Not Just Money But Vision

I am what the Myers Briggs folks call an Extroverted Intuitive Feeling Perceiver which means I have more insights than I have decisions. In my post yesterday, I suggested that a foundation might be a helpful instrument to raise and administer the money for what Unitarian Universalists prefer to call extension. Others might call it church growth, mission and evangelism or some other name.

I was responding to an idea advanced by LivelyTradition, which had suggested that we might support minister-enterprenuers who had a vision for a congregation (or a community ministry) and were willing to invest their time and make sacrifices in order to bring to bring that congregation (or community ministry) into being. I was sharing a insight that I have experienced the staff at 25 to be risk averse. (Which may be an feature not a fault when it comes to managing a non profit service organization.) The "foundation" would not share the mission of the UUA which is to serve the existing Unitarian Universalist congregations and be responsive to the complaints of congregational leaders. It would be guided by a mission to stimulate grass roots efforts at growing Unitarian Universalism. I suspect that some new starts don't stand a chance for funding under our system of anxious governance because they might be controversial.

Two different examples based on my own experience. There was a proposal for a new start in a large city of over a million people. The community was racially and culturally diverse with the dominant culture being a numerical minority. A minister of color who grew up in that city and had the support of several dozen Unitarian Universalists and had pledges of money in six figures before s/he put forward a proposal for a new start in that city. There was a congregation in that city and the minister and the congregation supported the new start. But the staff at 25 thought it was risky, both for that minister of colors career, and for the stability of the existing congregation. The staff anticipated failure and controversy, to which the minister and the folks on the ground were oblivious and for their own good they must be protected.

Then there was a minister raising minor children in a small town decides she can't move and therefore can't avail herself of the search process. What to do? She gathers a house church that grows and decides to apply for congregational status. She talks to staff at 25. They respond that her new start might be a good candidate for the extension program (it was a few years ago) but they would choose the extension minister. The gathering congregation responded that they had chosen their future pastor, and she was their founding mother.

I could go on and on. Extension efforts that got almost there but couldn't go over the hump because their three years had come and gone and now they were supposed to be self sufficient. Spin offs that weren't eligible for extension support because the sponsoring congregation was loaning their called Assistant Minister and the extension program demanded a free hand in choosing the minister.

I note that LivelyTradition already has a name for the foundation. I like the "Institute for Progressive Enterpreneurial Ministry" but my experience with fundraising tells me that what ever comes out of this effort might end up with a name chosen to please the donors.
And LivelyTradition has some proposals "for an inventory of progressive church planters and plants active now, surveying the literature of recent experience, researching, enabling training, identifying planters, building networks of planters into learning communities, developing and clarifying a visionary core group." Perhaps some of these projects could be housed in a theological school and students could find some interesting work interviewing, cataloging and hosting conferences of church planters and community ministers.

Funds are raised based on a vision, donors do not give to maintain existing programs as much as to create new programs. I support the UUA's efforts at Capital Fund Drives, but these efforts have shown many who are willing to give money but are looking for something that looks well thought out, exciting and not business as usual.