News from the Board
Jim Price, President – Board of Trustees, Piedmont UU Church
We are at a critical yet very exciting time in our church. Our financial situation is real and we must contend with it. We can complain, we can ignore it, or we can deal with it. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. If you’ve ever worked on a Habitat for Humanity project or one of the dog run builds our Animal Rights Ministry and Men’s Group have done, you probably didn’t feel like you were working at all. You had fun with good people and helped to make the world a little better place. What a feeling! There are no hidden agendas, just a goal and people pulling together to make it happen. There’s no us and them; there is us, focused and taking care of business. We are a team. We have a goal. Let’s do this. It is not rocket science.
We have to get into that zone in our church. We have so much talent and intellect in our church that it is almost embarrassing that we’re struggling just to pay the bills. I can’t imagine what we’re capable of, but we can’t unleash our potential when we’re struggling with what should be taken for granted. We cannot obsess over the past. Mistakes were made but they were honest mistakes. We can’t change them; we can learn from them and we can resolve not to repeat them. We have to identify the steps that can move us off the dime and stay laser focused until we get to a more comfortable place. Then we can talk about a rainy-day fund that is mandatory, and, ultimately, we have to begin thinking about space. If we were to have an onslaught of visitors and new members, we would not have room for them at the University Gathering. We must address that.
The first order of business is to honor our pledges. If we were meeting our pledges, we would not be in this fix. I worked for a guy who was a gambler, and he always said “a gambling debt is a debt of honor”. Oh, my goodness. If a gambling debt is a debt of honor, surely a pledge is a debt of honor. Let’s all make a new pledge – a pledge to make sure our pledges are caught up, that we are doing our part to save ourselves. We’re worth it. It is always the right time to do the right thing. Let’s go, people. Then we’ll talk about next steps, and the sooner the better.
