First Parish Sermon

But during the past seven years, under the leadership of your current Director of Religious Education, Joanne Giannino, the church school has grown in size and the quality of the program has improved significantly. And during the ministry of my immediate predecesor, Kim Wood, the parish took in some 40 new members over a four year period., many of them younger families. On your behalf I would like to say, thank you Kim, and thank you Joanne, for helping this congregation to grow. Good things have been happening. There have been some growing pains, to be sure, but the potential for future growth remains.

 One of the things I would like to emphasize is that though you have not been able to support a full time ministry in recent years the parish has nonetheless performed a ministry of its own through the development of lay leadership, partly out of necessity, yes, but also out of your own sense of compassion and conscience. Religious education is a ministry performed not only by your DRE, but by teachers and devoted committee members, who care about children and young people, and also about adults, because we are never too old to grow in religious thought and conscience. 

Pastoral outreach is a ministry, not only when done by a professional minister, but also and especially when performed by lay members who reach out to one another with acts of love and caring when someone is ill or in need. Social action on behalf of issues and causes of justice and peace is a ministry, the kind of ministry that needs helping hands from others to make it happen, whether it is making luches for Mainspring House, or doing a service in a local nursing home. Becoming a Welcoming Congregation to persons regardless of sexual orientation, age, race, creed or gender, is a ministry because it helps us all in our journey to wholeness in self and society.

I think Gordon “Bucky” McKeeman says it best when he reflects that, “Ministry is all that we do—together. Ministry is that quality of being in community that affirms human dignity—beckons forth hidden possibility, invites us into deeper, more constant reverent relationships,and carries forward our heritage of hope and liberation.” It is an illusion to think that only churches with full time professional ministerial leadership can do the work of the ministry. Ministry is something we all do together. It is too big a job for any one person to do, lay or professional, part-time or full-time, interim minister or settled minister.

Is First Parish in Bridgewater at the point where it can consider supporting a full time professional minister? The general rule of thumb is that, absent a big investment portfolio, you need at least a hundred members to make it possible. This church needs about another 15 members to reach that level. I honestly think you need another two or three years to get there, and to get there, there are some important steps you need to take to help make it happen. The most important, in my view, is to address the need for more church school space, and to have handicap accessible rest rooms in the parish hall and basement levels. The cost of putting an addition on the back of the parish hall is probably prohibitive for this congregation at its present size. But it is certainly possible to renovate the basement of the church meeting house and create two or three additional classrooms. Once you make it possible to accommodate more growth in your church school, the congregation as a whole will grow commensurately. As the expression goes, if you build it they will come.

But additional space alone will not do it. You also need to maintain a quality religious education program which Joanne has helped establish. She has performed a most important ministry for this congregation though she is not yet a minister in the formal sense, but she certainly has been performing a ministry of religious education with or without the title of minister. I am pleased that Joanne will keep her connection to First Parish in Bridgewater as an active and supportive member while she takes some courses at Andover Newton Theological School, my alma mater, and explores the possibility of a community ministry of some kind involving education, counseling and the arts. The Religious Education Committee has a big job to find somebody to fill the DRE position, but I remind you that the ministry of religious education is not something that can only be performed by a single individual, but requires the work and cooperation of many. Together you can do it, and you will do it, because you care about the education of your children and yourselves.

Last Sunday I announced that the UUA approved a second year of interim ministry between us, and I am pleased at the prospect of another year together. For those of you who may not know the difference between an interim minister and a settled minister, an interim minister is only allowed to serve a maximum of two years in any one congregation. A settled minister can stay as long as it is mutually beneficial and agreeable to both parties. The interim minister not only provides essential services of worship and administrative and pastoral services, but is charged with helping a congregation assess its strengths and weaknesses and to make recommendations for changes and improvements in organization, communication and development. The interim minister helps to pave the way for a settled minister to have a more positive and productive ministry with the congregation.

I am delighted that Kim Wood consented to come back for visit and to share with us her views of ministry—parish ministry, community ministry, and her personal experience in ministerial education, training and experience. She was married last June.  She and her husband reside in Quincy. Kim is enjoying the demands and pleasures of married life and is in a transition period as she considers what her future ministry or other calling may entail.