Toward the Common Good: The History of UUCF Retold Rev. Roberta Finkelstein November 20, 2005 Once upon a time, in the midst of that decade of dislocation and confusion known as the 1960’s, a group of folks decided that what Frederick, Maryland needed was a Unitarian Universalist presence. It might be trite to say they had a dream, but indeed they did. They dreamed of a place where reason and intuition, mind and spirit, could all be exercised in the search for truth and meaning. In the earliest days of the Frederick UU Fellowship, services were held in people’s homes. But these founders always intended to have a home of their own. That was part of the dream. Land, a building, a visible presence that would say to the community, “Here we are. Come on in. And look out, because we’re coming out to you too!” At one point, when the group was meeting over the Colonial Music Shop on East Patrick Street, they cut geometric shapes out of colored cellophane, pieced them together, taped them over the windows to resemble stained glass. Oh yes, those folks certainly intended to start a real church. The founders of this congregation discovered what it meant to be part of a democratic religious organization. Although you may not always get your way, your voice will always be heard. That is the implicit promise of democracy. And the implicit expectation of democracy is that you will, when you do win, lead with grace and humility. And you will, when you do lose, accept the decision of the majority rather than undermine it. They also learned what it means to commit yourself to a fledgling voluntary association. You know, the idea of a voluntary association is relatively new in the history of humankind. For millennia, people had few choices about the groups they were part of. Family, tribe, guild, academy. Freedom of religion is only a few centuries old. Freedom of assembly is even younger. But here in Frederick, your founders voluntarily gathered together to practice their chosen faith. And if they didn’t know it going in, they soon discovered that freedom has a cost. If you want your free religious fellowship to thrive, you have to show up. You have to do your share of the work, and you have to pay your share of the bills. Casting off pope and priest and the trappings of authority means that you pick up the slack. And so the founders came, week after week - different rooms, different buildings - but always they came, dedicated to this precious congregation’s survival. In other words, they learned that there is a thing called the common good that is worthy of time, talent, treasure, and sacrifice. Frederick Buechner once said, “The best and holiest dream may just be true.” The next stage in your history involved both inward and outward looking strategies. In recognition that you were no longer small enough to know each other intimately just by accident, you established the Serendipity Dinners – chances to meet others in small gatherings that involved both a delicious array of food and lively conversation. On paper, the Serendipity Dinners still exist. I believe it would be a good idea to resuscitate that program. After a decade of extremely rapid growth, you need some ways to catch up with each other, to socialize without any other agenda, to break bread together and engage in lively conversation, and just relax and have some fun together. As you were organizing yourselves to take care of each other and maintain intimacy while you grew, you were also looking outward. A major achievement of the 1970’s was to raise enough money to get a Life Membership in the NAACP. This is no small accomplishment. Life Membership is expensive for a small group. But you did it. And you continued to dream. You dreamed of a home of your own. You dreamed of increasing your membership so that you could become a more effective presence in the local community. And you started to dream about getting some help in the form of professional leadership. “The best and holiest dream may just be true.” In the 1980’s you had a series of part-time ministers, and I’m sad to say that they didn’t all serve you well. Some came and went so quickly there wasn’t even time to establish a working relationship. One had such a poor understanding of proper boundaries that he became romantically involved with a member of the congregation. One of the basic ethical principles of ministry is that we do not, ever, use the congregation to meet our own needs. One of the index cards on the history wall says, “I remember the disastrous ministry of Craig Coleman, who was our first real introduction to congregational strife.” While it is true that it is the ministers job is to both comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, it is not generally thought that the way to do that is to introduce strife into congregational life. And yet you persisted. You continued to seek new meeting places to accommodate your expanding children’s program. You had a fruitful experience of extension ministry with Alice Blair Wesley. You continued to create opportunities for fellowship like the joint picnic with the Hagerstown UU’s, and opportunities for innovative worship like the poetry in the park services. “The best and holiest dream may just be true.” As you moved into the next decade, you enjoyed the ministry of Cary Kaufman. Now I have to admit that I am not objective about Cary. She and I went to seminary together; she was a trusted friend and colleague. I miss her still. Cary died of cancer a few years ago. The Youth Group thrived during Cary’s ministry. A Youth trip to Boston, the birthplace of Unitarianism and the headquarters of the Unitarian Universalist Association, included 12 teens one year. You report appreciating her warm and pragmatic approach to life. Many of you still miss her. (Just as an aside, it was Cary who invited me to Frederick to preach on that infamous Easter Sunday when you were locked out of the YMCA and had to hold the service on the steps.) One radical innovation in that decade was that you actually started to take a collection on Sunday morning. Prior to that, a basket sat quietly by the door and if people wanted to put money in it, they could. But nobody, apparently, ever asked for donations. One of you commented that with this amazing change, you were