Fulfilling the Vision, Part 5

My fourth post on Fulfilling the Vision is here. My sixth post is here.

I only just got around to reading the rector’s letter in the June issue of The Messenger the other day. That letter contains this astounding and slightly ungrammatical parenthetical:

Note: a capital campaign is usually conducted about once every ten years, parishioners are asked to make a gift that can be paid over a period of several years, and much of the giving comes from one’s capital; with annual giving, parishioners are asked to make a gift to be paid over one year, with most of the giving coming from one’s income.

Apparently, this rather fanciful explanation is designed to divert attention from the fact that more than 40% of the proposed so-called capital campaign is for current operational expenses rather than for what are generally called capital improvements. No one should feel diminished by an intention to contribute to Fulfilling the Vision out of current earnings; most of us won’t be selling our Apple stock to contribute to St. Paul’s.

Why am I making such a point of whether Fulfilling the Vision is really a capital campaign? For two reasons. First, people should realize that much of the proposed expenditures will leave no tangible legacy. We are planning to spend $425,000 on “ministry enhancements” over three years. This money will mostly go for salaries. We have been given hardly any description of what these “enhancements” will look like.

There is an exception in the case of the $75,000 for “music ministry.” We are talking about hiring a musician primarily support a Sunday evening service for which there is no demonstrable demand and for which the primary audience is said to consist of non-parishioners. When the money has been spent—and financing through a special campaign makes it less likely that we will be evaluating the project as we go along—what will we have to show for our efforts? Spending this money is a wild gamble. Perhaps we can afford a wild gamble every now and then, but we seem to have $425,000 worth of wild gambles in the proffered package that is Fulfilling the Vision, and we should ask ourselves if that is simply too much risk to assume.

The second problem with the way the “capital campaign” is structured is the effect it may have after it is over and done with. Seemingly, “ministry enhancements” will result in new hires or additional work hours for existing staff. When all the money is spent, are we going to have to add an additional $140,000 or so each year to maintain the same staffing level? Are we projecting that our income will have grown to allow us to do that? Or will we simply fire everyone that we’ve hired, in spite of the fact that we have created increased expectations respecting the services the church provides?

There is even reason to worry about the $200,000 proposed for the “facilities maintenance fund.” Admittedly, St. Paul’s has a deferred maintenance problem. Repairs that should have been made and paid for out of current funds have not been made, and I assume that the fund is intended to help us catch up on maintenance. It is not unreasonable to bring maintenance up-to-date through a special campaign. There is going to be a temptation to spend the fund and decrease the, building maintenance line in the annual budget, however. The result could be that, when the facilities maintenance fund is exhausted, we will resume our practice of deferring maintenance due to lack of sufficient funds in the operating budget.

Fulfilling the Vision, Part 4

My third post on Fulfilling the Vision is here. My fifth post is here.

I am intrigued by the proposal to reconfigure the area in front of the church to provide handicapped access. Recall that the scheme would re-grade the pavement in front of the church, effectively providing a ramp from the Washington Road sidewalk to the floor level of the nave. Steps would need to be built to connect to the walkway between Mayfair Drive and the entrance to the narthex facing Mayfair. (The plan is probably better than the plan I put forward for handicapped accessibility in “Do We Really Want to Repair the Steps?”) The proposal is shown in the plan view presented at the Adult Forum last Sunday (click on the figure for a larger view):

I am reluctant to give my full support to this project without seeing an elevation illustrating how the front of St. Paul’s would look from Washington Road, but the idea seems very promising. Adding handicapped access to the front of a building often results in an architectural disaster—witness the Christian Science church down the street—and the proposal for St. Paul’s is clearly designed to avoid such a result.

I stopped by the church the other day to get a better sense of how the grounds would look and function if the proposed changes were made. I was struck by several observations. First, the concrete in front of the church is cracked and uneven. Replacing it would not be a bad idea under any circumstances. Second, the paved area in front of the church is smaller than I had imagined. I think of this area as a place where we bless palms, potentially gather for the Easter Vigil, and sometimes bless animals. In fact, however, for these activities, many people find themselves on the grass. Standing in front of the church, I was also struck by the fact that our sign, what I assume is the pinkish rectangle in the figure above, apparently does not figure in Fulfilling the Vision, in spite of its deficiencies. (See “Welcome (If You’re Going South),” which discusses our sign and has a good picture of the grounds in front of St. Paul’s.)

