Interim Profile First Congregational Church Williamstown January 15, 2020 FOR LOCAL CHURCHES SEEKING LEADERSHIP IN AN INTERIM TIME

The covenantal relationship between a church and those called by that church to serve as pastors and teachers and in other ministerial positions is strengthened when vital information is openly shared by covenantal partners. To that end, we attest that, to the best of our abilities, we have provided information in this document that accurately represents our church. We have not knowingly withheld any information that would be helpful to candidates. As the committee charged with the responsibility for identifying and recommending a suitable leader for the interim time for our church, we have been authorized to share the information herein with potential candidates.

We understand that a candidate may wish to secure further knowledge, information, and opinions about our church. We encourage a candidate to do so, recognizing that an open exchange of relevant information builds the foundation for continuing and healthy relationships between calling bodies and persons seeking a ministry position.

___Margaret McComish_____ January 16, 2020__ Signature of Search Committee Chairperson Date

Church Name: First Congregational Church Williamstown

Address: 906 Main Street, Williamstown, MA 01267

Telephone: 413-458-4273

FAX: 413-458-3414

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.Firstchurchwilliamstown.org

Date of Vacancy: February 9, 2020 First Congregational Church of Williamstown

Mission Statement, First Congregational Church of Williamstown

Printed in our weekly worship service bulletin: “We, the members of the First Congregational Church in Williamstown, Massachusetts, strive to be a body of Christ in which all people may worship God and relate to one another with a secure feeling that they are welcome and appreciated. We seek to create a safe accessible haven where a person’s faith may be nurtured and developed in the sharing of diverse cultural and spiritual experiences of God. We will try, with the help of God, to lead a life of Christian love and service to God, humanity, and all creation. In offering ourselves to this sacred mission, we attempt to show the way of Christ so that the community and the world in which we live may learn to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” (Micah 6:8)

We see ourselves as a dynamic, inclusive, family-friendly hub where social justice, spirituality, and the arts intersect. We strive to be a caring community of earth stewards intent on global justice and spiritual transformation. Our Primary Goals and Needs for this interim time:

1. Maintain our momentum in progressively transforming into a new church that embraces both contemplation and action, spirituality and justice, and builds caring community within and beyond church walls. We seek to ensure vibrant Sunday worship services that combine authentic and inclusive spirituality with intellectually engaging and biblically-informed thematic series with attention to social justice issues and global crises.

2. Find a settled pastor who will support and guide us in #1.

3. Partner with an Interim/Transitional pastor in task forces on creative and inclusive Mission/Worship and Fundraising (for substantial repairs to our building), mentor a divinity school summer intern, and manage staff in Family Engagement, Community Organizing, and Administration/Finance.

BASIC STATISTICS ABOUT FIRST CHURCH WILLIAMSTOWN

Participation

#Church Members 216 Avg Worship Attendance 75

Children and Youth Education Participation in 2019:

● 23 children participate in one or more after school service-learning projects ● 27 high school & college students participate in climate activism projects supported by First Church ● 16 children participated in at least 1 Junior Choir church performance or 3–4 rehearsals ● Ca. 45 children attend Sunday School or nursery programs at least once. Typical attendance: 3–4, with peaks of 9–13 for Junior Choir performances and Blessing of the Animals, Christmas pageant; Youth Sunday (highest: 19).

Adult Education, Faith Formation and Community Building Events in 2019:

2nd Hour @ the Meetinghouse events: In 2019 we held 28 events, lectures, and discussion groups in the hour after Sunday morning worship. Attendance was typically 30-60 people. These included speakers from the church or the wider community about topical events, education, social justice, and topics important to our church community.

Small Groups: In 2019 we organized 11 small groups, usually with multiple sessions, which included bible study, book or special topics discussions, and purely social gatherings.

