Pastoral Relations Committee Report
The Pastoral Relations Committee met several times in 2008 to discuss joys and concerns of the pastor and the church family. The “God is Still Speaking” sign which hung in front of the church was a concern to several members of the congregation so consensus was to take it down and consider other ways of extending our message of invitation to the community to join in our work and worship. Support was offered to the pastor during periods of critical family health problems. Encouragement was offered to the pastor as she helped initiate a series of lectures for the Williams and Williamstown communities on mental health issues.
Realizing that a committee will be working on rewriting the Bylaws of the church, I have included below for your review the description of the duties of the PRC.
The Board of Deacons voted on February 28th, 1999 to establish a Pastoral Relations Committee as described below:
The Pastoral Relations Committee will be an ad hoc committee of the Board of Deacons and will function in advisory, supportive, and interpretive capacities with the following general responsibilities:
1. A bridge/communication link between pastor and congregation to share needs, ideas, hopes, expectations and concerns;
2. Advocate/demonstrate concern for the pastor and his/her family;
3. Encourage the pastor’s ministry, including teaching ministry, both locally and in the wider community;
4. Act always in a confidential manner;
5. Meet a minimum of four times per year in private session with the pastor. In addition, the pastor or the committee should feel free to convene the group as deemed necessary;
6. The Pastoral Relations Committee will be expected to report to the Board of Deacons as necessary.
Signed,
Abbie Hatton for the committee
John Blackmer, Caarie Waara
Minister of Music’s Report
During the spring of 2008, we continued our practice of “Global Vespers” on the third Sunday of the month. It was fun, and a good learning experience for all involved, besides its validity as worship. But low attendance made Rev. Bail and me decide that, maybe, we hadn’t found quite the right audience, or that this wasn’t quite the best time for the services. We did decide to return to the “Global Vespers” format for the special service the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It was a tremendously successful service, with good attendance, and active participation of many in teaching and leading the songs from the different traditions.
On a similar cultural bent, the “Posada” celebration we held for families in December was a rousing (i.e. noisy!) success, and formed the basis for part of the Christmas Pageant, recreated for the Congregation. I’m looking forward to many more collaborations with our new Christian Ed Director, Kathy Noble.
With fewer families with high school age youth this year, we’ve lost the chance for a periodic youth choir that has been so successful in the last two or three seasons. Some of the youth are being encouraged to participate in other ways, though, such as singing in the Senior Choir. In addition, we have been able to enjoy the returning college-aged youth, who joined with the Senior Choir for Christmas Eve, swelling the ranks to 20.
We’ve been fortunate to have several fine members of the Senior Choir, as well as Williams students, and our own college students home for the summer to offer solo selections for the summer services. Besides the solo voices, we rallied a men’s and a women’s choir for one summer Sunday each. Look out for this opportunity again, as I’m eager to continue this tradition as a way to get more people to sing with us, especially those not quite yet ready for the regular Thursday commitment. In fact, we’ve just added new anthologies of music for both men’s and women’s choir to our library, so there’ll be more interesting things to learn!
We’ve added new members to the Junior Choir, keeping open the idea of second graders joining that had been new for us last year. The parents do a wonderful job of supervision at the rehearsal and providing a snack, as well as transporting the young singers to and from the rehearsals. This sort of musical training is where nearly all of our most experienced church musicians got their starts. The enthusiasm we see and hear bodes well for the future of church music!
Yours in Christ,
Edwin I. Lawrence, Minister of Music
Membership and Parish Life Committee Report
Membership and Parish Life had an active and convivial year with the following activities:
-Round Robin Dinners: Over 50 people participated in this continuing tradition during January, February, and March
-A Spring Souper Sunday was held after church.
-In June, the last day of Sunday School was followed by an Ice Cream Social
-Care Boxes for Williams College students were prepared during final exam weeks during May.
-In conjunction with Stewardship Sunday in the fall, another Souper Sunday was organized.
-In addition, we provided drinks and or food to several events throughout the year, such as the September Sunday School Registration (ice cream social), October Rainbow Coalition dinner, and the November Safe Church Program at Second Hour.
-Christmas Caroling was held on December 14th, with over 40 people participating. We caroled at about a dozen homes and at Berkshire Commons, Sweetbrook and Sweetwood.
Respectfully submitted by your MPL committee:
Peggy Brooks, Nan Fritz, Dedee Durham Hynes, Margaret McComish
Librarians’ Report
The highlight of the 2008 Library year was attending the 50th anniversary National Church Library Association Convention in Minneapolis, Minn. in November.
