Hello to all from your Board of Trustees:
My name is Ryan Deibert (he/him), and I am proud to serve this year as the Moderator of your Board of Trustees. Among my many roles supporting our Board and Executive Team (ET), I’m happy to author our Letter from the Board this month.
And what a month it’s been!
Since our last monthly update, our congregation and our fellow communities of faith here in Portland and around the world have celebrated (or continue celebrating) the Spring Solstice, Ramadan, Passover, Holy Week, and Easter, all in short succession. This season of lengthening days and flowering buds marks our time to till our spiritual soil, our seasonal movements of renewal, regathering, regrowth, and recommitment.
Here at First Unitarian this past Sunday afternoon, I was particularly honored to join fellow Board members, past Board Moderators, our Ministerial Search Committee, and dozens of clergy and religious leaders from throughout our broader Unitarian Universalist movement in leading our congregation’s installation of Rev. Alison Miller as our new Senior Minister. From the planning committee that made it all possible to the Alliance members who provided a beautiful reception, I am deeply grateful for all who supported our work to formally mark this historic milestone in the life of our church. As the roots of our congregation’s shared ministry with Rev. Alison take hold, I look forward to it blossoming and growing.
Over the past month, our Board’s work has focused primarily on reviewing and adopting the 2023-24 church year budget for referral to our congregational ballot in May. Under our bylaws, only the voting members of our congregation have the authority to approve our annual budgets. Still, our Board – especially through our Finance Committee – takes seriously our role of working closely with the Executive Team (ET) to develop a detailed understanding of the proposed budget, ensuring it’s balanced and reflective of our core mission, ministry, and values.
This year’s budget is not a status quo budget. While our congregation has been very generous – through our annual fund drive and the subsequent “Close the Gap” campaign – our projected annual income is insufficient to support the full extent of our prior years’ expenses. In truth, we have likely lived beyond our congregational means for several years now, depending on COVID-era Paycheck Protection Program loans, a single generously large donation, and historically high draws against our reserves to make up for increasing costs and declining revenues. This coincides with some of the realities of our church life as we continue to emerge from COVID: Declining participation in our Religious Education (RE) and music programs and decreased numbers of pledging households (though increasing average per-household pledge amounts).
And while these budgetary deficits can be seen, well, as deficits, they also present us with several opportunities: The chance to “right-size” our program budgets to reflect changing participation, to begin to decrease our reliance on reserves so that they remain available to sustain the church in the future; and to invest in areas that support a thriving, welcoming spiritual community, like communications (within and beyond our congregation), welcoming newcomers and supporting pathways to belonging, and lifelong spiritual growth and learning.
As a Board, we have collaborated with our ministers and church administrator regarding this proposed budget for several months. Those conversations have been appropriately challenging, thoughtful, deliberate, and hopeful. Ultimately, our Finance Committee and full Board unanimously elected to adopt the proposed budget to forward to our congregational ballot. In the coming weeks, the Board of Trustees and our church Executive Team will host information sessions on April 30, and May 7, to review the proposed budget and answer your questions. Our congregation has good cause to approve this budget, and I hope you join us in doing so.
At our final Board meetings of this church year, we will focus on our annual evaluation of the ministry – an assessment of how well we’re meeting our collective mission and ministry as a church. Our congregational survey is an important piece of that evaluation – look for more on that soon. Please use it as an opportunity to share your criticisms, reflections, and hopes – this is part of how we shape together the church that is yet to come.
Our Board meets on the first Thursday of every month, and congregants are not just welcome but encouraged to attend, whether online or in person. Find our upcoming agendas and links to participate via Zoom here.
Also, the annual auction returns! Help us “Zap the Gap” and increase community. Register today and begin bidding on April 23!
And last, a more personal reflection and appreciation:
At our house, we’re also marking the march of time with other important rights of passage. We spent spring break touring college campuses with our daughter, now 17. Her insistent kindergarten-era questions (“Mommy – my friend said her family believes in God. Do we believe in God?”) sent us on our own search for spiritual community, which led us to First Unitarian more than a decade ago. We knew we did not want to answer these questions alone, and we have been grateful that our children have found such a caring spiritual community in our religious education programs over these many years.
Among her college search criteria: Is the school part of a community and in a state that supports her reproductive freedom, her basic human rights as a queer person, and continuing movement toward racial justice? It’s no surprise that as she prepares to leave this religious community, she continues to seek the Beloved Community wherever she might go.
In appreciation and love,
Ryan Deibert, Moderator, Board of Trustees