Financials

2019 Budget Total Income: $512,219.

2019 Total Actual Income: $522,291.

2019 Total Actual expenses: 479,531.

2019 Mission Expenditures: $53,571.

Total investments* (restricted and endowed accounts): $2,500,000. (*fossil fuel free, private prison free, munitions free)

Brief History

Founded in 1765, our church and the town of Williamstown have been intimately connected from the start. Our church buildings served as the town meeting house for many decades, and after was founded in 1793, the church likewise was used for commencement, convocation, and weekly required religious services, often led by College presidents. Such luminaries as William Sloane Coffin preached here. Our connection with global history may date to the 1806 Haystack Prayer meeting of Williams students about 100 yards from our current building, which set in motion the American Foreign Mission Movement—on which we reflect critically through sermons, conferences, talks and collaborations with Williams faculty, students and staff. In 1850, Samuel Harrison, first pastor of a new Black church in Berkshire County (Second Congregational Church of Pittsfield) was ordained in our church, “large enough in space and heart for such an event.” Great Awakening revival meetings at the church incited the first Town-Gown discord, when the Williams College president objected to displays of emotion in church. Though we retain certain reserved New England Congregational characteristics, we have become increasingly open to experimentation, and now we hold blues and jazz services, drum circles, community Messiah sings, meditation sessions, centering prayer services and retreats, and other alternative kinds of worship and celebration of spirit and God’s creation. Our rural location in the Berkshire hills, on the Massachusetts-Vermont-New York border, inspires us to appreciate God’s creation in worship and activism. Our location in “the cultural Berkshires” also inspires summer Arts and Soul themed worship, drawing and reflecting on the many exhibitions, plays, concerts and cultural events like theatre festivals and our world-class art museums. We are also actively transforming our Christian Education program, introducing a nature-based biblically engaged “Forest Sunday School” in the coming months. We are continuing to evolve in our practices and beliefs, inspired by our history and our setting.

Especially in the last decade, through extensive self-reflection and visioning, we have embraced our progressive identity as a community engaged in racial, social, economic and climate justice as we explore contemplative practices and an emerging Christian theology, inspired by our pastor and his affiliation with Fr. Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation. We are a Just Peace, Open and Affirming, level two Sanctuary church for immigrants and refugees in need, have covenanted with Habitat for Humanity of Northern Berkshire, and partner with and house several local non-profits. After lengthy discernment about Divestment, we eliminated all fossil-fuel, private prison, and munitions investments from our endowments. We regularly host Second Hour at the Meeting House on Sundays after worship services, which are a rich offering of talks, presentations, group discussions, films, performances, workshops, etc. drawing on the deep expertise of friends and neighbors in Berkshire County and open to the public. Our Community Hall hosts youth music, service learning, and drama camps and a variety of community meetings and dinners. Indeed we have become a center of community activities and gatherings.

Church Strengths

We have many strengths! Our church today is strong and warmly welcoming. We have a firm foundation and inspiring faith and spiritual journeys. The lens of Christian compassion through which we view the world is a powerful key to our resilience, which we proactively cultivate weekly. In our worship service we practice sitting with ourselves and experiencing self in relationship to God and to others. In our relationships, we foster a healthy interdependence. We have talented lay leadership who are generous with their time and with their gifts. We have the support of a very well-organized UCC Conference.

Nestled among the bucolic Berkshire, Taconic and Green Mountains, our beautiful white clapboard building with columns and towering steeple is not only a visual icon of Williamstown, but a symbol of our love for all of God’s creation. Our church is known for its socially engaged congregation, and is a centrally located gathering place for prophetic witness. We are committed to being as green as we can with an aging, large building, and we organize climate and other social justice actions regularly, using our church’s prominent location on Main Street to display signs, demonstrate, and share and inspire ideas, information and energy. We are part of the Sanctuary movement of Berkshire County, and very involved in supporting immigrants and refugees in our region and nationally. Our Second Hour programs often educate us about human rights, such as racial, ethnic, economic and GLBTQIA+ issues. We love our alternative worship services and compelling sermon themes, and have loved growing in God with Rev. Mark Longhurst and his predecessors.