Rutledge and Arletta Currie participated in 2 days of workshops on topics including classification and cataloging, weeding essentials, library automation, promoting library ministry, choosing books to fit the needs of our church community and copyright essentials.
We are anxious to put our newly acquired skills and enthusiasm to the test in the coming year.
An energetic youth volunteer, Sophie Jones, has expressed interest in helping to reestablish order to our library holdings. We welcome her and invite others who might have some time free periodically, to help with cataloging, shelving, bulletin board presentations and other assorted endeavors.
Our children’s section showed the greatest circulation in 2008. We will be focusing on reintroducing the greater range of our collection to the congregation through 2009.
- Rutledge and Arletta Currie
Koinonia Report
Koinonia members try to act as a liaison between our church community and the pastor. Each of us has adopted a number of members and friends with the hope of being aware of concerns and needs of each of them in order to let Carrie and others know, when appropriate. In some cases we go further, organizing meals or visits for those in need.
In the past year, we have met, usually monthly, sharing news and assigning weekly delivery of the altar flowers. One of our major concerns has been to help our congregation in thinking about preparations for death or other emergency needs, and getting important personal information into confidential church files. We are happy to have Annette Triquère and Dolores Lovegreen as new members, and, of course, we would joyfully include others.
- Jean Donati and Susan Smith
Hospitality Committee Report
The Hospitality Committee, a part of the Membership and Parish Life Committee, organizes receptions after Memorial Services held in the church if the family involved wishes our help.
This year the committee had no requests for receptions.
Nan Goodell
Kay Sherman
Flower Committee Report
Co-chairpersons: Arletta Currie, Deborah Currie
Committee: Nancy Alden, Jytte Brooks, Donna Chenail, Deborah Crabbs-McDonald, Arletta Currie, Deborah Currie, Suzanne Dewey, Marilyn Faulkner, Rita Hoar, Dedee Durham Hynes, Katherine Myers, Pat Short, Gwen Steege, Carol Stein-Payne, Carolyn Umlauf, Carrie Waara, Suki Wilkins Alternates. Abbie Hatton, Phil Smith
Members of the flower committee provide floral arrangements to enhance the beauty of our sanctuary for each weekly worship service. After the service, members of Koinonia divide the arrangements into bouquets to deliver to special persons in our church community.
After the Easter service, 16 lilies were presented to members of the congregation who had lost a loved one in the past year and to staff members, and 20 spring plants
from the service were provided to shut-ins and others for special recognition.
Advent church decoration was a collaborative effort of Flower committee on November 29th and Church School, placing window wreaths with the assistance of tall adult church members on Sunday, December 30th during the service.
Thirty-five poinsettias were delivered to the church December 18th and arranged in the church for worship December 20th (delivered early due to snow storm). They were distributed to church staff and members of the congregation during the week of December 29th. We thank our sexton, Harry LaGess, who maintains and places the window candelabra each Advent and continues to use his creative skills to organize and preserve the flower pedestals and Christmas decorations and Manger scenes.
The Flower Committee budget depends primarily on donations from the congregation. We wish to take this opportunity to thank those who have so generously donated funds for other flowers throughout the year including Christmas and Easter. We encourage donations for special occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries and other honors. New members of the Flower Committee are always needed and most welcome.
- Arletta Currie
Christian Education Report
In August the Board of Christian Education appointed Kathy Noble to be the new Director of Christian Education responsible for Infants through Eighth Grade. Due to the high number of our high school youth who are attending boarding schools, the search for Youth Minister was postponed. Another consequence of the decrease in the number of teens, the Habitat for Humanity trip, which was the core of Youth Ministry in the past, will not happen this spring. We are currently engaged in a process to actively imagine and re-create the position of Youth Minister. To fill the Youth Leadership gap, Brian Handspicker and Beth Davis are co-leading a “Tweens” and “Teens” group, and Carrie Bail is leading a Confirmation Class. We are searching to expand the role of teens in the life of the church, particularly through mentoring relationships. For example, teens are filming Sunday services for local broadcast on WilliNet.
As an outcome of “restructuring,” two CE members , Elizabeth Smith and Ali Benjamin, are representatives to the Congregational Cluster. The CE Board, renamed the CE TEAM, continues to meet monthly to plan ahead and support Kathy Noble. The Team includes Ali Benjamin and Elizabeth Smith (the two Cluster Representatives), Youth Leaders Brian Handspicker and Beth Davis, all of the Sunday School Teachers and interested parents.
