With winter season’s holidays drawing near, we are busy with family and friends, and the Board was recently reflecting on this calendar year 2024 that flew by so quickly. This is my third year on the Board and I will be ending my term as your Board President in June. The Board noted at our December meeting just how busy this year has truly been and I wanted to reflect back on the year as well as celebrate our accomplishments.

REFLECT back to December 2023 as the Board was heavily focused on our four Goals, which included Ministerial Search, Building our New Addition, Communication Flow, and Continuing our Journey of Policy Governance. Our interim Minister, the Rev. Joel Miller and our Staff were supporting all of this work and in addition were working on the many operations of our Fellowship including Worship Services, Weekly E-Blasts, and working to refine the single service which had been implemented in the fall. This was a lot of activity!

REFLECT back to December 17, 2023 as the Ministerial Search Committee (MSC) had just submitted our Congregational Record, see Transitions article p. 5. After months of cottage meetings and information gathering, the MSC presented their gathered information to us in a service which included a humorous skit of Sherlock Holmes and Watson searching for our future minister. We were waiting to see which ministers in search would express interest in our Fellowship. In January, the MSC then started the large task of prepping for interviews and Candidating Week in April.

REFLECT back to March 17th, 2024, when many of these desires were also expressed and captured in the Board Update Meeting. This 2-hour long meeting was open to the entire congregation and 90+ members attended. Through a facilitated process, presentations were given by the Board and RE Committee on topics of Finance, Communication, and Religious Education. These presentations answered several questions that had been posed to the Board, and this facilitated session was held to capture Concerns, Questions, Ideas, or Gratitudes (CQIG) from all members present that day. A total of 162 comments were written on Post-It notes, read aloud, and saved on flip-charts.  In our June 26th Newsletter a link to a Realm File folder is given where the March 17 Board Update Meeting Report, and many other Fellowship archives, are available to our members.  All Post-It comments were assembled into an Affinity Diagram, with 46 comments related to Finance, 60 related to Communications, and 56 related to Religious Education.  These were organized into 23 Groupings, referred to as Concerns and Questions. The report lists each of these along with many Answers and Actions Underway. Some Actions were implemented immediately as noted in the report, while others are still in discussion. This meeting was an important chance for all members to speak and be heard.

CELEBRATE where we are today, after our wonderful Candidating Week and our unanimous, enthusiastic, and joyous calling of the Rev. Sasha Ostrom to be our 5th Settled Minister in 70 years. Rev. Sasha is so very busy and excited to be leading our Sunday services, staff meetings, and implementing a clear Vision of Ministry that was approved by the Board in August. Our Vision of Ministry (VoM) is focused on helping us live into our Interim Mission Statement. Rev. Sasha is working closely with our staff, committees, and members  to build on our strengths and desires. It is exciting to see how Rev. Sasha’s Vision of Ministry embraces our input from the Cottage Meetings and Candidating Week and will be further guided by her direct discussions with each of you during her One-on-One Listening Tour.  If you haven’t had a one-on-one with Rev. Sasha, please see this link for details.

REFLECT back to December 2023 when our Gateways team and contractors were working hard to ready the plumbing and electrical pipes to be ready to pour the concrete floor of our New Addition. We could see steel framework and roofing, but there was so very much to do on the project. They were working on change orders, utility challenges, interior and kitchen design down to colors, chairs, and appliances. It was an imposing task! With so much work underway, they organized into several working teams including Construction, Solar, Kitchen, A/V, Design, Donor Recognition, and Rental Planning. In fact, led by the Rental Planning Team, these collective teams identified the wisdom in moving away from the generic name for our project of “New Addition”.

As the project was coming to completion, they recommended that proper names be used in our new Rental Agreements and Rental Brochures on our website. The Board asked these teams to propose names for the building elements that were in keeping with our history and also emphasized that our name, Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and new branding and logo, developed by the UUA and implemented by our JumpStart team, be the most visible part of all brochures.

