From Committee to Community

March 26, 2000

I guess I can honestly say that this has been one of the most difficult and stressful and challenging years in the almost eighteen since my ordination as a Unitarian Universalist minister. It has also been one of the most gratifying.

This year, as some of you know all too well, has been replete with crises which have tested not only the spirit and fortitude of your minister, but also of the congregation and especially of its elected and volunteer leadership. There have been new and exciting initiatives, such as a looming building project, and our planning for the 200th anniversary of this beautiful old meeting house, and the visit of our Partner Church minister Zsolt Jacob last summer.

But there are also impending and heartwrenching changes to our staff and to our vision of how the church should be administered, and of what kind of community of adults and children we want to become. This year, as only one example, we have put most of our church finances into the hands of a private accounting firm, a transition which was necessary but which has been neither as easy nor as painless as we hoped it would be. We have tried to do everything we have done without hurting anyone's feelings, and without scaring all of you away. (After all, most of us come to church to escape stress, don't we?) Court is still out on how successful we have been, and how successful we will be.

One thing I can say, unequivocally: we have done the best we could. The leadership of this church has worked incredibly hard this year to keep us moving in the right direction. They have been amazingly supportive of me, for which I am deeply grateful. They have put in long hours on difficult issues, and they have tried to be sensitive to people's feelings every step of the way. And, lest we forget, they are all volunteers. Some of them didn't really know what they were getting into, but they have hung in there, and they have done the difficult stuff, on your behalf. They are your representatives, and, in my humble opinion, they have done a wonderful job. And I want to thank them publicly for it.

I hope that you understand how important it is to express our gratitude. Because in a Unitarian Universalist church, the buck stops with us. There is no one else who will tell us what to do. There is no Pope and no Bishop, and, in fact, even the UUA works for us. As your minister, I may offer you advice and counsel, but you don't have to take it, and ultimately it is up to you to make the final decisions about what we should be doing in this church. As the old saw goes, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make 'im drink."

Even I, remember, was chosen by you. That is one of the great freedoms in our religious movement: the freedom to choose your own ministers.

You are the church. Please don't forget that when you feel tempted to complain about something in the church that you don't like. They are you. There is no they, there is only you. If you don't like something, or if you want something to happen, you must get involved.

Now, I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm not wild about committee meetings, either. Since I attend an average of three a week, I think I'm entitled to say that. I would dearly love to find a way to do away with committees, or at least to change the way they operate. I've given this a lot of thought, because, selfishly, I would prefer to go to a lot fewer committee meetings myself.

But in thinking about it, it has struck me that the real problem isn't with the committees, but with the work we sometimes ask them to do. Too often, the work is dull and uninspiring and, well, it's just not all that important. Oh, there will always be mundane tasks that must be accomplished whether we like it or not. And with a little creativity, we can even make them fun.

But this year I've noticed something, and it's something very exciting: When we give people meaningful, important work to do--even difficult, sensitive work; even work where people's feelings get involved--I've noticed that they don't seem to mind. In fact, I have noticed that they rise to that responsibility gladly, and, in some cases, that they even surprise themselves by what they are capable of doing when they set their minds and spirits to it. If we give people important work to do, they will grow into it. Thank God! That's my observation.

And, in spite of what I said about not liking committees very much, there is something else that I have noticed over the years, and it is this: committees are the beginning of community. Actually, I could more accurately say that small groups are the beginning of community. But since committees are, for the time being, at least, the only way to get things done in the church, I'll stick with my original observation: committees are the beginning of community.

This is especially true in a church that has grown as large as ours. Much as many of us enjoy the Sunday morning worship service, it is not the easiest place in which to build a community. I am constantly seeing people in church whose names I do not yet know. Perhaps you like it that way, but I would prefer to know who you are! Because, as Garrison Keillor says, we all yearn for places "where people love us, and are glad to see our faces." And the best way I know for that to happen is for you to get involved, even, God forbid, on a committee.

And it isn't just so you can get to know me; that's not even all that important. It's that you get to know each other. And for all their flaws, that is a purpose--perhaps the most important purpose--that committees serve in the church. Yes, we need you to do the work; but I think anyone who has been involved in committee work would agree with me that the most important part of serving on a committee is that it is a great way to get to know each other. If in the process we actually get something done, so much the better!

No, people don't come to church for committee. I know that. They come for community. But committees, for all their flaws, can be a path to the community we are so desperately seeking. It is not enough to bring a consumer mentality to church: we must also be willing to give something of ourselves back to it, our time and our treasure, if we expect it to be what we want it to be and if we expect it to meet our needs for companionship and meaning. Like any relationship, religious community takes work. And sometimes, as some of you can certainly attest this year, it takes pretty darn difficult work.

