Listening session results

The Leadership Team (Core Leadership Council, Trustees, and Staff) looked very closely at the answers you gave to the questions posed at the listening sessions.   The leadership team divided into four groups, each group took the answers to one of the questions, looked at the individual answers and developed a summary.  In this process some key themes emerged.

1.       What attracted you to Urban Grace?   Why have you stayed?

*These were the two most answered questions.  People have opinions and want to talk about these important questions.

We heard you say that it is important that UG be a community where we can be ourselves, be accepted and loved for who we are, and be around others who are both alike and different from us.  UG is rich with diversity.

We heard you say that authenticity is important and UG should be a community where we can be “perfectly imperfect”.  We are a community to belong, explore and wrestle with faith and be on the journey together.

We heard you say that the sense of community at UG is paramount.  The relationships that have been created and formed at UG are treasured and this sense of community extends beyond our church doors, into the downtown and city of Tacoma.

Recurring Themes:

Diversity, inclusion, acceptance

Sense of community and relationships

Authenticity

Safe place to wrestle in the faith

Social justice, community outreach, our role in the community

2.        To you, what are the essential characteristics or expressions of ministry at Urban Grace?

We heard you say that UG seeks to create community through the following essential expressions …

*Outreach ( Sunday breakfast, community engagement, social justice)

* Creativity and the Arts

*Diversity and inclusion

*Partnerships (ecumenical tradition, teaming with other organizations, multiple voices heard

*Body of believers worshiping, learning and caring for each other (worship, small groups, learning studies, safe place)

Recurring Themes:

Diversity and inclusion, social justice/ community outreach, safe place to wrestle with the faith, creativity/arts,  breakfast program, community engagement and partnerships.

3.        What are some gifts and strengths that you can contribute to the life of the church?  What are the barriers to getting involved?

We heard you say that we are a multi-talented group and have a wide variety of skills.  We especially attract people in the arts and music.  You are willing to contribute your gifts to UG, however, time, organization and communication, which are essential to connecting our gifts to our needs, are often lacking. The leadership recognizes that finding improved leadership and organization will help bridge these barriers to a deeper level of participation.

Recurring Themes:

Gifts: Music, hospitality, group facilitator, administration, teaching, youth and family

Barriers: time, don’t know how to connect, lack of leadership, organization and communication

4.        Do you think it is essential to have a pastor?  Yes or no?

We heard you say that we need a centralized leadership that represents our key values of embracing diversity, being our “face” in the community, ecumenical involvement, and unites, grows and nurtures the congregation.  We can build on the success of our past leadership, expanding and strengthening our model of ministry.

Yes:  53   No:  7  Undecided : 3

There was a resounding yes but there were also many thoughts expressed about the importance of having multiple voices from the pulpit, and continuing to have a strong lay presence.

Recurring Themes:

Centralized leadership, pastoral care, face of UG to our community, embraces our uniqueness and diversity, ecumenical involvement

Resource Evaluation

The next exercise we did was to take a look at all the activities and ministries we do at Urban Grace.  We divided the Leadership team into two groups, the council and the trustees, both charged with the duty of developing a comprehensive list of current activities and in light of the congregational answers to the listening session questions, sorting those activities into two categories, essential and less- essential.  The council looked at all the activities of UG involved in ministry, while the trustees looked at all the operational activities.  We wanted to take a critical look at what we do day to day, look closely at how and where our staff and lay volunteer time is used, and where our resources are currently used.

This was a very difficult task!  The list of activities was very large and took us a while to develop.  We found it almost impossible to put anything on the less-essential list.

We learned several things from this exercise…

1.  For a church our size, we are involved in a large number of ministry activities.
2. Many of the ministry activities we determined were” essential” also have elements which are “less-essential”.  We determined more time will be needed to work through our ministry programs to make them more efficient, effective, and focused more directly on what you said are essential to us at UG.
3. We also noticed that for a church our size, we have a large number of operational duties in the areas of facility management, administration, communication, and finance consuming a great deal of staff time.  All of these activities were determined to be essential.  The council and trustees will need to be creative in developing resource solutions (staff, volunteers, and funding) for this issue.

