How God is calling us to reach out to address the emerging challenges and opportunities of our community and congregation:
Specialist in Aging
In May 2024, in collaboration with Concordia University, First United had a 6-week training in a new type of ministry - Specialist in Aging. The purpose was to give interested members the tools to celebrate, support and engage the older members of our congregation. The Deacon Board is exploring some of the ideas that came from that workshop - lay visitation team, Sunday service transportation team, and inviting older members to participate in the communion service. The Fellowship Team continued their tradition of celebrating our members aged 90+ years with a birthday party for those local and the Deacons sent out birthday cards to those unable to attend the party. Future plans include developing a lay ministry in providing spiritual and practical support to those dealing with their spiritual legacy and end-of-life issues. This ministry is envisioned as a lay support for both church members and the pastoral staff.
In-Between Church
Our Interim Pastor strongly suggested that we read The In-Between Church as a congregation. This past spring members of the Interim Search Committee held seven sessions for the congregation to have conversations about this book, how we saw ourselves as a congregation, and where we would like to go in the future. Just over 100 people attended these sessions. We recognized that we were a Pastoral sized church (50-150 active members) that was acting as if we were a Program sized church (151-400 active members). If we wanted to grow into a true Program sized church we would need to: be invitational, grow outside our comfort zone, and practice congregational care differently. To this end we have expanded the role of Deacons to take on more of the tasks of congregational care. We partnered this with an effort to get in touch with members who we have not seen since the Covid pandemic. About 75 households were contacted by members of the church to check in and see how they are doing and let them know that they are missed. This is an ongoing effort. Finally, the Deacons piloted a new small groups ministry with the intention of building and maintaining connection within our congregation outside of Teams/Committees, Bible Study or Fellowship groups. This ministry started with five groups of up to 10 people who met weekly for six weeks with group created engagement guidelines and moderators to facilitate more meaningful connections. These groups are proving to be very successful. We are planning on starting a new round of small groups in January and developing a training program for facilitators as the goal of this ministry is to expand the number of the small groups so this intimate fellowship can deeply connect all our members.
Ministry Outline
Our FY2025 Ministry Outline highlights our church’s current initiatives to address the emerging challenges and opportunities of our community and congregation. Some of the accomplishments from the implementation of the ministry outline include:
1) establishing new branding for our Church
2) making new efforts to foster and enhance the community of care in our congregation through a small groups initiative
3) coordinating youth group-led monthly service projects in our larger community
4) paying off our margin loan and creating a new fund to financially support emergency expenses and a selection of capital improvement needs.
What does diversity mean in our context?
First United Church has limited ethnic diversity. The congregation is mostly White/Non-Hispanic, with some Black/African American, Asian, Latino, and biracial families. Young children are the most racially diverse group, representing the racial and ethnic diversity within, as well as among, families. The church is most diverse in the sexuality and gender identity of members. LBGTQ+ people participate in all aspects of church life, including leadership and clergy. In the past 10 years, over 50% of pastoral staff have identified as LGBTQ+. The church considers its sexuality/gender diversity to be an important part of its identity.
The church building is a major resource for the mission work of First United Church. In addition to the church’s own use of these spaces, the many mission partners present in the building make intensive use of them throughout the week. They provide food for the hungry, clothing for low-income youth of the community, tutoring for young students from the neighboring Austin area, and a variety of social justice activity and advocacy initiatives. The Lead Pastor is expected to have a significant part in preserving the building for ongoing mission use.
Over the past 12 months, First United has undergone a period of realization and decisive action, laying the groundwork for bold transformation:
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In response to several years of deficit spending, we made tough spending decisions, including not replacing the youth minister and transitioning the Music Ministry Program from salaried music directors to leadership by congregation members. We have experienced a sense of loss as these programs have served as a source of pride and community identity for our church. However, members enthusiastically stepped up to provide those services.
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Our interim leaders have guided us through the In-Between Church exploration process, emphasizing the need to be more invitational and adapting our ministries and worship to engage new generations and others in our community.
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Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, our congregation remains actively engaged, though smaller in number. This has strained lay leadership availability and energy. We have initiated several programs to renew member engagement and are seeing positive outcomes.
While this period of reckoning has not always been easy, we have faced these challenges head-on to the best of our abilities. We now enthusiastically seek pastoral leadership that can help us further reimagine our future and guide us toward achieving our vision of being a brighter light in our community.