Before Chris Caldwell made his comments at the meeting, he read to the congregation a note he and Susan Reed sent to the deacons and Personnel Committee when they voted to release the recent statement to the church:
Dear Deacons and Personnel Committee,
Thank you for all the time you have been investing in the Ministry Alignment process. We look forward to working with the ad hoc committee and others to discern the best way to align our entire ministerial staff with our mission, while at the same time trying to address concerns about long term staff retention.
While that process unfolds over the coming months, we will work in our current positions and job descriptions at our current pay. We also think it’s healthy for both the church and for us that, even as we work with leaders on this behind the scenes, this discussion move off center stage through at least the rest of this year. We believe the proposal has prompted a necessary, unavoidable, and important conversation about Broadway’s mission. But it has also distracted from other important matters, and focusing publicly on those other matters makes sense to us in the short term.
Chris and Susan
Chris’s comments to the 10/5 congregational meeting:
I want to thank our lay leaders for the many hours they have invested in this congregational conversation. I especially want to thank John and Noelle, who have put in even greater hours than the rest, and who have had the sometimes uncomfortable task of receiving strongly stated opinions.
In the original document sent to the church, Susan and I laid out our Plan A for creating what would be an exciting balance of duties in our work. The plan was also designed to address, over the long haul, the issue of the 24/7/365 nature of my on-call duties. Susan is on sabbatical, so I can’t speak for her, but for me, these of course remain important issues.
That said, Susan and I recognize that the purpose of Broadway Baptist Church is not to make Chris and Susan happy. We are here to help the church achieve its mission. If there is a win-win that does that and addresses some of the hopes Susan and I have for all this, then that is what I hope we will do. But the focus has to be on Broadway accomplishing its mission and on Broadway meeting the needs of itself as a congregation. Ultimately Broadway has to do what allows it to serve God best and meet best the needs of the church. It is the responsibility of Susan and myself then to determine how we align with that plan; it can’t be the other way around.
This process has been a learning experience for me. One of the things that has come into view for me recently is that this conversation is in part about whether a church is called to care for what already is or create what is not yet. In other words, is our mission custodial or entrepreneurial? I believe it is both.
What I requested in the original proposal was a slight rebalancing of my role in a more entrepreneurial direction--helping the church to grow in some new areas of ministry. At the same time, Jeanne and I offered up a way to provide an additional $65,000 a year, which pretty much all would have been directed toward covering custodial responsibilities--caring for what the church already is.
Whatever staffing model we ultimately settle upon, I think it must try to do both of these things, i.e., be both entrepreneurial and custodial. If all we do is focus on custodial tasks--preserving the church and caring for each other--then the church, obviously, will eventually die. But if all we do is focus on entrepreneurial tasks--creating what the church needs to become--then we will have walked away from a fundamental commitment of a church--caring for each other, and caring especially for those who need care the most, which, in our case, is our oldest members. Trying to find the right balance between custodial work and entrepreneurial work is, hands down, the hardest part of my job.
Jesus, of course, did both custodial and entrepreneurial things. He cared for his followers and healed the sick, but he also spent time--most of his time, it seems to me--walking the roads and paths of Galilee, pushing the kingdom outward beyond the confines of existing believers. Ever since, churches have wrestled with where to invest their energies as followers of Christ. Is the journey inward, or outward? Are we called to care for each other, or to move God’s kingdom forward in our world? We are called to do both.
Clearly, as we’ve had this congregational conversation, we can see that we don’t all want to balance these things in the same way. As a result, some have called this proposal “divisive.” What I think the proposal has done is surface a difference of opinion in our church about how we should expend the church’s energy. And if the proposal had never been made, or if the proposal were simply dropped, the need for conversation about how to balance Broadway’s ministries would not go away.
Here is what I think that conversation is about. Some want to focus more inwardly, others more outwardly. Both groups have a point. And both groups are needed if we are going to be all we can be as a church. And so I hope, as we go forward, we will have a healthy conversation about who we are called to be as a church, and how God is calling us to invest our time and resources as a church. For the conversation to be healthy, we will need to listen to each other and to respect each other. Broadway has a long history of doing this. Broadway has a long history of saying, “Hey, we don’t all agree on the best course of action. So let’s not have a shoving match. Instead, let’s sit down and talk, and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, work something out.” That’s what Broadway has always done, and I’m confident that’s what she will continue to do.