Pastoral Search

We spent time talking about the important issue of hiring a pastor.   We all agreed we have been enjoying the current liturgy and storytelling series but felt to continue to do this every week for the prolonged time it typically takes to hire a permanent pastor would be too difficult.  We felt it a good use of our resources to hire an interim pastor, who would not only help with the Sunday service duties but also would have some special skills to help us through the entire search process and to get us ready for a new pastor.  This position will be less than full time so we can save money for future use.  We will continue to do a great deal of the day to day ministry work ourselves, but will look forward to his/her assistance.  The council is working with several resources including Associated Ministries, the Presbyterians, and our Baptist Association to find a perfect interim match.  We are also currently in the process of creating a search committee to find the person God intends us to have as a permanent pastor.  Please be in prayer for this important process.

Time Line

Since Tad left in January, this has been an important time of drawing together and taking responsibility for the ministries of our church.  We have had time to think, plan and listen but now it is time to move forward into this next chapter of our journey together.  At our leadership retreat, we develop the start of a time line and some goals we would like to share.

• The trustees developed an Interim budget with some breathing room built in so we can save for financial needs associated with a pastoral search.
• 4/1 Take over the building management as CTM ends its term, and maintain the systems put in place to manage and finance the building.
• 2/21 Initiate pursuit of an Interim Pastor whose tasks will include organizing and participation in Sunday services and consulting re: search process.  Have this person in place by 6/1/12 or earlier.   We would like to have at least two months without having to pay a pastor’s salary so we can bank a financial cushion.
• Assemble a search committee by the end of March.
• Continue to inform the Congregation of our actions and create opportunities for continued input.

Conclusion

The leadership of Urban Grace is very proud and appreciative of the wonderful way the congregation has responded to the increased needs of the church.  Thank you.  However, as you have heard, we have a continued journey ahead of us.  We want to encourage you to continue your support of this very unique ministry called Urban Grace.  What we need is for you (the congregation) to…

1. Continue your participation in the process of finding a new pastor.
2. Continue to volunteer.  We are not standing still.  Our ministries and worship are going strong.
3. Continue to support the church and its ministries financially.  Our needs in this area continue and we will have expenses associated with a pastoral search to cover.
4. Pray for the leadership and search committee for wisdom, and our new pastor as God is preparing him/her to come to us.

CTM

Since March 1 of 2011, CTM has been managing our facilities.   This was an agreement that depended on funds raised by CTM, and was anticipated to continue for 12-18 months.  CTM has now notified us that they will need to move on to different projects, and so our arrangement for management of our facilities will come to an end March 31.

This has been a very fruitful relationship for Urban Grace, with many needed maintenance and improvement projects completed, a management system put into place, and an improved financial position for the church related to the building accomplished.  As we take back the management responsibility for the facility, we will enjoy these benefits going forward.  Siri Kaunda, the Facilities Manager, is very capable, and will be continuing on in this role with us after the transition.  Recognizing the success of the management systems implemented by CTM, we are going to keep those systems in place going forward.  As a small church in a big building, a solid management plan for the building will continue to be very important to us.

We are indebted to CTM for their contributions to Urban Grace, not only as it relates to the facility over the past year, but in their continuing partnership with Urban Grace, and we are going to take a few moments at the end of March to recognize and thank them.

New Sound System

We are very pleased to have our new sound system in place.  It was necessary to purchase the system because we had previously been using a system owned by SOTA, which is no longer available to us.  The new system gives us the capability of managing our sound needs for worship and for events such as the Anne Lamott lecture Friday evening.  A number of people participated in helping us with the research needed to find a system that was both affordable and capable of meeting our needs, but we particularly want to thank Bryan Bell for his efforts to get us the very best price possible, and Luke Stevens for volunteering to install the new system.

