Oct: Five Year Visioning

In early September, around 40 of you gathered at Chalice on a Friday night for the ministry start-up event led by Rev. Tera Little, Director of Lifespan Programs for the Pacific Southwest District of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Tera asked us to envision what we wanted for the congregation five years from now.

What joy it was to hear your responses! Your five-year visions include: a dynamic youth ministry program, greater age and ethnic diversity in our membership, a better understanding of our covenantal commitments, and, of course, our completed construction project. Common themes include an increase in church membership, a more visible presence in the wider community, and a deeper commitment to our social justice work.

The next day, Tera led the Board, Coordinating Team, and the Ministerial Support Team in an exercise to create specific one-year goals for me as your minister. These goals were informed by the visioning work begun the night before. The goals we arrived at are:

• To increase Chalice’s internet presence
• To clarify the path(s) for people to become involved with the church
• To offer one adult religious education class
• To grow membership by 10%

As you will see elsewhere in the newsletter, I hope to meet one goal almost immediately: the offering of an adult religious education class. The five-session class “Articulating Your Unitarian Universalist Faith” will begin Friday, October 12. I hope to see many of you there. (Please register!)

Our first concrete step toward growing membership is our shift back to two worship services—9 a.m. and 11 a.m.—beginning October 21. As we know, we are often pressed for space with just one worship service, and it can be particularly off-putting for first time visitors to walk into our chapel and find it full. But more importantly, moving to two services means we are able to double the opportunities for people to worship at Chalice. Many of you have already shared with me your pleasure at having more worship times to choose from.

As for the other goals…well, I have a whole year to work on them! Although it can be daunting to set such concrete goals, it is also tremendously exciting to have a clear focus and direction for the year. I hope to make significant progress on these in the coming months, and I hope we will continue to set goals together each fall.