That difficult work, I must remind you, is ministry. Obviously, I am the "minister" of this church. But all of us, Martin Luther reminded our Reformation ancestors, are ministers, each to the other. When I invite you, as I usually do during the welcome and announcements, into "the shared ministry of our church community," that is no idle invitation. The only way that this church is ever going to be what you want it to be is by your willing and generous participation. You can't expect someone else to do it all for you. Because if you do, I can guarantee you, it just ain't gonna happen.

In our church, we make a fairly big deal about membership. Because, as a congregationally governed church, membership means that you are willing to take an active leadership role in the decision-making of our church. It's your choice. You are free to choose, free to pursue your religious journey in company with others who share your ideal of freedom of belief even if they do not share your particular beliefs. Membership is important, but more important is that you have a sense of personal ministry.

And what do I mean by that? I mean that you have a sense that your unique gifts and talents are important and that you are needed, indeed, that you can make a difference, if not in the course of the world, then at least in the life of another person travelling the dark journey with you. In some cases, all that ministry requires is your presence. Just showing up can be the most important thing you ever do. There is a silent ministry of presence, which, as Emerson recognized, can make all the difference in the world to those around you. You may never know the importance of your presence in the life of another person, but I can tell you that without it, the world could not survive another day.

I have not completely given up on my youthful desire to change the world, but I can tell you that I have become a lot more humble about it. Nowadays, it is enough to make a difference in the life of one person. Some days, I don't even do a very good job of that. But I continue to show up, because I believe that sometimes, even in spite of ourselves, in spite of all our flaws and shortcomings, we do make a difference, though we may not even be aware that we have done so.

My colleague Wendy Fitting of our Unitarian Universalist church in Gloucester, calls this the "practice" of church, as opposed to its theory. She writes of that practice as "shared finitude, fallibility, humanity, fragility, and the wonderful ministry of congregational life. This is a life," she says

that has no boundaries. It extends beyond Sunday morning. We carry it with us, each one of us, we bring it in the form of cards, calls, and casseroles, wordless presence, a touch, shared tears. No one is perfect in comforting. There is only one perfect comforter, but when you are part of a church, you show up anyway, encouraged by membership to go under that mercy, knowing it will carry you to connection. Of the many examples of faithfulness, this is perhaps the most powerful, as well as the most humble. When there are no "right" words, no answer, no cure for the pain, still, we reach out, asking, and we reach out, giving. Far from attaining perfection, the practical mystery of congregational faithfulness isn't something one even "gets good at." We just keep doing it.

Garrison Keillor also said, "Each other is the only thing we have in this world that's really important." I think that's why we bother to come here, because we want to believe that it's true, and because by coming we hope that we can make it true.

I sometimes wonder how many people avoid coming to church on "Canvass Kick-Off Sunday." But I continue to feel it is important to call it that, anyway. It is important to remind ourselves that the church cannot function on spirit alone. But I truly believe that if we are successful at creating a sense of community, if we are successful at "practicing" church, we will also be successful in our fundraising. Except for this one time a year, we try to be pretty low-key about our need for money. Some folks still see it as a kind of strong-arm tactic to be asked for money at all. I'm sorry about that. Without your money, there would be no church. Regardless of how mundane it sounds, we still have to pay the heating bill.

But as our sense of community deepens, as our belief in the power of our individual ministries deepens, I believe that we will want to be even more generous in our giving than we have been in the past. Of all the good reasons for sharing your hard-earned resources with us, I can think of none better than the dream of community. We can make that dream a reality, but only if we are willing to step in from the sidelines and truly to become a part of this community-in-the-making. There is so much exiting stuff happening here, and so much that is just waiting to happen. And we need you to make it real, and we trust that you need us as well.

There is an old rule of sermonizing that one should never end with a quotation. Rules are meant to be broken. So I end with some words from the Unitarian Church in Scarborough, England:

This is my church. It is composed of people like me. We make it what it is. I want it to be a church that is a lamp to the path of pilgrims, leading them to Goodness, Truth, and Beauty. It will be if I am.

It will make generous gifts to many causes, if I am a generous giver. It will bring other people into its worship and community, if I bring them. It will be friendly, if I am. . . . It will be a church of loyalty and love, of fearlessness and faith, if I who make it what it is am filled with these.

Therefore I shall dedicate myself to the task of being all these things I want my church to be.

So may it be. Amen.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock