Susan M. Reisert

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the efforts that the church I serve has engaged in order to support and encourage new members and friends. I’ve especially been thinking about the time I’ve spent with new and fledging members and visitors. I’ve visited with, met for coffee, opened my office to what feels like countless new people—some new to the area and others just new to church. A few haven’t even made it to worship.

I wish that I had had the foresight when I was young to have started a tally of church meetings that I attended—though I’m not sure if I would be impressed or depressed by the number. I started attending regular church meetings when I was in high school, when I was the youth group representative to the Christian Education Committee at First Parish Congregational Church in Wakefield, Massachusetts.  Here in Maine—at the local church and conference levels in the United Church of Christ—there’s a lot of talk about reducing church meetings.

Last winter, when the church I serve was contemplating a new vision for organizing itself, especially its governance, I heard a certain question posed a number of times that asked whether or not other churches had tried such a system. How had it worked? How did people like it? It all sounds to me like we are buying a car.