Regional Conference Minister

Annual Report - 2003-2004

It's easy to feel resentful about and overwhelmed by the needs facing the church today:

• reaching out to new populations who doubt the church has anything to offer;
• creating styles of worship, fellowship, program and governance that make sense to people today (& their availabilities/needs);
• focusing our church/institutional lives on mission/ministry;
• transforming congregations so that, in turn, they transform others' lives;
• raising ministry to a vocation attractive enough to call gifted leadership;
• respecting differences in our churches so they do not become hurtful conflicts;
• forming mature Christians (clergy & lay) who, balancing prophetic & pastoral roles, can challenge and lead congregations creatively into the future;
• recreating denominational structures-associations, conferences and denominations;
• funding the stewardship for these goals to be accomplished.

Still, it's more faithful to accept this as the day God made for US-these are the challenges God believes we can rise to. And, I think, the Metropolitan Association can feel good about taking up this work with faith, imagination and hope.

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We are finishing an extraordinary year, in which this ecclesiastical body has become clearer about its mission, as well as more mature, effective, creative and visionary. I would point out to the following accomplishments:

1)   the Board of Directors:

• included new members/more ethnic diversity, representing congregations not involved in Metro. leadership before,
• developed a covenant for their service/work together (attached),
• evaluated its Board/Committee structure & Association programs for current effectiveness;
• recommended Planning Committee update our association meetings;
• recommended new procedures/goals to help Nominating Committee reach new congregations and develop new leaders;
• shifted budget priority from outside mission projects to our own churches' development (new church start and revitalization);
• set up accounting procedures/cleaned up past financial records; and
• committed itself to equal attention/time/care for day to day decisions and longer term mission visioning.

It is my prayer that as we keep developing the Board of Directors, its members' service will become a transforming experience that strengthens their faith.

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2)   the Congregational Development and Standing Committee:

• worked cooperatively with the Suffolk Association Committee on Church Development and NY Conf. Commission on Revitalization, Evangelism and Church Development;
• organized a retreat for educating its members about church development;
• completed a Leadership Subsidy Grant for our revitalizing congregation, Pilgrim UCC in the Bronx , that has been well received in Cleveland;
• created a new, part-time position, the Coordinator for Hispanic Church Development, and began to develop a model for Hispanic New Church Starts and pastoral leadership;
• hosted the SE Region's E-vent for the NY Conf. Commission on Revitalization.;
• began conversations with two new fellowships interested in UCC standing.

It's my hope that Congregational Development and Standing grows to be as effective as Ordination and Standing has become. Ordination and Standing prepares and supports our clergy for their service, and under David Tucker's leadership, has done some of the most sophisticated and faithful work I've seen done in the church. The Committee on the Church and the City hosted a great association celebration of the MLK holiday, and is getting organized to advocate for the justice work of our churches. The Spiritual Life and Professional Development Committee has plans for creating clergy clusters and hosting the boundary training in the fall. The Committee on Metro. Mission Priorities and Stewardship efficiently disbursed the last of the Metro. Mission funds, and will need to re-imagine its purpose in the coming year.

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If our Association can keep up this level of evaluation, dreaming, innovation and productivity, I can hardly wait to see where we are in a few years. Yes, the challenges are great, but even greater is the goodness of God in the leaders this Association can look to.

I am grateful to God for all the workers in this vineyard, but want to name especially:

• Board of Directors President, Ronald Williams Well,
• Vice President, Lucy Pullen Werner,
• Treasurer, Fannie Davis, and
• Chair of the Congregational Standing and Development Committee, Bonnie Miller.

Of course, I should name every member of the Board of Trustees, which has worked so effectively this past year, as well as the members of both the Ordination and Standing Committee and Committee on Congregational Standing and Development. And there would still be others. the Committee for the Church and the Metropolitan Community; the Fall/Annual Meeting Planning Committee, for example.

These are wonderful times to be faced with the challenges before us. They are complex, without simple answers, and there will be mistakes along the way. But I believe we are moving ahead, albeit in fits and starts. The only real failure that could matter would be our unwillingness to take up the work to done with hope, faith and love. I continue to be honored to serve among you.

Respectfully submitted,
Michael W. Caine
March 23,2004

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