Dear First Church,
At the beginning of this church year, we – Rev. Chris, Martha Courant and Martha Read from the Parish Board, Brian Caputo and Joel Mooney from the Finance Committee – convened a new staffing structure task force. Spurred by Samuel Foster’s departure at the end of the last church year and now Janice’s planned departure at the end of this month, our charge was to review our current staffing structure and make recommendations to the Finance Committee and Parish Board about any changes that we think will put First Church in the best position to meet this moment and the next.
Given our desire to increase the number of children and families who are actively involved in the church, as well as our desire to continue to make strides toward fair compensation and comprehensive benefits for our staff, we focused our efforts on putting together the most well organized, efficiently constructed, and creatively dynamic team possible. Earlier this week, we presented our proposal to the Finance Committee and to the Parish Board, and they both unanimously approved it.
Among other smaller changes, the new plan calls for us to restructure our Children’s Religious Education and Adult Programs under a single Lifespan Religious Education umbrella, to be led by a new Assistant Minister. While decisions that impact our colleagues are never easy, this change also means that, as of the end of this church year, we are eliminating the positions of Director of Children’s Religious Education and Adult Programs Director.
We are deeply grateful for Nate’s and Lillian’s years of service and contributions, especially for the ways in which they helped us meet the pandemic and continue to thrive as a community. We wish them well in their future endeavors and know they will be missed.
And we recognize that you will have questions. We will be hosting two informational sessions on January 7th to answer those questions, one in person at 12:30 pm and one on Zoom at 7:00 pm.
If you want to discuss any of this in the meantime, please feel free to reach out to Rev. Chris. And please come to one of the informational meetings.
So much love to you all,
Chris, Martha C., Martha R., Brian, Joel