well. We are looking at coordinating with the Cub Scouts on a movie night so we can have a nice bonfire added to the evening. We are also looking at a date night for Valentine’s Day and plant sale around Mothers Day. We had to have a follow-up meeting this week to work out some of the details for the new events. The schedule will be made available to the staff and leaders of the church after the office gets a chance to review it for accuracy.
On Wednesday I have my strangest meeting of the year. Its the Bergen County Tax Hearing. As you probably know, Grace UMC doesn’t pay taxes, but somehow, when part of our property was sold, we were added to the tax assessors list (with our name, but someone else’s address!). Every tax bill we’ve received, we called and told them we are a church and it had the wrong information on it. They’ve said “oh, okay, that’s just a mistake.” Apparently it needs to go to a Bergen County Tax hearing to have us officially removed from the tax list! I’m assured that the hearing is simply a formality, but I’ll be in on that meeting Wednesday.
On Sunday we will be having a Congregational Care Team lunch. This group hasn’t met in the two years I have been here, but after adding a few new members, I wanted to bring the group together to eat, share stories, encourage one another and see what we could learn from our caring visits. I talked with Hilda in the office about how we would provide lunch and I’m going to put together an agenda for the meeting so it has good flow and people can walk away feeling like they’ve learned something and that they were blessed by our time together.
Last, but certainly not least, we have Vacation Bible School. This big event happens next week! The station leaders are busy preparing skits and projects. The crew leaders are prepared to guide our campers through the fun and chaos, but most of all, Mrs. Chris Cauda is doing everything she can to make sure we have a perfect week. She’s pulling out all the stops with some special animal visitors and a carnival! Its a week that can’t be beat, and we are prepping every day for it. Decorations go up on Wednesday, so lend us a hand if you can! Please be sure to pray for our campers and staff. We know it can be a lot of fun, but its a ton of work as well, so please keep us in your prayers, and pray that those young people’s lives are touched by God this week!
That’s a pretty typical week at Grace. It’s all over the map, but lots of good things are happening! We keep plugging along, trusting that our best efforts, along with wise counsel and strategic steps will help us be a better church, making disciples and changing people’s lives.
I want to share a little more about the list I wrote above, though. You'll notice all of the items I listed are things I've made a commitment to participate in. I regularly lead worship, funerals and weddings. I participate and lead committee meetings. I help plan the year, especially as it relates to worship. I also volunteer, on occasion, in support of some of the events taking place at Grace. The role of a pastor can be very wide and diverse. It's so wide and diverse, in fact, that many people struggle to understand just what it is that pastors do.
This is from Susan Beaumont, an expert in church leadership. She says, "The expectations placed on senior ministers are often too numerous to faithfully execute. For example, the Book of Discipline in the United Methodist Church outlines more than thirty “essential functions” of the role. Other denominations operate with similarly excessive criteria for success. Most people cannot attend to more than twelve essential functions in their role. The governing body of the congregation should work with the senior minister to shape a job description that reflects the specific needs in the context. What are the expectations of our senior pastor in this time and space? Should the senior minister give priority to the supervision of the staff team, the development of the board, the pastoral care of congregants, the worship life of the congregation, the preaching task—or something else?" https://susanbeaumont.com/2019/10/29/five-pitfalls-to-avoid-when-evaluating-the-senior-minister/
These are important questions for our church to work through, especially as we continue to make the transition from two appointed clergy to one. Some things cannot be done by a single appointed clergy-person. Some things may simply not be done at all! That's what happens as churches make transitions and discover the gifts and talents to be best utilized for the glory of God. I want to be faithful to the things I commit to do, and I want to do as much as humanly possible to help Grace grow and thrive, but I also realize that when things have to come "through me" for approval it can create a bottleneck that stops good, helpful things for the church from happening.
The best remedy for such a situation is to empower the people! You are the best answer for the best things to happen here at Grace. As others take on the authority of decision making, there are a couple of other things that have to happen along with it. Some may be nervous or anxious to make decisions without my "okay." That's alright; I hope you will grow in confidence, and know that I won't "bite your head off" for doing something different from what I might choose. The only time I take issue with a person's decisions is when they do them out of what we might describe as a "sinful" place. Are you angry, selfish, conceited, hard-hearted or jealous? Please don't make a decision from that place! Come and talk with me and see if we can find a way forward. I am certain that we hold a mutual desire for the church to succeed, and we can best get there by working together. The other thing that needs to happen is to increase communication for alignment. If people are working at cross-purposes it can be destructive to the church. We are a team together and we need to move in the same direction. You'll find that I am a "rule follower." If the Book of Discipline describes how we are supposed to do something, I'm going to advocate for us to follow it as closely as practicable. But where there are not rules, there is freedom! That freedom can be a beautiful breath of fresh air to empower us to use our creativity to bring our best selves to the challenges that face our church. Yet, that freedom must be directed. It cannot go in the opposite direction of other work happening in the church.
I think of a concert, where each instrument in the orchestra plays its own piece. The notes and music might be different for each instrument, but when played together it forms a beautiful work that can move the soul. That's how the church works, too. Each person is an instrument of God's gifts and we want to both honor the gifts in you, and help those gifts work together for the good of the church. My hope is that, by increasing communication and my specific commitments, you can have a better sense of the direction we are going in together. You have likely heard by now of the Pathways for Congregational Development. This is a major initiative of the Annual Conference to help local congregations discern the path, the steps to take, to gain alignment and work in concert together for the good of the congregation. We are forming a team currently and I hope that it will not only help the congregation to work together, but that I would grow, too. I don't know which 12 functions are most essential for me to do here at Grace. We can only discover that by joining together to discern a vision for the church that meets as many needs as possible, to do as much good as possible. Our stated goal is to be a faith community that passionately follows Jesus Christ. By increasing communication and gaining better alignment, I think we can better meet that goal and help our church thrive.
I hope you'll join me on the journey! Here are some specific tasks that I plan to do to increase communication and help us find better alignment:
share my calendar with all staff so they can see all the tasks that I have committed to do for Grace
write more frequently about the goals and direction of the church. My current goal is to write a blog post at least once a month to help clarify the mission and gain alignment
work through the Pathways for Congregational Development workbook with a team to help clarify our mission and vision. From that will flow the 12 essential functions for my ministry
If you have additional thoughts or suggestions, feel free to email me back or come visit me in my office. I'm usually in M-W and do sermon writing off-site on Thursday. I'm also available on Sunday afternoons by appointment. God bless and thank you for all you do to grow the church community!
In Christ,
Pastor Brian Neville