As long as we’re redesigning the area in front of the church, we might as well consider related improvements, so I would like to suggest these additions to the project:

1. Add more paved area. There is ample room between the existing paving and the trees on either side of it. Some of the grass on the building side of the sign can also be paved over. These additions would provide a larger and more comfortable gathering area in front of the church.
2. Consider adding one or more flat areas on each side of the paving immediately outside the door. (I might call these steplets, as they are like steps but have but a slight rise, given the slope of the pavement.) A classic view of American churchgoing has the preacher standing on the steps of the church greeting departing worshipers. My steplets would suggest the steps that had been replaced, while providing a safe horizontal surface for the preacher to stand on for an extended period.
3. On the expanded plaza in front of the church, consider adding a piece of bronze sculpture. There are two reasons for suggesting this. First, it would provide a point of interest in an otherwise featureless expanse of paving. Second, it would add a spirit-affirming component to what otherwise is a completely utilitarian group of projects to be funded as Fulfilling the Vision.

I’d like to say a few more words about item (3), prefaced by the caveat that I am not a visual artist. Any piece of sculpture should relate either to St. Paul himself or to the church. Three possibilities come to mind. We could have a statue of St. Paul, though, without some elements that keep it from looking like an icon to be venerated, it might seem too Roman Catholic. Second, we could commission a sculpture that incorporates the St. Paul’s dove and arch. This seems more promising. My favorite idea, however, is to have a sculpture made that reflects on the words of our patron, something not homophobic or misogynist. My nomination for a point of departure is Galatians 3:28: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. [NRSV]”

My idea for a piece of sculpture outside the door of St. Paul’s comes from a piece of art along the Grant Street sidewalk in front of First Lutheran Church. I don’t recall either the name or significance of the sculpture—see picture at right—but I do remember this bit of outdoor artwork as being arresting. Something of similar quality might be even more arresting at St. Paul’s, where it could be viewed from all sides.

Update, 6/30/2010: I ran into another passage from St. Paul that could be inspiration of a piece of sculpture, Romans 12:4–5: “For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. [NRSV]”

Welcome, Clergy

As a choir member, I often enter St. Paul’s through the door nearest the chapel. Walking to the door after parking my car, I cannot miss the parking spots reserved for clergy. These are marked by signs announcing “RESERVED FOR CLERGY.” There are fewer of these signs than there used to be; the old signs said “RESERVED CLERGY.” Whether they were changed because someone asked where the wild and crazy clergy were supposed to park, I cannot say. (That question is from the Pickering era.)

Now, I have no problem with reserving special parking places for clergy. It is worth noting that the designated clergy parking places are not really in prime locations, so the signs don’t seem to suggest that clergy are more important than the rest of us.

I think we need additional reserved spaces in the parking lot, however. Why don’t we designate several parking slots nearest the lot entrance as being reserved for visitors, that is, for those who are neither clergy, nor staff, nor parishioners of St. Paul’s? Wouldn’t this be a welcoming gesture?

The visitor-only parking places could be a lot more visitor-friendly than is at first apparent. Parking spaces behind St. Paul’s are not laid out in the most obvious fashion, and saving visitors the trouble of navigating the lot’s odd geometry would be a gift. So would saving visitors the effort of walking uphill from parking spaces in the lot’s interior.

The first-time visitor to St. Paul’s faces another problem, namely, how to enter the building. Where is the handicapped entrance? Where is the church office? Where does one go to attend a Sunday worship service? None of these questions is easily answered when standing in the parking lot staring at the building. If we had several designated visitor parking places, we could erect one or more signs to welcome visitors and orient them.

Are we willing to give up a few parking spaces for visitors?

Fulfilling the Vision, Part 3

My second post on Fulfilling the Vision is here. My fourth post is here.

I received a letter from St. Paul’s yesterday informing me that I will be called to be invited “to participate in a focus group of parishioners led by a representative of the Episcopal Church Foundation” to discuss Fulfilling the Vision. This sounded promising. The next sentence, however, declared that event “will last approximately one hour.” The group is to discuss, among other things,

• Whether you favor or oppose the proposed plans, and why.
• What you like and dislike about the proposed plans.
• What the financial priorities of the campaign might be.
• Parishioners who might be good candidates for campaign leadership.
• What an appropriate parish financial goal for the campaign might be.

I am pleased that parishioner opinion is being solicited on the scope of Fulfilling the Vision. I am skeptical about its sincerity, however.

Let’s begin with the first sentence of the letter. It refers to a “proposed capital campaign.” As I noted in my first post about the campaign, a substantial portion of the money it has been proposed that we raise is devoted to what appear to be current, not capital expenses—to personnel and routine maintenance expenses, as well as feel-good outreach and beefing up the endowment. The last item is ironic, as we were told in Sunday’s presentation that the endowment cannot be used for capital improvements. In other words, the marketing of Fulfilling the Vision is less than forthright.