We were delighted, and approved their recommendation that we use the two building names that have been listed in our capital campaign brochures for the past 10 years and associated with the building for the past 100 years. Please see our new Rental Page, which invites potential renters to “consider holding your event at the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Our campus consists of the historic Thorne Oaks Mansion and the contemporary state-of-the-art Gateways Center”. 

CELEBRATE now the glow that is still floating through the Fellowship after the dedication of our new Gateways Center brought a weekend of celebration and community to our Fellowship. Rightly so, as it was the culmination of 14 years of effort in implementing our vision for our 6-acre campus. As I noted in my essay Imagination and Dedication, “the weekend brought expressions of amazement, elation, and pride. It prompted entries in diaries, calls to friends and relatives, hugs in our hallways, and greetings from our wider world.”   There were so many moving speeches and reflections in our Dedication. I especially was inspired by Rev. Sasha’s charge to dedicate ourselves to our Unitarian Universalist faith in how we live into this space and use it to grow, bring our Fellowship members closer together, and have a positive impact in our greater community. Having dignitaries, including our Mayor, Township Council, community partners, like the Folk Project and the Historical Society, all present and sharing in our joy and excitement was particularly moving. It was an exciting launch of our transformed campus and this excitement was enthusiastically shared back with the Fellowship by the community members and alumni who were all present that day.

REFLECT back a year as the post-pandemic attendance numbers were still low and our Staff, Board, Volunteers were so busy implementing a change to a single service. Children were starting RE in a quiet building at 9AM and the single service for all ages was being held at 10:15 AM. We were all getting used to the routine, but it was different and difficult at times. There was some Adult RE programming, but it was not weekly and not connected to the childrens’ programs. As the UUA did not have an up-to-date curriculum available, DRE Nick Wallwork was working hard with volunteers to integrate elements of our legacy curricula, UUA elements, and new classroom ideas. The team was busy trying to both build and implement the program with both the new time and the new classes.

CELEBRATE now that Rev. Sasha was able to both hear this need clearly and immediately bring her experience in implementing the Soul Matters Thematic Ministry program starting immediately at the beginning of her settled ministry. Building on the learnings from last year, our Staff and Committee Volunteers have implemented  a single service schedule including 10 AM services followed by 11:30 AM religious education for youth and adults. The Soul Matters program, produced by a non-profit group of UU ministers and educators, is allowing our Minister, Staff, and Committees to more seamlessly offer RE for ALL ages and in multiple classes and formats, including discussions, art, and coursework. Our Sanctuary has been nearing capacity for most services and we are excited to have the Staff and Committees begin discussions for future growth. 

CELEBRATE as we look forward to continued growth of Sunday service  attendance and are confident we can meet any challenges this growth presents. Remember, one goal of our capital project was to augment and improve flow of our members both in our Thorne Oaks Mansion and sanctuary and in our Gateways Center. The Gateways team and the new Kitchen team are gratified to see how the coffee hour in the Al and Minda Chu Hall is working out so wonderfully. The entire congregation can indeed meet together, enjoy coffee and conversation, and easily join (or watch) their children on the playground. Chu Hall recently allowed coffee hour and refreshments to continue at one end while our information session for the new Solar Project was presented on the stage at the other end. This was all enabled with the great acoustics of our new space. Together with the beautiful new classroom space for children and adults, we’re well positioned to effectively work toward fulfilling our mission and vision. It is so wonderful to see these plans come to fruition!

REFLECT back to a year ago as the Board was working and communicating four goals from the pulpit and in newsletter articles. These Must-Do priorities for the Board were: 1) Ministerial Search, 2) Building Addition, 3) Communication Flow, and 4) Continuing our Policy Governance Journey. Each of these focus groups called on Board members, Committees, and Staff to give special attention while continuing daily operations. These daily operations are really time consuming and include Budgeting, Expenses, Annual Pledge Drive, vendor contracts, Board communication and archiving, and listening and responding to members’ questions and concerns. 