Youth and Family Policy

Urban Grace has a policy to protect our children and youth from abuse while they are participating in church programs and ministries.  Recognizing the importance of this topic, we recently went through a process of review the policy.  The review process included researching best practices and getting feedback from our insurance carrier, and resulted in some revisions to the policy.  Our policy includes screening procedures for all persons who work with children and youth, safe conduct procedures designed to offer ongoing protection, and mandatory reporting procedures designed to involve the authorities and direct the appropriate response of the church should we ever have a situation of reported or suspected abuse.  Our staff and volunteers who work with children and youth have been retrained with the revised policy, and we trust that this will provide an added level of protection.

Urban Grace Needs Your Financial Support

As you know, we are going through a time of transition related to pastoral leadership.  While we have been pleased to see the financial support you are providing for the church to this point, we know that churches often see support drop slightly during a transition.  We also know that coming into this transitional time we were already operating with less funds than had been budgeted for this fiscal year, and even with reductions in expenses were just barely able to pay our bills as a church.  Recognizing our situation, the Trustees have provided some guidelines to the Council related to interim expenses that we believe will both meet our needs, keep us living within our means, and begin preparing us for the expenses of calling a new pastor.  We want you to know that we have taken these steps to use our resources wisely, but also want to ask for your continued, and if possible, additional support particularly during this time of financial vulnerability.

Acts Chapter 8

Sean Dean

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Acts Chapter 7

Sean Dean

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Acts Chapter 6

Sean Dean

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Acts Chapter 5

Sean Dean

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Acts Chapter 3 & 4

Sean Dean

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It is the Council’s intention to keep the congregation of Urban Grace well informed as we transition into our future.  We will be doing this in many ways including email, Chimes, congregational meetings, listening sessions and announcements.  However, if you have a question or concern, please feel free to approach any Council member (Helen Wylie, Sergio Hernandez, Adam Ydstie, Angela Greenshields, Stacy Stevens, David Seely, Steve Smith and Betsy Erickson).

This has been a busy month for your Council members.  We started out this January by organizing a special service to honor Tad on his last Sunday with us at Urban Grace.  It was a time of celebration for all the love, friendship and wisdom he poured into all of our lives over the past 4 1/2 years.  We are grateful for Tad’s ministry at Urban Grace and will miss him very much.  We offer our best wishes for him and his future endeavors.

The Council has chosen not to get an interim pastor immediately.  We felt this decision would give us some financial breathing room, time to decide who Urban Grace is, and help us identify which direction God is leading us.  In the mean time, we are a talented congregation who is well equipped to continue the day to day activities of the church.  Our transitional team is taking on the responsibility of organizing our Sunday worship service and the spiritual care team is meeting many of the personal “pastoral” needs of the congregation.

We feel much support from our Tacoma spiritual community.  There have been many people who have offered to help Urban Grace in any way needed.  The council has been in contact with leaders of Associated Ministries, Presbyterian Church (USA), and Evergreen Association of American Baptist Churches.  We are grateful for their support during this journey.

The last two Sundays in January, the Council and Trustees facilitated several listening sessions for the congregation to voice their thoughts about four specific questions.  Thank you for making those sessions a wonderful success.  We had 87 people participate in the process!  The answers given were insightful, well thought out and encouraging.  All your thoughts were written down and will be used at our leadership retreat set for February 11^th.  The staff, council and trustees will meet to work out a direction for Urban Grace as we continue on this journey together.  We are excited about what God has in store for us.  Please be in prayer for the leadership of Urban Grace on that day as we work though some important ideas.

I want to say a special thank you for all Jennifer Dean has been doing to help us through these transitions.  She has been working hard to keep things going smoothly day to day and we appreciate it.

Lastly, thanks to you for being so responsive as a congregation during this time of change.  Many of you have stepped up to help serve as new needs have surfaced.  If everyone works together, the burden is light. So, thank you.

Sincerely,

Betsy Erickson, Council Co-Moderator