2001: A CHURCH ODYSSEY

Roger Fritts

October 6, 1996

Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church

Bethesda, Maryland

This week I tried to imagine what this church will be like in October 2001. In my mind I composed a conversation.

My imaginary dialogue began on a cold morning in October five years in the future. The sun was shining brightly, reflecting light off the trees and the road.

Jane Doe sat in her car after parking in the church lot. She had come by herself to look the church over. Looking down at the buildings in the trees, Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church looked much like it had the last time she had seen it five years before. Back in the fall of 1996 she, her husband and her two children had been active members of the church. However, the Department of State had appointed her to serve on the staff of the American Embassy in Kathmandu. She and her family had returned from Kathmandu for vacations in the United States, but they had not come to church. Now they had returned to their home in Bethesda and they wanted to reestablish their connection to the church. They wondered in what ways the church had changed in the five years they had been gone.

The first thing Jane had noticed was the new sign on Cedar Lane. It not only gave the name of the church, it also gave the times of the worship services and it said, "Visitors Welcome." As she walked toward the church entrance, she noticed another new sign. It also said welcome and gave directions to the Chapel, the religious education classes, the auditorium and the church office. She recalled that when she had been here back in 1996, the only sign that greeted visitors to the church was one that said NO PARKING. Now someone had added the word "WELCOME," and it gave a positive first impression.

As Jane walked into the church, she looked for familiar faces. She spotted Sally. They had children the same age five years ago. She walked over to say hello. Sally smiled in recognition and gave Jane a big hug. They exchanged news of their families and sat together during the worship service. The service was familiar. The congregation still used the same gray hymnal. The choir was wonderful, and the organ sounded great. After the service, Jane shook the minister's hand. He recalled her face, and remembered that she had been in Nepal, but he could not remember her name. She remembered that he had always had difficulty remembering names.

Jane stood in the coffee hour and talked with Sally. Jane said, "The organ sounded just as I remembered. I love the special sound of a church organ, something I never heard when I was in Nepal."

Sally agreed. "The organ does add a great deal to the service, but it requires maintenance. Back in 1997 in keeping with a long-range plan, we spent $10,000 to do repairs."

Jane remembered that one of Sally's children was the same age as hers, which would make both of them about fifteen now. Jane asked, "What kind of programing does the church have for your son? Is there an active high school youth group?"

Sally responded, "The high school group, YRUU or Young Religious Unitarian Universalists, has about eighty kids as members. They have a youth coordinator and their own youth room now. If you have a few minutes, I will show you the room."

Sally led Jane out of the church and across the parking lot, where they walked along a path through a lovely garden. "This is our memorial garden," Sally explained. "We wanted a place where we could have a lasting record of the people who have been active in this congregation. People's names with the years of their birth and death are on small plaques here in the garden."

Sally led Jane along a small path to a lower level entrance to what had been the parsonage. They entered a youth room that the high school kids had decorated. A fireplace was in the room. About fifteen kids gathered around a fire, which took the chill off the October morning. Sally described how the congregation used the rooms. "The youth group uses most of the space down here, but we also use it as the storage space for our church records. The most important records are kept in containers that are fire and waterproof. The Senior Minister insisted on that. However, we have used a scanner to copy everything and put most records on a compact disk. For the 50^th anniversary of the church just last month, we published both a written history of the church and a CD version of the church's history."

Sally led Jane upstairs where two adult education classes were just breaking up. Sally said "Many people drive a long distance to come to Cedar Lane, so they only come on Sundays. They want more than just to attend the worship service and the coffee hour. They want to be part of a community where people know them personally. So in these rooms we hold adult education classes at the same time as the worship services. People can attend a worship service either before or after they go to an adult education group. The classes meet weekly and for the people who attend regularly, the groups are like extended families."

