A message from Karen Dunk-Green, Chair of Transition Task Force; Delivered during the service on 15 December 2024.

Resources:

• Watch RevJ’s video message
• Read a brief overview of effective mission statements
• Review FirstU’s current mission and vision statements

Last week, the members of the Transition Task Force stood in front of you and made a commitment to guide the congregation through “discernment about FirstU’s transition” … what does that even mean?

It feels odd to be “kicking off” transition work … we’ve been transitioning for years! We’ve navigated the pandemic and multiple moves and multiple ministers. We’ve lost members, gained members, and gone permanently hybrid for Sunday services. We’ve continued with outreach activities in small groups but, as a congregation as a whole, we’ve been largely focused on location. For that reason, when we move into 473, it’s going to feel like, in some ways, we will have “landed.” But that’s not our whole story.

It’s easy to imagine worshipping at 473; we’ll light beeswax candles in our chalice; we’ll ride the new elevator and we’ll see our stained glass shining along Oakwood Avenue. I can feel those moments physically; they’re waiting inside my body, so ready to come out.

What’s harder to imagine is some of the how, and especially the why. It’s been 10 years since we launched our Seek Connect Serve mission statement and a long time since we talked about a shared purpose that brings our shared values to life. Yes, we’re opening an accessible and greener building with space for others to join us – but we are not a building. What will we say when someone asks us why we have gone to all this trouble, and what is our collective ministry all about? What difference does it make that FirstU exists? It might be someone who visits 473 who asks us this, and it will certainly be anyone who is deciding whether or not they want to be our next settled minister.

The work of the Transition Task Force is to lead an up-to-date exploration of these types of questions. In January, we’ll kick off two pieces of work:

• The first will be a congregational conversation about our Mission statement. If you’re in a Journey Group, you’ll spend part of your January session sharing ideas about FirstU’s many resources and our purpose for putting them into use. For anyone not in a Journey Group, there will be an in-person and an online opportunity to be in the same small group conversation. Please join one of these discussions. If you’re not sure you’re ready, just wait until you see RevJ’s introductory video, coming soon to a small screen near you … he’ll tell you a story that you’ll want to be part of.
• Also in January, your leaders and staff will meet to assess how FirstU is doing by using a list of questions offered by the UUA. Just like the Mission exercise, the questions are focused on our shared ministry and how we are preparing ourselves to live into it. Even if you’re not going to be in that meeting, you can share thoughts and questions with us.

What have you seen FirstU do well – or forget how to do entirely – over the last few years? what have you realized about why it matters that we are all here, doing this thing called church together?

2025 is going to be a Big Year around here. You’ll hear more from the Transition Task Force, and I’ll switch hats to update you on the 473 Renovation. In the next week or so, keep an eye out for communications from the Board about ways that you can help rebuild the financial sustainability of our congregation and all that it does for you and for others. We’re going to need that help to get through our first year of operating differently.

We have so many great moments ahead of us. I feel them coming to life and I want them to matter. Thank you

For our January 2025 theme of “Story”, RevJ has prepared a video message which includes an ancient tale about the power of imagining where one is going, and knowing why one is making the journey at all. He weaves the lessons of the story into ways of thinking about religious community and our shared future as FirstU.

If your Journey Group has chosen to engage in this meaningful conversation this month, part of your meeting time will be devoted to discernment about FirstU’s congregational mission. Within the trust of your group, this is a time to appreciate who and what we are and to articulate “the why” of this journey we are traveling together.