Highlights of Christian Education – Fall and Winter 2009
The church school participated for the second year in the Northern Berkshire CROP Walk, a community walk to raise money to fight world hunger. Activities focused on awareness and activism regarding world hunger and included soliciting donations from sponsors, picking apples, making signs to carry during the walk, baking bread and walking the three-mile route with families, church members and many others. In preparation for Advent, we invited the congregation and families to attend a lunch and Advent Wreath Making Event during the Second Hour. Members and families were also invited to attend a “Posada” with a Mexican dinner, a piñata, crafts (Mexican “poppers” and Christ Candles) and singing as part of a ritual evoking Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter on the eve of Christ’s birth.
“The Posada ” was the theme for this year’s very successful Christmas Pageant, which was held in the Sanctuary following the Sunday Service and proceeded into Fellowship Hall for the Christmas Play. The original plan was to follow Mary and Joseph through the front doors to a “living crèche” on the front lawn of the church, but unfortunately the weather did not cooperate!
Plans for this winter include a Read-A-Thon to raise money for their Ethiopian foster sister Sarah.
The Tweens’ Youth Group Service Projects included decorating and personally delivering Halloween pumpkins to shut-ins, baking pumpkin pies for the Berkshire Food Project, decorating a tree for the Habitat for Humanity Tree Showcase, and baking Christmas cookies for the Berkshire Food Project. They plan on doing more for delivery to their new-found congregational (shut-in, elderly, etc.) friends, hoping to develop closer relationships with some of the more isolated members of the congregation. Also, as in previous years, they hope to provide support for Louison House. Last year the Tweens worked on the Louison House garden in the spring. Past year’s activities have included sorting/culling broken toys and redecorating the playroom. The Tweens look forward to learning from the residents of Louison House what their needs are for this year.
- Elizabeth Smith
Congregation Cluster Report
Our new cluster system incorporates three primary functions under the umbrella of the Congregation Cluster; they are discipleship, worship and parish life. We’ve tried to attend to each area with due diligence and without neglecting any part of our responsibilities. It has sometimes been a challenge during the first year of implementation, but the group has moved forward and accomplished much during 2008.
Logistically we addressed the challenges by continuing to focus on the three areas as three distinct groups. The former Christian Education members convened a working task force which include church members and friends not in the cluster to attend to the Sunday School and related issues. Most notably, this group convened a search committee and hired Kathy Noble as our new Director of Sunday School. The accomplishments of that group are included in the reports submitted by Kathy Noble and Elizabeth Smith.
Issues of Parish Life were brought to the Cluster when necessary. Often the tasks of this group that we have come to love (i.e. the Round Robin Dinners and the Souper Sundays!) were planned with a task force convened by Nan Fritz. Details of the Membership and Parish Life Task Force are reported in the Annual Report.
The deacons struggled with the structure of four ordained deacons actively working in the Cluster, and have come to the conclusion that we need six deacons actively working at any one time. This new plan will be implemented in 2009. Four deacons will actively participate in the Congregation Cluster; and two ordained deacons will serve outside of the Cluster. All deacons will continue to support the pastor in the week-to-week devotional practices of our community and participate in longer-range planning which concerns the spiritual life of the congregation at large. The deacons plan to meet with Carrie monthly outside of the Congregation Cluster meetings.
Implementation of quarterly Big D pot luck suppers and meetings was successful. These gatherings of current and former deacons have proved to be a valuable time to draw on the experiences and expertise of all former deacons. We’ve discussed the role of deacon in our church, discussed and experienced prayer with a Sufi leader, planned with Carrie a worship service, and enjoyed wonderful fellowship. We plan to continue these gatherings quarterly. At two times during 2008 we supported Carrie in beginning a prayer group. Though there is continued interest in an experiential prayer group, the timing has been problematic.
Goals for 2009 will include items that have been before us in the past and some new focus, too. They will include these goals:
- More fully integrate issues of education, membership/parish life, and deacons to ensure that we better serve the congregation as a whole, and serve individual members.
- Address the three issues discussed at our December 2008 meeting, all of which have been brought before the Cluster in past forms. If these are a priority to the 2009 Congregation Cluster and the congregation at large, we’ll keep them on our priority list. Those issues are addressing men’s activities/participation in our church; integration of worship, children/youth programming, and outreach ministry; and increasing membership and participation in general.
- Supporting the initiative of the meeting house gatherings so that they reflect the deeply held tradition of the First Congregational Church of Williamstown’s effort to serve the wider world, as well as our own spiritual community.
The Congregation Cluster includes representatives from the Choir, Christian Education, Coffee Hour, the Deacons, the Flower Committee, the Hospitality Committee, Koinonia, Membership and Parish Life, the Librarians, the Pastoral Relations Committee, and all efforts at congregational photography. CO-CHAIRS: Lynn Chick and Sam Smith