Jane commented that it must have cost a great deal to change the building from a parsonage to an education center. "About $400,000 for the building and the garden," Sally admitted. "At one point, it did not look like we would be successful. When the idea was first raised, many people had just contributed to the church renovation, which took place back in 1992. They were not excited about giving to another building project. However, a core of committed people had a vision of how we could convert the parsonage to serve the congregation. Gradually, their enthusiasm spread to more people in the church. Some people were lukewarm about the parsonage conversion, but they were committed to the idea of the memorial garden. Other people did not care about the garden, but they wanted the church to have a strong program for high school youth. Still others were not interested in youth or gardens, but they wanted more small group meeting space for adults. All these interests came together, and we raised the money. Also, we saved thousands of dollars by doing some work ourselves. For example, I was on the painting crew that painted all these rooms in two days. I made some new friends helping to paint these rooms. Now we use the building seven days a week. On Saturdays we use it as an all-day retreat center. Sometimes Boards from other Unitarian Universalist churches rent the rooms to hold their board retreats, up here among the trees."

As they walked back toward the main church, Jane had another question. "When I was here back in 1996, some people talked about building a sanctuary. I guess the congregation decided to do the parsonage conversion instead."

Sally responded. "We plan to do both. If all goes well, we will have completed the construction of the Sanctuary by the year 2006. A sanctuary committee is working on the plans right now. We made the decision back in 1996 to do the parsonage conversion first, but many of the same people who supported that project, also want to build a sanctuary. Personally I want to build a sanctuary because I want to be part of the process of creating a work of art. I think a great sanctuary is like a great sculpture or a great painting. It is an artistic expression of the deepest yearnings of human creativity. In my mind our sanctuary will be a place of beauty and serenity where we each will feel accepted."

Thinking aloud, Jane said. "It is amazing that you could get so many Unitarian Universalists to agree on so many planning issues."

"It was not easy," Sally replied. "First members of the Long-Range Planning Committee talked among themselves for months. Then the board discussed the plan. Then the congregation as a whole spend many hours debating the plan. People argued about many issues. Where should the memorial garden go? Is it cost effective to spend the money to convert the parsonage? Should the memorial garden have a fountain? Could we afford to add a youth coordinator to the staff? Should we even consider building a sanctuary? And when we build a sanctuary, should the choir be in front so the congregation can better hear the music, or in back so the choir members can read the newspaper during the sermon?"

Jane said, "It seemed like parking was easier, that fewer people were in the auditorium, and that the coffee hour was not as full as I remember it. Has the church gotten smaller in the past five years?"

"Actually," Sally said, "we are about the same size as we have been for about fifty years, with membership going up and down between 900 and 1,000 adults. The reason the church is not packed is that for the past four years, we have had three worship services. We now get an average attendance at each service of about 150 people, with a total attendance at worship of 450, which is up slightly from five years ago. Of course, adding a third service was not easy. In fact, more people resisted adding a third worship service, which cost about $30,000, than resisted raising $400,000 to convert the parsonage to church use."

"Tell me about it," Jane said.

Picking up a copy of the fifty-year history of the church, Sally said, "This account of the church history gives a good summery. People resisted the idea of a third worship service for several reasons. One was the fear that the feeling of community in the church would be lost. Another was the concern about how much work a third service would be. Some church staff felt stretched to the limit already with two worship services. Also, the Religious Education Council was working overtime to find teachers for the two worship services.

"On the other hand, in the mid 1990s Cedar Lane was losing members. In the first half of the 1990s, the church was losing pledging units at a rate of about twenty-five per year. In 1991, at the end of the Gulf War, we had 751 pledging units. By the end of March 1996, we had 651 pledging units, a drop of 100 in four years. We did not feel this drop financially, because in the same period the individuals and families who were pledging raised their giving so much that they offset the decrease in the total number of givers. Also, the endowment kept growing, as members died and generously left part of their estate to the church. Back then, someone joked that, if this pattern continued, by the year 2026 we would only have one person still pledging to the church, but she would be giving more than a million dollars a year!"

Jane asked, "Did anyone try to discover why the number of pledging units was declining?"