actually able to plan a budget. (Somebody else noted that there was only one rule about planning the budget, and that was that no alcohol could be consumed until the budget discussion was finished.) The Chronologically Gifted group was formed in the early 90’s, adding another opportunity for good food and lively conversation. And then, miracle of miracles, you purchased some property – the Motter House. A great many cards from this era related to work projects at Motter – a new roof, tearing out walls, raking leaves. Having a home of your own had a profound impact on you. You went Christmas caroling in the neighborhood. The children had space of their own to hang their pictures. You didn’t give up on professional ministry either. Marlene Walker came to work with you for a short time. Again, a brief and strife-filled ministry. During that time, though, you had a Visioning week-end, and you identified a new building with wheelchair access, REAL religious education rooms, everything a REAL church has. (I had to laugh when I read the cards that talked about all this REAL stuff, since my infamous service on the steps of the Y had been so much about being REAL.) I will also note the fact that in the early 1990’s your first attempt at the Welcoming Congregation program ended in conflict – literally a shoving match. So look at how far you’ve come. We have already had 4 sessions of the Welcoming Congregation, and nobody has gone home crying yet. In 1994 John Morehouse became your first full time minister. His ministry was marked by rapid growth. When you look at the statistics from the late 90’s it is almost unbelievable. You went from a congregation of 60 or so people to over 200! That is a lot of growth. And with that growth came growing pains. Infrastructure rarely keeps up with rapid growth; churches need times to regroup, restructure, and re-stabilize in between growth spurts. Some of the ways that you learned that your infrastructure wasn’t adequate for your membership were quite painful. Several of you recalled the story of the man who had become the volunteer Religious Education Director, just as he was being indicted for child molestation. Luckily, nobody in this congregation was harmed, and he was asked to leave the congregation permanently. With that near-miss incident came the recognition that you needed professional leadership in Religious Education, and John’s wife Frances became the first paid Director. Here was another lesson to be learned. It is difficult to manage the delicate balancing act of having staff who are also members of the congregation. But it is well-near impossible to manage the delicate balancing act of having family members on the staff. Years of increasing conflict followed. The conflicts were about many things – money, leadership style, lines of authority, communication, philosophy. Some long-time and beloved leaders left during those years. Many of you still miss those individuals. Several times you sought outside help to resolve the deepening conflict, and several times the people you entrusted to assist you failed to bring the group to resolution. Once again I say sadly that you were not well served - this time by the resources of the denomination. But in the midst of all that messiness, all the disagreements and losses and resentments and sadness, you built this building, moved joyfully in, hired Michele Grove to be your Director of Religious Education, started a pre-school, and did all the things that a church needs to do. You had worship every Sunday and started a Worship Associates group, you began a small group ministry program (and as you heard in the announcements earlier, there are still some slots in the Chalice Communities), your diverse and lively music program thrived and grew, your children were born and dedicated and nurtured, your frail and elderly and sick and injured were tended to, the Pastoral Care Associates program was initiated, you read books and watched movies and collected food for the food bank and cleaned up the road and started down the path towards being a Green Sanctuary and . . . I’m out of breath! So here you are, in this beautiful building, with an interim minister, a new administrator, a departing Director of Religious Education. Here you are living through what I believe is a badly needed time of regrouping. Don’t worry about growth in membership this year, just make sure that all of you who are here take care of each other. Don’t worry about new initiatives, just make sure that the programs you want and need can be sustained with adequate volunteers and funds. I invite you to take a few communal deep breaths, relax, let go of all the tensions and conflicts, and focus on your dream, your vision. I hope that the Community Conversations that were held over the last month represent a truce of sorts – every one of you had the opportunity to come and speak your minds, vent your anger, weep your tears, and voice your grief. And now, it is time to let go of all that, and look forward. As one person gently said at one of the Conversations, “We’ve said all this before. Let’s acknowledge that it’s done, and move on.” Your task this year is to learn to trust again. To trust that professional ministry brings gifts and richness, and not just strife. To trust your chosen leaders to make decisions in the best interests of the entire congregation rather than working from small personal agendas. To trust that the practice of stewardship is one that is taken seriously – and that there are structures and practices in place that reflect the best practices of healthy churches. Yesterday we had a lively discussion in the workshop on “The Core of Our Faith.” One point we made is that a creedless religion still has a center. And that center is the covenant – the promises we make to each other. Promises that you say out loud to each other in public meeting. Promises that represent the best you have to give of yourself, and the best you hope to get from each other. Promises that emerge out of your shared dreams and your shared vision of what the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick is and can be. “The best and holiest dream may just be true.” And it may just be true enough that it will come to fruition, starting here and now, and in the days to follow.