CELEBRATE now that the first two of these goals were so successfully accomplished. With Rev. Sasha Ostrom joyously called to be our Settled Minister and the Gateways Center now open ready for events and installation of our roof-top solar array. So indeed, at this year’s Board retreat, we took time to celebrate these achievements and then to turn our goal setting to our exciting future, keeping our Interim Mission statement as our guide. (It is quoted again at the end of this article). Our discussions led to three Board goals for this year: 1) Supporting Rev. Sasha in her new role as our settled minister and in implementing our 2024-2025 Vision of Ministry, 2) Exploring Open Questions with the entire congregation, and 3) Continuing our Journey in Policy Governance by reviewing and completing key policies. 

1st Board Goal: Our Vision of Ministry focuses on three areas, Worship & RE, Enhanced Communication, and Social Justice. Rev. Sasha is leading the implementation of the VoM with the full support of the Board and, of course, the entire Fellowship. The complete wording of the VoM gives more details on how each area will be explored: 

1. “Nurturing our Spiritual Home” and furthering our “search for truth and meaning” through the worship and religious education including use of the Soul Matters Thematic Ministry, 
2. Working to ensure “all are welcome and encouraged to participate” by fostering deeper community connections through relationship-building and enhanced communication via a 1-on-1 listening tour throughout the year, and, 
3. “Working to build a fair and peaceful world” via working with our existing and new social justice teams.

Please see the Board Retreat news article for more details. 

2nd Board Goal: Our Exploration of Open Questions will kick off in January with discussions led by our Committee on Ministries. These Open Question discussions will allow the entire Fellowship to give input to important topics that will be used to shape our Vision of Ministry for the following year. Open Questions don’t have simple “Yes” or “No” answers, but rather require congregational discernment and discussion. The Board will use our learnings in next year’s Board Retreat to create our Vision of Ministry for that year. With this in mind, the Board picked three Open Questions which we believe are key for our Fellowship:

1. What does it mean to be Welcoming?
2. How do we thoughtfully use our expanded space and facilities?
3. What is our Mission? 

Please follow this link to sign up for the first Open Question Sessions to be held in January. Just a single one-hour meeting is requested per Open Question and there are four days to choose from: In-Person on Sunday January 5th or January 12th at 11:30 AM in Chu Hall, or On-Zoom on Thursday January 16th or Tuesday January 28th at 7:30 PM.  We look forward to everyone signing up for the first Open Question discussion on one of these four dates.  SIGN UP LINK for Open Question: What does it mean to be Welcoming?.

3rd Board Goal: The Policy Governance journey last year was communicated in several information sessions and Network meetings. This link to How We Work is a key way the Board has been working to support Rev. Sasha and our Staff. It contains by-laws and an Organization Chart that helps us explain to Staff and Members how we are working to empower Committees and Teams to work together while also having clear leadership. As Rev. Sasha said to our entire congregation after the unanimous vote, she is overjoyed to be with us in Shared Ministry and to help us live into our Mission. The Organizational Chart is fully aligned with the best practices as shared by the UUA and, actually, with many boards of religious and secular non-profit organizations that use Policy Governance. On Board work this year will include making our policies more complete and consistent.

Organizational Chart

Our interim mission statement still speaks to the Board and Staff and hopefully to you all. As we light the Chalice in our services and homes each week, may its light help us

“To nurture a spiritual home where all are welcome and encouraged to participate in a universal search for truth and meaning while working together to build a fair and peaceful world.” 

After the Open Question discussions about “What is our Mission?”, we will be poised to work on our settled Mission Statement. Stay tuned!

To keep up with our information and events, keep an eye on our weekly Newsletters, either sent to you in the weekly (Wednesday) email blast (ask admin@muuf.org to be added) or online.  Click on the blue-box links “Read More” in each Newsletter article for more information.

With these Reflections and Celebrations, we are so looking forward to the start of 2025 !

Happy Holidays,

Paul Ferm, President, and your Board of Trustees