One Blind Man’s Take on Church

May 23, 2024 | Weekly Message

You probably know the parable of the blind men and the elephant: A group of blind men try to understand a strange new animal brought to their town – an elephant – each by feeling a part of it. Their descriptions were of course vastly different, but quite reasonably so. 

Similarly, each of us in this faith community has a unique take on what church “is.” Not many of us can see (or feel) the whole elephant. We come for different reasons, with different backgrounds, different interests, different needs, and different gifts. And we engage with church in different ways and have different intersections with the community of travelers that is UU Asheville.

Well, this blind man (me) would like to tell you how I see this lovely elephant of ours. I’ll warn you in advance that my words here will be a bit self-indulgent: After our Annual Meeting, I will be leaving the Board after five years of service – with over half of that serving as President – and I feel that I ought to say something about what that journey has shown me about our elephant. Maybe there are parts of this elephant that you have felt, and maybe some that you have not.

I came to UU Asheville in the summer 2017, migrating from my home church of 30 years, where I was very active, largely doing Board work (governance) and fundraising. I swore that when I got to Asheville I would steer away from that stuff and do something more enjoyable. Well, you can see how that turned out – some slick talker convinced me that the Board could use me, even if I had only been here two years and didn’t know much about our church and even less about the people in it. I felt under-qualified. In parallel, I found myself getting involved in fundraising activities, first through some non-leadership roles, and later playing larger roles, perhaps because I thought my previous-church experiences might inform some of our approaches to fundraising. So here I am, back to the future. 

The last five years – the period of my Board and fundraising/budget work – has been chock- full of challenges. Unlike those halcyon days before my arrival, where there was calm in the land and things were running relatively smoothly, we were presented with a devastating pandemic, a ministerial transition, and the tragic loss of our minister of 17 years. Wow. Those forces (along with other nationwide trends) reduced our membership, which in turn reduced our giving base. With costs going up, we found ourselves somewhat unstable financially. And any ministerial transition presents upsets the status quo and can engender some instability in the non-financial dimensions of church. These combined to present a huge challenge to all us of – meaning our Board, our staff, and everyone in our congregation. Throughout the process of getting to where we are now, my Board position and fundraising work gave me a front-row seat view into how this all played out. Spoiler alert: there have been, and still are, issues we need to overcome, but in the main, we’ve done an absolutely fantastic job.

We first addressed the near term budget problem with our Meet the Moment second-ask campaign. The bottom line is that Meet the Moment brought in close $20K more than the $120K we were hoping for. That fixed our near-term budget issues. Yay! The mixed-bag side of that campaign was that only half of the our giving base made commitments. Fewer people gave than expected; but those who did stepped up in a big way. And while MtM fixed our near-term budget issues, there remained some built-in financial issues (increased costsand decreased giving base) which portended future budget deficits.

On the ministerial transition dimension, I think we did fantastically well. Rev. Cathy held down the fort and helped guide us through our transition. Of course, the highlight of this process was the work of our Ministerial Search Committee. These seven folks, led by Gina Phairas, did their job incredibly well. After a lot of very hard work, the outcome speaks for itself – we have an absolutely wonderful new minister in Rev. Audette.

A remaining challenge – again for our Board, our new Minister and staff, and the entire congregation – is to build on the energy, momentum, and renewal that I think most of us are now feeling to shore up our membership and our finances so we can support the staff and programs that make us who we are. We’re facing another budget deficit in ’24-’25, but we have the necessary funds to backfill that. However, responsible use of those backfill funds tell us we shouldn’t fund another deficit beyond next year, unless we see the necessary momentum of more folks pledging more, and an increase in non-pledge fundraising. Otherwise, there may be some painful cuts in our future.

All that said, here is the my main point: My view of our community is that is really, truly special. I say that having known one other congregation intimately, and several others from afar through other UU contacts. We have a congregation that steps up to challenges. A key part of that is the upper end of our pledge base, which continues to give more and more – and not just of their treasure, but their time and talent as well. They help to drive us forward and keep us afloat. Another big part of our special nature is the level of volunteerism we have.

There are those that can (almost) always be counted on for help when we need it. Sure, we could really use more of those folks, but I’m grateful for the ones that swe have. On the staff side, UU Asheville is incredibly well-run. We have a highly professionalized, cost-conscious staff which seems to always do their best and tries to “do the right thing.” I’ve never seen another staff I thought so highly of. And we have some really good leaders, and a collection of folks with good leadership potential. I wasn’t completely sure of that when I first joined the Board, but I can see it now. Our staff leadership is strong, and our Board leadership is strong

(present company excluded) and getting stronger . We have a really great group of people on our slate for both the Board and the LDC. I think good things are in store for us. If we couple that with an engaged and energized congregation, we can go far. It will take “everybody in” for us to achieve our potential, but I truly believe we can.

And finally, finally, my last point: although it hasn’t always been easy, I feel honored to have served as your Board president for the last two and half years. I’m grateful for both the trust and support I’ve had during that time. Y’all are the best!

Clyde Hardin, Board President