Then, there is the schedule. It was admitted at Sunday’s presentation that the schedule for getting this campaign off the ground is unusually compressed. It is not difficult to suspect that this is less about the urgency of the project as it is about selling the parish a bill of goods before parishioners have time to get their minds around what is being sold.

Is summer the best time to be soliciting parishioner opinion? Everyone knows that Episcopalians are so virtuous that God gives them the summer off! Lots of folks will be out of town or thinking more about the shore than about church fund-raising. Then, there is the length of those focus groups. The handout from Sunday’s presentation is 14 pages long and is—not to put too fine a point on it—short on details.

Lacking details and sufficient time to really understanding what is being proposed, focus group participants are likely to spend more time on clarifying what it is they are discussing than actually discussing it. Is this by design?

I find it difficult at this time to have a considered opinion about many of the components of the Fulfilling the Vision proposal. Why, for example, do we need to spend an additional $100,000 on in-reach and pastoral care? Are we currently doing a sub-par job in this vital area of ministry? If so, why is that? How have we determined this need? Are people leaving St. Paul’s because they have not been adequately supported in times of crisis? Or are we anticipating a future demand because we expect that our other expenditures are going to attract large numbers of new parishioners whose needs must be met?

A Proposal

If the focus groups are going to be effective, rather than window dressing, parishioners should know everything there is to know about the plans being put forward before they walk into the room to discuss those plans. I propose that St. Paul’s give parishioners the following information about each component of the Fulfilling the Vision proposal:

• Project Description. Exactly what is being proposed.
• Priority. How important is this project with respect to other projects. In what order will projects be funded.
• Background. The problem we are solving with this project. Why is the project needed. What do we expect it to accomplish.
  
• Cost. How much money needs to come from project fund-raising. Long-term, what are the budget implications of the project. Will the project save money (i.e., by increasing the building’s energy efficiency) or create ongoing liabilities (i.e., by hiring new staff whose salaries will be included in future operating budgets).
• Alternatives Considered. What other means of addressing perceived needs have been considered. What are the consequences, if any, of not implementing the proposal.

This information should be made available before any focus groups are assembled. Only by having this sort of information going into the focus groups can those groups be effective. The information will give participants real data that can be the basis of fruitful discussion. Lacking such data, we should either reject Fulfilling the Vision out of hand or send it back to the drawing board.

Fulfilling the Vision, Part 2

My first post on Fulfilling the Vision is here. My third post is here.

One disappointment I had with yesterday’s Fulfilling the Vision presentation was the apparent absence of any plan to change the seating in the chancel or balcony, to improve the lighting in the church, or to change the dark woodwork in the church and narthex that reflects the building’s original décor.

In April, when I learned that a committee was looking at building needs, I sent a memo to church leaders about issues in the church and narthex I was aware of as a result of my long tenure as Audio-Visual Coördinator. One Sunday after church, the Senior Warden and I walked through the church reviewing the issues I raised in my memo. None of my concerns that had not been raised earlier made it to yesterday’s presentation.

There is, of course, $200,000 in the proposed budget for a “Facilities Maintenance Fund.” This sounds like a special fund for current (often deferred) maintenance, however, rather than for capital improvements, so I suspect my pleas have fallen on deaf ears. “Facilities maintenance” should be part of our operating budget. The need for “facilities maintenance” will not have gone away after Fulfilling the Vision has been long forgotten.

I consider the seating, lighting, and cosmetic changes I proposed to be high priority items. Only yesterday, for example, did a fellow choir member turn to me and say, “I wish they would improve the lighting in the chancel, so we could read our music better.”

Please do read my memo here. You may find that it identifies issues you had not thought of or issues of which you were only subliminally aware. It may address issues about which you are passionate.

Fulfilling the Vision, Part 1

My second post on Fulfilling the Vision is here.

Along with a fairly big crowd of parishioners, I attended the presentation at church today of the proposed capital campaign. The project is being called “Fulfilling the Vision.” Our last two capital campaigns were called “Building the Vision” and “Continuing the Vision.” “Fulfilling the Vision” sounds like the last of a trilogy of projects that will take our parish to some imagined end-point of church development. As such, it seems rather too optimistic in tone. Perhaps the next campaign will be “Revising the Vision” or “Fixing the Vision.”

I don’t mean to be petty, however. The presentation was well designed and interesting. I was impressed with some proposals and skeptical of others. What I want to do here is to give a quick overview for parishioners who did not attend and to offer a few first impressions.