Significant Events

Our summer worship theme on Arts and Spirituality, mentioned above, has even included some amazing services inside and outside museums and barns (e.g., Mass MoCA and the Williams College Museum of Art). We also co-host with our sister Episcopal church an outdoor June worship service at the reflecting pool. We have worshipped at Hancock Shaker Village, once with a Shaker theme that included dancing and folk music, twice at Christmastime, and in the spring, with a Blessing of the Animals, which we also do annually at our church in the fall. Centering Prayer has become an integral part of our worship services, and we offer a meditation period every Sunday morning before church. We also have a summer tradition of Breakfast Church with pancakes (or French toast on Bastille Day). And in December we have an All Ages Christmas service with a drum circle and alternative music and liturgy that draws many children and young families.

We partner with Williams College each spring at the end of the school year to collect no longer wanted lamps, refrigerators, fans, furniture, and other items from students--cleaning, storing and reselling them in the fall to students and the public in a gigantic tag sale that involves many church and community volunteers. On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we host Pie Palooza, donating dozens of pies to the Berkshire Food Project while enjoying a community tasting contest following worship.

Our Challenges

The past seven years have seen us move from a time of decline into a stabilization of attendance, new programming and initiatives, experimentation with worship, and increasing organizational health. Even still, we find ourselves struggling with the issues that so many churches struggle with--too few bodies in the pews (mostly elderly), small numbers of youth in Sunday School, and the same people doing the same tasks. We are active and passionate--and yet we are not growing.

We are intensely concerned to develop a worship service that is inclusive, welcoming, and attractive to new generations. This goal has caused us to ask fundamental questions about our sanctuary space, style of worship, and use of the building. In recent years, our traditional sanctuary, with raised pulpit and box pews with doors, while charming and lovely, seems to be an obstacle to more flexible and welcoming worship experiences. As hospitable and welcoming as we are, does a new generation really want to worship in an 18th century architectural style? What type of worship, musical styles, and forms of prayer connect with younger seekers of meaning today? We are forming a worship and mission task force to ask these very questions.

Further, after an architectural firm recently performed a building assessment, we are more aware than ever that our building faces enormous costs for repairs. We have the will, and quite possibly the ability, to fundraise for these needs--and yet the effort involved is significant and daunting.

Is there unresolved Conflict in Church? No

Level of Conflict in Your Church (Low 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 High): 1 (As identified by Speed Leas, in a Leadership Magazine article in 1989: 1. “We have problems to solve, but we can do it!” 2. “We’re not communicating. There seems to be a low level of trust…but we are talking! 3. The focus has changed to “winners/losers!” At this level it is wise to seek outside help! 4. The goal is “divorce,” and getting people to quit. 5. Not only wanting others to leave, but seeking revenge!

Was the previous leader a contributor to the conflict? No

If yes, please explain: N/A

Generally, the starting place of negotiation for the Compensation Package offered to the Interim Pastor is the same as that of the most recent pastor or what you anticipate offering your new Called Pastor.

Cash Salary offered to include Salary and Housing Allowance:

Range $80,000 - $85,000

Conference Compensation Guidelines (salary range): $48,187. - $74,691 One time Criminal Background Check fee of $160 reimbursed to the Interim Pastor.

Renewable Covenant/Contract will be for: 12 months

Is this full time or part time? full time

Interim Pastor will be selected by: 4 person search committee, approved by church council then membership

Once an Interim Pastor has been chosen and a covenant has been signed, please forward the following documents to the Framingham Office –

Copies of the Interim Covenant/Contract

Documents outlining the conditions for terminating the covenant/contract.

It is customary that the church or Interim Pastor may terminate the contract only after 60 days notice of such intent.

Suggested Supplemental Materials to send to a candidate: 1. Newsletter 2. Worship bulletin 3. Annual Report

Regional Minister: The Rev. Jill D. Graham Phone: 413-441-1618 e-mail: [email protected]