January, 2011
Keystone United Church of Christ
From Sophie…
When I arrived here at the end of September there were a lot of projects percolating within this church family. Some of this has been ongoing activity, and some of it hints at long-term change for the community. It feels like an exciting time for the church, and a time to both reflect on the past and build momentum for what will move us into the future. The following is a brief summary of some of what has been discussed and accomplished in recent months.
The Building Committee has been moving forward with efforts to revitalize our “physical plant.” A long-term need to make our building more energy efficient has spurred us to approach PSE for some insight and resources to help us do that. There is also a desire to make our building, including our sanctuary, more multi-purpose and accessible: to this end we are moving toward a planned renovation of the sanctuary floor, including leveling it and replacing some of the pews with chairs. This would allow larger groups to gather there than are possible elsewhere in the church, as well as make it more suitable a space for what the Keystone worship Community has become.
The health and appearance of the exterior has also been a concern: our front entrance and Narthex have a neglected appearance and have been somewhat closed in by surrounding vegetation. Nuts and bolts projects for addressing this concern have included the removal of a few trees that were impinging on the church roof and walls, and replacing the broken and dark Narthex glass with more transparent, tempered glass. The latter will improve our appearance and allow more light inside at the same time. A future step will be to renew the paint on that façade of the church and evaluate how to spruce up the exterior cross.
Another exciting dimension of making the church more accessible to the community is a renewed interest in equipping the stairs to the second floor with a wheelchair lift. This would increase the accessible space of our church by a huge percentage!
The Communications Committee has spent some time looking at a couple different dimensions of how the church presents itself to the rest of the surrounding community. We continue to energize our online presence through keeping up our blog and our Facebook page, and to prioritize our interaction as a community through email and a future printed photo directory. We have also looked at improving our physical visibility in the community through increased signage and creating and distributing affordable flyers strategically throughout the community. In the process of discussing these ideas we’ve also asked one another, “What is our ideal size of church community?” I suspect we would get as many answers as there are members now: some enjoy and value the size we are now and its comfortable family feel. Some wouldn’t mind a larger size membership that would help us feel more energized. Others feel that the sky should be the limit. All agree that we want to be welcoming community to all newcomers, without putting too much emphasis on numbers as a measure of the health of our community.
The Social Justice Committee continues to spearhead efforts that extend our mission for social justice into the community. Members poured effort into political initiatives during the last election; we were treated to information and food nuggets during a presentation on the connection between the food industry and global warming on 10.10.10, and outreach continues to local community shelters for the homeless. With the help of the Social Justice Committee we are continuing to build on our certification as a “Green Congregation” by recommitting to low impact foods for our shared meals, and pursuing related topics through the Book Study Group. The legacy of Keystone: the ability of our energy and commitment to social justice matters to defy our small numbers continues!
From Rich
On the third Sunday in Advent (December), I preached about our calling as people of faith. As part of that sermon I put out an idea. In case you were not there here is the quote from the sermon.
“I have been thinking about starting a new program at Keystone. This new program would train people (probably young people) for a life a faithful action. In this program we would call 5 or so people to work for a year as our missionaries. They would work in justice based organizations, organizations that cannot afford to have enough staff. They would live together in a house. They would live very simply. They would participate in classes that would teach them about a justice based Christianity and provide them with the tools of social change. And they would be required to participate in the life of this church.
We would make sure that they have a place to live, food to eat, access to healthcare, and a little spending money (very little). We would make sure that they had good organizations to work with and we would make sure that they had our support.
Given that there are so many young people out there who have graduated college and cannot find meaningful employment. Given the need to teach others about the importance of justice for people of faith and the importance of faith for people seeking a just world. Given that we have (I hope) the skills and resources to pull this off. I think now may be the time. But the cost to us for this may be over $60, 000 for one year. And the program may end after the first year. $60 thousand is a lot of money from our savings. It will not add one cushion to our hard pews, it will not add one layer of paint to the sad exterior of this building. It offers nothing but the possibility to do good work and train young people do such work in the future.
Think about it.”
This project would take money and time from our resources. The $60,000-$70,000 figure is an estimate of worst case costs. I don’t want to sugar coat it. It could cost us a lot. It also takes a great deal of faith to think that providing one year of training and experience for five people will make the world a better place.
It is something we can do. The question is whether it is something we are called to do.
See the Upcoming Schedule for Friday Night Meaningful Movies: http://meaningfulmovies.org/
Report from Committees:
1. Communication Committee: The December meeting of the communications was attended by half a dozen rousing Keystone community members, as well as Julia’s sister MaryBeth. We divvied up various media outlets (including bulletin boards, online networks, free newspapers) for distributing more information about happenings at Keystone. We are continuing with our existing communication efforts within our own community through email and “social networking,” as well as brainstorming other ways of reaching out to our surrounding community. We plan to introduce a couple of signage options (based on material and basic structure) for the church to the next congregational meeting in January or early February.
2. Building: Improvements to the physical structure of the building and its surroundings are noted above in Sophie’s newsletter message. The Committee would like to note that the landscaping work was donated by the church’s neighbor Bill. We are looking for more volunteers to assist with further landscaping projects near the front of the building to help upgrade our daytime appearance. Stay tunes for updates on further church building projects.
3. Social Justice: The social action committee plans to serve another meal at Sacred Heart on January 21st. Members were encouraged to attend the Environmental Priorities Coalition Workshop on Saturday Jan 8th from 9:30 - 2:45 at Seattle Pacific University, Gwinn Room. Following this, attendees can then go to Olympia for Environmental Lobby Day on February 15, 2011.
Scripture readings
9 January: Jer 31:7-14; John 1:10-18
16 January: Isa 49:1-7; John 1: 29-42
23 January: Isa 9:1-4; 1 Cor 1:10-18; Matt 4:12-23
30 January: Micah 6:1-8; Matt 5:1-15
Reader/usher schedule
1/9 Gus Wall/Jo Winston
1/16 Rita Patterson/Steve Bauck
1/23 Chandra Vandermost/Bill Gough
1/30 Sandra Schumacher/Janet Stillman
2/6 Rich Voget/Gloria Bollens
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