Dear friends and fellow congregants:
My name is Ryan Deibert (he/him), and I’m grateful to serve again this year as Moderator of your Board of Trustees.
How beautiful it was this past shining Sunday to return to the sanctuary with so many of you for our Homecoming Sunday, the beginning of our 2023-24 church year! From the pancake breakfast provided by our Men’s Group to the joy-filled multigenerational annual ingathering service and blessing of our Learning Community to the newcomer’s campus tour, and “T” Time – a gathering for our Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender-Expansive community members – the church felt so alive and thriving after our traditionally slower summer months.
Our fall coffee hour tradition of sharing each others’ garden bounties even sent our family home with a beautiful fresh flower bouquet and tree-ripe pears that were cooling in a freshly baked tart by the afternoon. What treats!
Your Board of Trustees has been busy at work throughout the summer and into these early months of the church year. Our annual board retreat focused on the continued deepening of trusting relationships, effective communication, and spiritually grounded leadership. We also heard initial reports from last spring’s Community Conversations led by Rev. Alison and a dedicated team of board members and congregants as we continue our collective work of discerning the emerging ministry of our community of faith at this time. That work will continue in the coming months as we complete our annual evaluation of the church’s ministry and prioritize our board’s focus areas for this church year. The congregation’s church-wide goals have guided us for three years, beginning in 2021 and ending this church year. We’re excited to build on the Community Conversations with additional congregational engagement to help us set broader church goals for the coming years.
In collaboration with larger UU congregations from throughout the U.S. and Canada, we’ve also been engaged in continuing study and ongoing cohorts to improve our practices of inclusive engagement and decision-making as we continue to live into our 8th Principle commitments to dismantling racism and other forms of oppression. We’ve been studying other best practices and structures for inclusive large church governance. You may know that most large church boards (including ours) are intentionally structured to focus on long-term vision and oversight while delegating most day-to-day operational decisions to professional staff and ministerial leaders. But did you know that that work tends to be more effective with smaller boards (7-9 members, far fewer than the 12 our bylaws currently require), and, perhaps paradoxically, smaller boards tend to support more profound and more diverse congregational engagement in the work?
As a board, we’re excited to continue learning with our colleagues throughout the broader UU movement, but we’re most excited to continue learning and growing in community with you. While we’re busy planning and organizing several forums for congregational engagement throughout the year, we always love to hear from fellow congregants directly. You can email us any time at board@firstunitarianportland.org, visit with board members at our weekly tables during coffee hour, or join us for board meetings on the first Thursday of every month, where congregants are not just welcome but encouraged to attend, whether online or in person. Find our upcoming agendas and links to participate via Zoom here.
In loving community,
Ryan