New Year / New Outlook
We’ve all heard the saying, “New Year, New You.” That tends to refer to a push toward greater nutrition, more exercise, and a fresh perspective on all the things we wanted to try or get done the previous year, but for various reasons, maybe didn’t.
We’ve talked about this in years past, but seriously: as we learn and grow into our new Vision Statement, our faith community here at High Street UMC really will need to take a new outlook and a fresh perspective on many of the things we were used to and many things we’ll need to change. Change can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be. We just need to remember that God is with us through it all.
When our stewardship committee reported that everyone responded well to our stewardship campaign, they were right: you all did. Most everyone who pledged last year also pledged this year, and most pledges were the same or higher than last year. But we also lost people this year to the Church Triumphant. And our expenses continue to rise – as most of us know from our personal lives: utility costs are up, service costs are up, and the general costs of maintaining our beautiful building never go down.
We’ve consolidated some positions on staff. For example, Diana now has the job title of “Church Administrator.” This is a recognized position in the church world, but it’s a little different in each church. Diana is covering the roles of building supervisor, financial director, and administrative director. We don’t have full-time custodial support (Joel is part-time). And Pastor Colin is half-time, and we share him with Community of Hope UMC. Both churches feel as though we don’t get enough of his time; it’s an adjustment for both faith communities. Other positions have also been eliminated after much prayerful discernment.
The most important take-away from all of this is that we – as a congregation – must adopt a more volunteer-oriented (and less staff-focused) model of doing things. We already have a great start on this. We have amazing leadership capability within our congregation, and so many outstanding members who have taken charge of our missions, ministries, and committees. Now we need to remember that when tasks and items need to be done (labels, minutes, copies, forms, binders, and so forth), that we no longer have the staff to do that without plenty of notice. We want to help you, but our very few staff members are juggling a lot of balls now, and need your help in making things happen.
High Street doesn’t belong to the staff; it belongs to everyone who attends it. We all love it. We’d love to see everyone get involved in keeping it vital. Let’s all join in.