SGT Final Report

Download the full report (pdf)

Excerpt:

Over the past decade, First Parish has enjoyed considerable growth in the number of people who have joined our community. This growth has required that we shift from a pastoral church (one in which the minister serves as the focal point for almost all church activities) to a more program-centered church (in which many people, including the minister(s), create and nurture programs that meet the wider array of interests and needs of parishioners)... While possible decisions around space needs prompted Parcom’s formation of the Sustainable Growth Team, it has become clear that completing the transition to a program church extends beyond having enough seats in the sanctuary.

Indeed, a host of experts on church growth advise that a church as vital and growing as ours should focus its priorities on staff, programs, and space needs — in that order — to ensure that it can sustain the quality of its programs as it strives to serve more members. The primary conclusion of the SGT is that First Parish has not completed its transition to a program-centered church. Our focus therefore has become one of developing a plan that would complete the transition as we also address related issues of growth.

POG Revisited

In 2006, in recognition that we were facing multiple pressures on our resources, the Planning Our Growth Committee was formed to examine the issues of growth and congestion at First Parish. POG's findings and recommendations were included in a report released in June 2007. The report was well received by our community and in the intervening year many of its recommendations have been acted upon.

Beginning in January 2008, the Sustainable Growth Team convened in order to carry on the work that POG began. Next week, SGT will release its final report to the congregation at large.

For a refresher on where things stood a year ago, take a look at POG's final report (download PDF) and/or the report summary (here).

John Carver on Governance

The concept of policy governance was developed as a model for non-profit management by John Carver. He is considered the expert and has an active consultancy assisting non-profits in realigning their governance structures to alignment with the principles he has developed. Carver's framework has been a touchstone for the SGT as we considered the organizational challenges that First Parish faces in effectively managing its membership growth over the next several years.

The following is from his presentation at the UU General Assembly in 2000.

Ends and means: Nurturing the relationship between a congregation and its governing body

All congregations have some kind of governing body. In some denominations, it is called a board, in some a council, in some a session... The relationship between a church congregation and its board may be the most unexplored relationship in church life. At the same time, it is one bursting with possibilities for enrichment...

Some years ago I developed a radically new framework for any board's job, an approach I call the Policy Governance model. The model calls upon boards to make a simple but unaccustomed distinction between two kinds of decisions, ones I refer to as "ends" and "means."

Ends decisions address what benefit will come to pass for whom, and the worth or cost of that benefit. For example, an ends issue might be the relative cost or value of shelter for the homeless, reduction in teen pregnancy, or effects on the religious life of the community. Ends relate not to what we will be doing, but to the difference we intend to make in people's lives. Ends get right to the heart of why a congregation exists. Their broadest expression might be in a mission statement. Means, on the other hand, include practices, methods, conduct, and other activities done as people pursue those all-important ends. Just as the congregation entrusts an important task to the board, so the board then delegates to the minister and perhaps to others.

Read the full article

April Cottage Meetings

Last month, the Sustainable Growth Team hosted a series of informal gatherings to discuss our preliminary findings and recommendations with members of the congregation. More than 60 of you participated, and your inquiries and insights have been immensely helpful as we converge on our key proposals for the future.