Report of the Board of Directors
Given at the 207th Annual Meeting
by Nancy J. Lawrence, Chair

Friday, June 9, 2006

The last line in my predecessor, Don Remick’s, Board report from last year reads: May God’s wind fill our sails and God’s compassion be our compass. If you remember, last year’s Annual Meeting theme was Push Out into Deep Water “lessons in discipleship”. How appropriate, for your Board of Directors have surely had “lessons in discipleship” this year; yet, knowing always in whose name we do this work and feeling collectively and individually God’s wind at our backs and the gift of God’s mercy & guidance.

Even more “spirit-filled” seems this year’s theme: Transforming Worship for so much of the work the Board has done this year has been about change, while holding before us and honoring our Lord’s church locally, associatively and as a conference of churches.

“To nurture local church vitality and the covenant among our churches”
This is the mission statement of the MACUCC growing out of our Vision for Renewal and Growth, framed at a Board/Staff retreat last year (March 2005) and reaffirmed at a Board/Staff Retreat (this year) early in Feb. 2006 as we began together working toward aligning our resources to support our mission.

Setting us on our course were two votes taken at a Feb. Board meeting:

1. To bring forth an operational model that focused the work of all Associate Conference Ministers and support staff on serving congregations and associations in key areas of ministry without regard to geographic boundaries.
   
   
2. The Minister & President was directed to prepare a balanced budget for 2007.

These actions, along with supporting information, were presented in meetings held around the Conference in our 11 Associations – presentations were made by teams of two Board members. Thank you, if you participated in one of these meetings.

We listened hard at these gatherings, noting questions, concerns and excitement. As a result our March Board meeting and vote acknowledged the concern for more input from throughout the Conference to put flesh on the skeletal plan we’d put forth. In order to solicit broad input it was voted to put in place working groups that will listen and gather information and make recommendations to the Board, we thought early in 2007.

From March until May we continued to engage local church leaders, Association leadership, Conference Staff & volunteers – through Days of Covenant & Annual Meetings of Associations. Our Board of Directors meeting in May acknowledged that we needed to slow down the process for proposing/establishing a new structure.

To that end, in May, the Board voted a process – a Conference-wide listening campaign to begin this fall to discern the key needs and priorities of the major constituencies of the Conference - laity, clergy, congregations, Associations, Conference volunteers, and Conference staff - in our primary, shared goal of nurturing local church vitality, as well as the covenant among the churches. The results of the listening campaign willbe the basisfor developing a proposed new structure for the MACUCC – which will come before the body, if not at next year’s Annual Meeting, at a specially called Conference meeting in the fall of 2007 for a trial period to begin Jan. 1, 2008.

A Steering Committee is presently being appointed. It is my hope the names of those serving on the Steering Committee will be posted on the web within the next ten(10) days. These 15 members will recruit, coordinate volunteers for “Listening Teams”, and move the listening process forward and will synthesize the results – drafting a proposal for: structure, staffing patterns and budget implications. Volunteers for “Listening Teams” will be needed – if you have not already submitted your name – you may email Willie Sordillo (sordillow@macucc.org) or contact a Steering Committee member, once those names are posted.

Following my report you will hear a Budget Report from Board members Dile Holton, chair of the Goal Development and Resource Allocation committee and Harry Pape, chair of the Resource Development and Management Committee. Briefly, I will note that colliding with our efforts at re-visioning we were facing a significant deficit in 2006 and looking to a $200,000.00 deficit in 2007. At last year’s Annual Meeting, at which the delegates approved a third successive annual deficit budget, the Board promised this body to return to you this year with a plan for bringing income and expenses into alignment. The Board painfully, prayerfully, knowing the grief and loss that we would all suffer, and would inevitably affect some more deeply than others, and holding in front of us the knowledge & love of all the people and churches of the Massachusetts Conference voted recommended staff cuts and the closing of two area offices. We grieve the loss of all the staff and for the disruption that this has caused in their lives and in the lives of the congregations and individuals they have served.

Where is the hopefulness in all of this? Responses from some of my colleagues on the Board sound like this:

“A new sense of partnership can flourish as we work together to establish a new structure.”

“Our work has always been about engaging whatever struggle we must in order to emerge as a people into a promising new land of faith and discipleship. Our hope lies in God’s faithfulness toward us and in the confidence that the UCC in MA is a vital and absolutely essential expression of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

“The hopefulness lies in our capacity to remake ourselves, with the help and grace of God; - we don’t know exactly what we need to look like, but we have faith that we’ll figure it out together.”

“The hope in the current situation is that we can no longer afford to take each other for granted: not as individuals, not as churches, not as Associations, not as a Conference of churches. God never promised it would be easy, but God promised we would never walk alone.”

God is doing wonderful things in our midst – in the lives of individuals and in our churches throughout the Conference. Hopefulness abounds in the partnerships we have forged and speaks volumes about who we are in the MACUCC. Beyond our struggles with questions of structure and budget, highlights of the past year include:

• The adoption of the new Conference Disaster Response Ministries policy, and the appointment of the Rev. Gary Blume and the Rev. Jim Tilbe as volunteer Disaster Response Coordinators for the Conference;
• Renewal of our Partnership agreement with the Pentecostal Church of Chile, for the coming five years, with emphasis of relationships between women’s fellowship and youth groups and on joint work teams to develop the Shalom Conference Center in Chile;
• Adoption of the Good Shepard Church near New Orleans as a sister church to the MACUCC for the purpose of recovery from Hurricane Katrina and the contribution by our churches of over $370,000 for hurricane relief and rebuilding;
• The grand opening of the reconstructed Scudder House transforming this long- vacant building into transitional housing for twelve(12) women in recovery from substance abuse.

And within the hour we will have the joy, fraught with hopefulness, of introducing our candidate for Minister & President.

In closing, we are blessed with a gifted and dedicated staff; it has been a privilege to work with all of them, especially Dawn Hammond, who staffs the Board.

The Reverend Steve Sterner has been an amazing gift to us this year during this interim time in the life of our Conference. He did not shrink from his responsibilities. He guided the Board and Conference in facing issues head-on and choosing a future while there are still options full of hope and promise. He “speaks the truth in love,” and many of us are grateful for the gift of the Holy Spirit through discernment, both his and ours, that he was with us in these times, in this place!

And, finally, words cannot begin to express my respect and love for each member of the Board. The multitude of gifts around the table is immense and the energy they have poured out this year is beyond measure. It has been my privilege to serve with them as we labor for Christ’s work in this way-post of his kingdom we name the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ.

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