From the minister:

Continuing the Journey

Which Vision Leads to Which Path?

I’m writing to you on a snowy Sunday morning. Sitting in my home office, looking out across the blanket of white, I see one of our more intrepid neighbors walking the family dog through the deep piles of powder. As I watch them embark on their journey of a few blocks, the struggle is apparent, shoulders hunched, boot-clad feet lifting with labor, kicking up a spray of white with each step. An untrodden lane is a difficult one.

This month we’re beginning our annual process of pledging our support to the Fellowship. The theme, It’s Worth the Drive, took on new meaning to me as I watched that walker. When there are no roads, the drive is difficult at best, dangerous at worst, and always much more challenging. The roads that lead to the Fellowship also lead us back into our lives. These roads have been created by past generations, those leaders who had the vision to lay out the paths that created this facility, developed our programs, and sounded our voice in the larger community so that we became an important presence in Ames. Once created, these roads have needed constant tending—a clearing so that people searching for a path of liberal religion could find their way to our door.

Each one of us has the privilege of walking the path created by those before us, and each one of us is part of recreating these roads for ourselves and future generations. There is no one else do it for us. This year we continue to seek ways to improve our Fellowship community, adding to our programming, increasing our financial security, and being good stewards of our Fellowship and in our community. What might some of our new programs be? That will depend on your input. This road we take is created by our dreams and visions, made real by our efforts, and sustained through our financial support. All three elements are imperative for the path to our door to be clear.

Based on our ministry review of last year, I hope that we will be able to explore funding for our music programs. The area has overwhelmed our volunteer resources. If we can secure funding in our annual budget, we may be able to provide the variety and excellence in music that you have told us you’d like. I hope that we can increase our Director of Youth and Children’s Ministries position to full-time. Currently, that position is only paid for 49 weeks a year, yet it oversees year-round programs, especially for our youth. The summer day camp and the Boston Heritage trip all need support and planning. Also, we’ve enjoyed a successful internship program this year. One of the questions we will need to address is whether we want to continue such a program. If we do, we may want to build up funds so that we can provide an adequate salary for our next intern. This could be done over several years, with interns joining us every two or three years.

While there are internal issues such as staffing, as well as building maintenance items that we will want to be mindful of, there are also commitments to our larger community that need to be reflected in our budget. Now that we’ve joined the grassroots change effort through AMOS, we need to secure funding for it in our budget.

We can’t clear each other’s roads of every obstacle, but we do lean on those walking ahead of us and support those behind as we take this walk together. Let’s dream, let’s build, and let’s support this Fellowship home we’ve created together.

-- Brian