"People speculated. One theory was that the new minister was to blame. However, when a consultant asked people, most of them said that although Roger was different from Ken MacLean, more shy and more reserved than Ken, most people liked his sermons. Another theory was that we were not doing enough to bring in new people. However, when we checked the number of new people who signed up to get the newsletter, we found that we were attracting nearly 300 new people every year. Yet, most of them were not becoming members. Something was wrong. People were coming but not joining. In May of 1996 the board invited the UUA District Consultant, Pat Carol, to do a congregational assessment to discover what was not working."

Sally began to read aloud from the book of church history. The passage she read was a quotation from a 1996 report by Rev. Pat Carol, the consultant from the Unitarian Universalist Association. Rev. Carol wrote:

The static enrollment in church school and the number of closed classes (in 1991-92 there were seven closed classes, in 1992-93 there were six, then nine, six and eight in the ensuing years) allow only approximately twenty new families to enter the system in any given year. "What's not working" here is a maxed-out RE program, with nothing to do with new people but put them on a wait list or send them church shopping around the Washington Beltway. . . . If the church is to maintain its current size, the "oversold" nature of the church school must be reconsidered. (You can call the church office to get a copy Pat Carol's full report.)

Sally looked up from this passage and spoke: "In the spring of 1997 many people, who had never been involved in religious education before, stepped forward to help our Religious Education Council, which was struggling to cope with its own success. Ownership of the problem moved from a committed, dedicated group of volunteers on the council to a point where it was shared by many more people in the congregation. In the fall of 1997 we started a third worship service with religious education classes. To do so, we also added a part-time person in the church office to help with the added administrative work of a third session of church school. We also budgeted money for special music at the third service. At first the third service was not as successful as some had hoped. Some people felt we should cut our losses and return to two services. However, gradually interest picked up and by the end of the century, the third service was well attended. Also, we found something interesting. Although people said in surveys the two things that would bring them to church were good sermons and a warm, loving community, we found that many people came because of the music. Excellent music was one necessary element in the success of the third service. As a result we have a mixture of young adults and long-time members at the third service. Slowly the number of pledging individuals and families began to grow again, although we never went above our high point of 751 pledging units in 1991. Thus the people who were worried the church would grow so big that a special feeling of community would be lost, were relieved when the church did not see a dramatic growth in members."

"Well," said Jane, "although the church looks a lot like it did back in 1996, you have done a great deal in five years. However, beyond buildings and numbers of services, has the church met your religious needs? Has this place fed your spirit? Has it renewed your soul?"

Sally thought for a time before she answered. "The church has met my needs in many ways. For example, when I first came here, I was very uncomfortable around gay people, and the church has helped me to get over that feeling. When our son turned thirteen, I was very thankful that the church had a sex education class for him. That weekly class alone was worth the cost of a $50 a week pledge. When my mother died, the ministers helped me with the memorial service. I do not know what I would have done without their help. Has this place fed my spirit? The answer is yes. On Christmas Eve, when we gather and sing the carols and light the candles in the darkness, I feel at peace, knowing that I am part of what has come before and what will come after me, and therefore I am not alone."

As Jane walked to her car, she thought about her hopes for being part of a religious community. The words the minister had said as a welcome came to her mind. He had said:

Cedar Lane is not a place of exclusion, but a welcoming congregation. We commit ourselves to making room in our religious community to all who seek us out. Cedar Lane is not a place of uniformity, but a place of diversity, where people can enter into dialogue, knowing others will treat them with respect. Cedar Lane is not a place of fear, but of safety, where people can admit their weakness and share their deepest concerns. And Cedar Lane is not a place of escaping, but a place of searching, where people can learn and grow as they continue their religious journey.

"I hope," thought Jane, "that they will make room for me and for my family." And she drove away, thinking about what she would tell her husband and her children about life at Cedar Lane in October 2001.

Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
9601 Cedar Lane, Bethesda, Maryland 20814-4099
Tel: 301-493-8300    Fax: 301-897-5713
e-mail: office@CedarLane.org
Sunday Services at 9 and 11 a.m.
© 1998-2008, Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
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