The theme for this month is risk, and it seems like that could be the theme for every month, doesn’t it?  Life is full of risks.  There are physical risks, of course.  We also face psycho-social risks, emotional risks, political risks, career risks …

Even institutions live with, and in, risk.  One of the most challenging is the risk involved in changing.  And all institutions, if they are alive and growing, need to change.  And this year we’re changing the way we’re doing our Pledge Drive.  You’ll be hearing a lot more about this, but I’d like to put it in some context.

There is an entire field of study called, “church size dynamics,” and it has been well known for a long time that congregations of different sizes have different needs and need to behave in different ways.  Depending on size, church-size folks tend to categorize congregations as a family church, or pastoral church, or program church, all the way up to megachurch.

Often people think that as a congregation grows all you have to do is scale-up what you’ve been doing.  They think you can keep functioning as you have been, just doing more of it.  And the typical categories – family, pastoral, program, etc. – don’t really help communicate that this isn’t about just a difference in size – in many ways differently sized congregations are entirely different things.  That’s one of the reasons I really like the model the author Lyle Schaller uses to categorize congregations.  Rather than talk about family, pastoral, and program churches, he talks instead about cats, small dogs, large dogs, gardens, houses, and on up to nation states.  You can immediately see that what works for one is not going to work for the others.

TJMC is what my mom used to call “betwixt and between.”  We have been – and in many ways still are – acting like a much smaller congregation than we actually are.  At the same time, because we are a congregation of roughly 450 active members (counting both our formal and informal membership) we are demanding of ourselves things that our institutional structures simply aren’t designed to deliver.  Simply put, we’ve grown beyond what we were, and we need to start acting like what we are now.

And this is risky.  People don’t like change.  For one thing, there’s comfort in knowing how to do things – because “we’ve always done it like this!” – and who’s the right person to ask to do them.  Others will quite rightly say that they came to TJMC precisely because they wanted a “small dog” congregation, and that a “garden congregation” isn’t what they’d signed on for.  So changing the way we do things means learning to do things in ways we aren’t quite so sure of, and it might mean that we turn off some people.  Yet if a congregation is to, as Virginia James often says, “survive and thrive,” we need to be willing to let it grow, and to let ourselves grow with it.

Our Board and our staff, and other lay leaders, have been talking about the kinds of changes that will be necessary for us to live into the reality of who we are.  One that you’ll be hearing more about concerns our pledge drive.  This year we’re running what we’re calling, “The Last Pledge Drive Ever.”  It certainly is not “the way we’ve always done it,” but it is an approach that is more appropriate for a congregation of our size.

Each year we expend a tremendous amount of volunteer time and energy trying to reach out to each and every member and friend to talk about how they are feeling about their relationship with TJMC, and how that relationship might translate into financial support.  A really incredible amount of time and energy goes into this – even before the outreach there’s a lot of effort spent if finding the people willing to organize, and actually do, that outreach.  Then there’s a lot of effort put in to follow up – not everyone responds to the phone calls and email on the first, second, or sometimes even the third or fourth try.

This kind of outreach to members of the congregation is not only important, it’s essential.  To be the loving community we strive to be, we need to check in with one another about our experience of this community is, about how well our needs are being met, and how we might find ways to offer our gifts and talents in service to the needs of the church (and beyond).  But tying this to the task of soliciting pledges to support the operating budget, and trying to do all of this during a single brief period, is something that is very effective in smaller congregations, and far less efficient in larger ones.

There is another model.  Many congregations of roughly our size have recognized the fact that, more often than not, the majority of people who pledged last year will pledge again this year (and at roughly the same amount).  These congregations have discovered that changing their approach from asking people annually if they intend to pledge, to one in which they assume that those who pledged last will do so again this year, has several benefits.  First, it removes the need for a whole lot of the volunteer time and energy that has gone in to what ends up being essentially the same thing (most pledges continuing from one year to the next).  More importantly, it frees up that energy to be spent more effectively and productively on the real conversations we need to have with one another about our relationships with one another.  It also means that these conversations don’t need to be limited to the brief period of the pledge campaign, but can happen throughout the year.

In the early spring we will still let the congregation know that it’s the time to look again at the level of their financial pledge.  Some people may want or need to change their pledge – their own finances may have changed making it impossible to maintain their current level, or making it now possible to increase their giving!  Unless we are told otherwise, however, we will assume that you intend to keep your pledge of support in place.  And because we will no longer be emphasizing a once-a-year pledge drive, this model will make it easier for people to change their pledges (or make their first pledge!) at any time during the year.  Our website – www.uucharlottesville.org – has a great deal of information to help you and, of course, you can always call the office to talk to a person about your giving, its meaning to you, and what TJMC means to you.

Is this a new way of doing things?  Absolutely.  Is it risky?  Possibly so.  But is it a more effective and appropriate way of doing this for a congregation of our size?  Without a doubt.  In the weeks to come you will be hearing more about our Last Pledge Drive Ever.  If you want to pledge now, you can go to our website where a link makes it easy.  And if you want to better understand these changes, please be in touch.

Pax tecum,

RevWik