About the presentation itself: Lisa Brown put together a PowerPoint presentation that set forth the basics of the project, along with feel-good pictures and music illustrating parish activities. Michelle Baum introduced the presentation. Junior Warden Carl Kylander, Ell Vines, and Senior Warden John Adams then discussed details of the proposal. A 14-page handout of the essential slides was offered to those present, with the promise that additional copies would be made available to anyone who wants one. Lisa Brown, who did a fine job on what turned out to be her first PowerPoint show, promises to have the presentation on the Web sometime this week. It is worth checking out.

The proposed project seeks to raise $1,826,000, broken down as follows:

Retire Current Debt	$66,000
Physical Plant Maintenance & Improvement (“Bricks & Mortar Projects”)	$730,000
Facilities Maintenance Fund	$200,000
Jump Start the Endowment	$150,000
Ministry Enhancements for Vision 15	$425,000
Outreach	$180,000
Capital Campaign Expenses	$75,000

Episcopal Church Foundation is providing consulting services to St. Paul’s. It is to conduct a feasibility study between the middle of July and the middle of August. During that time, parishioners will be consulted in some way that was not completely clear. This is supposed to generate a report in late August. A kickoff is planned for September, and the campaign itself is supposed to be conducted in parallel with the annual stewardship campaign. All this sounds like a fait accompli, but we were assured that the scope of the project would be influenced by parishioner input. In any case, the $75,000 figure includes direct fund-raising costs and fees to Episcopal Church Foundation. This figure would be less if the campaign were scaled back.

Observations

I have neither the time nor perspective to offer a definitive opinion on Fulfilling the Vision, but I would like to make a few random observations. I will write more later.

Let me begin with a few positive reactions. The plan calls for us to invest in a number of improvements that are long overdue—air conditioning and a new sound system for the church; air conditioning and improved lighting for the choir room; new exterior doors, including electrically opened doors for handicapped access; restoring our stained glass; and power washing the building exterior.

A surprising item is a plan to rework the plaza in front of the church, sloping the paving from the street at an angle so as to reach the level of the church floor and eliminate the need for steps. This would allow handicapped access through the front door. The steps from the Mayfair drive side of the narthex to the street would be reconstructed more or less as they have been. (This is perhaps an even better plan than the one I suggested in an earlier post.)

It has also been proposed that we reconfigure the undercroft with additional movable dividers. This plan looks much like the one originally proposed in the Building the Vision project, a scheme that was scaled back due to lack of funds. I had always though that was a blessing in disguise, but the latest plan does deserve consideration. It has both plusses and minuses.

Fulfilling the Vision should not be described as a capital campaign or project. My understanding of a capital expenditure is consistent with this explanation from Wikipedia: “A capital expenditure is incurred when a business spends money either to buy fixed assets or to add to the value of an existing fixed asset with a useful life that extends beyond the taxable year.” By my (generous) reckoning, exclusive of fund-raising expenses, capital expenditures represent approximately 57% of the money being sought. Outreach, endowment, and “ministry enhancements” are not capital expenditures. “Ministry enhancements” seems to be a euphemism for new personnel, i.e., adding to our operating expenses, a continuing liability after the three-year Fulfilling the Vision project is over.

No doubt, the argument will be made that adding a musician and personnel for pastoral care and ministry to families will bring in additional members (i.e., money). Perhaps, but that case was not made at today’s presentation.

This is not to say that it is inappropriate to raise money in a special campaign for ministry and outreach, but let’s be honest and say we are asking for additional funds for current, albeit expanded, operating expenses. No one has to convince me that we need to air condition the church. I will need a lot of convincing that we need to increase our personnel costs by something like $140,000/year.

I will offer additional thoughts in future posts. For now, consider me a concerned but interested parishioner. I worry that by putting too many bells and whistles into Fulfilling the Vision, we may endanger our ability to address our most urgent needs.

If you attended today’s presentation, what was your reaction? This is as good a place as any to discussion how you feel about this proposed project that will affect our lives together for many years to come.

Ultreya!

The picture at the left was taken at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Johnstown yesterday afternoon. The occasion was an Ultreya, the first public program sponsored by a diocesan group intent on reviving the Cursillo movement in our diocese. The Ultreya was announced on the diocesan Web site and in the diocesan e-mail newsletter, but only 25 or so people showed up.

When the diocese split in 2008, most Cursillo leaders left The Episcopal Church. In recent years, Bishop Robert Duncan had strongly supported Pittsburgh Episcopal Cursillo, which, in turn, strongly supported its sponsor. Over time, fewer Cursillistas of moderate to liberal persuasion took part in Cursillo activities or sponsored candidates for Cursillo weekends.

There are many Cursillistas at St. Paul’s, and I apologize for not making a special effort to tell them about yesterday’s event. It would have been nice to have had people with whom to carpool for the trip to Johnstown.

If you’re interested in helping to renew a less theologically narrow Cursillo in the diocese, let me know.