Dear Members and Friends of the Hills Church,

It’s ‘Back to …’ season again.  Back to school, back to town from the beach or the lake, and back to Church. Covid is certainly changing the nature and feel of these ‘Back to’s. The usual ambivalence about going back to school (friends and activities vs. homework and tests) is complicated by our concerns about Covid transmission especially among the under 12 set who are not yet eligible for the vaccine. And Covid has certainly affected our return to church. Rally Day was different this year with masks and distancing. What was not different, however was how happy everyone was to see one another, to worship together and to catch up with friends, just like those summer evenings when we were kids and the ice cream truck came to the neighborhood. Thanks to the Parish Life Ministry Team for making Community Hour fun and safe!

It was ‘Back to’ Church Council as well. We met by Zoom this past Tuesday, and welcomed Jill and Richard Edens, our new interim ministers, for their first meeting with us. Some of the reports received and topics discussed are summarized below:

Clergy Reports

Judy Swahnberg and Anne Marie Holloway continue to participate in a dizzying number of meetings, services and activities. This has included not only creating liturgy and sermons for in-person services over the summer, but participating in the planning to make re-opening as safe as possible. They have also organized and led baptisms, funerals, memorial services, and a confirmation! Jill and Richard Edens hit the ground running on September 1 and have already taken part in numerous meetings, including with Judy and Anne Marie, to make plans for programming this Fall.  

Judy continues to provide pastoral care to those in need, as well as co-leading Morning Meditation with Mary Canavan, facilitating Caring for the Caregiver in-person meetings, and hosting Noontime Prayers on Facebook Live. She has been a part of numerous projects including the Food Pantry space issues, Reopening, the Welcoming Task Force, the Racial Justice Task Force, the Live Streaming/Video team, and she marshaled our forces to prepare for Hurricane Henri! 

Rev. Anne Marie Holloway will be Co-Chairing the Pumpkin Patch Committee this year. The Pumpkins will arrive via pallets on October 9th, which will be in time for the running of the Boston Marathon this year! She also continues to be busy with our children and youth including:
  • Working with Sally Tomasetti to plan for the church school and communicate the Covid safety measures put in place. 
  • Working with Sally Tomasetti and church school staff to refresh the third floor classrooms and Youth Room, including some new furniture, murals, paint, decor, and air purification units with HEPA filters.
  • Continuing service activities with children and youth among them the Summer Garden Project which provided fresh vegetables to the Wellesley Food Pantry; the Backyard Ministries which made cookies and sandwiches for the homeless in Cambridge; and Outdoor Church where our kids served food and self-care supplies to the homeless in Boston.

Support Board and Other Reports

Faith Formation Support Board -  Tina Andersson reported that the board discussed the presence of the Delta variant and what we are doing to protect children, the elderly and immuno-compromised persons in particular.  They are concerned about the impact of the pandemic on faith formation and trying to figure out how we can connect with each other safely. There are plans for some outdoor events from September until November. It was clear from the responses to a recent survey that people long to be together and are looking for ways to serve.

Spiritual Care Support Board/Deacons - Laurie Otten reported that the Board has assisted clergy as the church opened up to live worship, assisted at baptisms, delivered flowers and other expressions of care to families in need, as well as working on transition matters in this Interim Time. The SCSB also oversaw the search for, and hiring of, Interim Ministers Jill and Rick Edens who started September 1, and who have already made an impact as they get to know the congregation through attendance at various meetings of support boards and teams. The SCSB invited members of the congregation to meet Rick and Jill after worship on September 12, 19 and 26, during outdoors Community Hour. The SCSB is now working to put in place a two part search team for a new senior minister.  (See below “Senior Minister Search”). 

Christian Service Support Board – Harold Wilkinson reported that CSSB is beginning the process of determining recipients and amounts for end of year financial Outreach, and is awaiting a decision about how the Pumpkin Patch profits will be allocated this year.

Stewardship Support Board/Financial Report – John Dooley, our CFO reviewed the financial statements and noted that the Charles Schwab investment account has almost returned to the level it was before we took out funds to help pay for the major renovation efforts of 2019 and 2020.  We have also paid off almost 2/3 of the bank loan we took out for the renovations due to strong collections from the Capital Campaign. We still owe just under $1MM on that loan. In addition, we are running close to a balanced operating budget for the year thanks in part to higher enrollments in the Nursery School than we projected, and the forgiveness of the PPP loan. However, we typically have greater expenses in the last quarter of the year (e.g. the disbursement of funds through Christian Service Support Board), and we have refrained from using any building project funds so far this year, so it is not yet clear if we will end the year with a balanced operating budget or not.

Streaming Work Group - Bill Spencer reported that they have gotten most of the kinks out of the system so that we now have reliable live-streaming of the Sunday morning worship services. In the event of a failure, network or otherwise, we have the backup of a recording that can be posted later in the day. We typically have 15-30 people viewing the live-stream during the live event, and then during the week the total numbers rise to about 60-150 views. In many cases people probably watch the service together, so the number of people viewing is probably higher.

Some of the key agenda items discussed at the meeting were:

Capital Campaign Follow-up – Our Capital Campaign was shortened by the arrival of Covid, so some of the follow-up tasks, among them pledge fulfillment, were not carried out as thoroughly as we would have liked. Council reviewed a proposal from Walsh Associates, the consulting firm we worked with on the Capital Campaign, to assist us with this last phase of the campaign. We expect that the costs of retaining them for a year would not exceed 10% of the anticipated return, which is below the industry average of 15%. Fortunately, an anonymous donor has contributed $25,000 to help defray these costs, so that the net expenses to the Church are expected to be in the $7,000 - $15,000 range. Steven Patrick, who directed our very successful Capital Campaign, endorsed retaining Walsh Associates because they already know us, and we would be working with the same consultant, Melanie Haddock, who did such an outstanding job for us on the main campaign. Council approved signing the contract and committing up to $15,000 of the Church’s funds for the net expenses.

Wellesley Nursery School in the Hills – Jack Morgan, chair of the Nursery School Advisory Board, reported on a proposal to expand the Nursery School by adding a classroom for children aged 2  years to 2 years and nine months, which is currently the lower age limit in our school. The Director, Melanie Dawson, has experience developing a successful ‘Terrific Twos’ program in Medfield. She is confident, based on Wellesley demographics, interest shown by families at the school with children in this age range, and the lack of similar programs in town (only one other in-home program) that we would be able to enroll enough children to provide a real service to the community and make a meaningful net positive contribution to the Church’s finances. To accomplish this, we would need to be able to share a classroom on the third floor of the Parish House between the Nursery School, and the Church School, and so Sally Tomasetti and Anne Marie Holloway have been part of this discussion.  In addition, there are likely to be certain code requirements for accommodating children of that age. In order to figure out what the code requirements are and get the approval of the Town of Wellesley, we must work through an architectural consultant. The Advisory Board proposed to Council that we retain Context Architecture, which worked with us through the recent renovations, to do a feasibility study and preliminary design which we can present to the Town of Wellesley. Council approved the expenditure of $6,000 for the feasibility study, which had also been endorsed by the Stewardship Support Board.

Senior Minister Search – Gary McCabe reported on behalf of the Deacons that they have been in consultation with our new Conference Minister, Alex Shea Will, and our new interim minsters, Jill and Richard Edens, about the process for calling a new Senior Minister. The first step will be to form a Transition Committee by the end of September. This committee will be charged with obtaining the input of the congregation about what we are looking for in a new Senior Minister, which will include holding a Church-wide retreat later this Fall. This committee is also charged with developing the church profile, a very extensive document which is reviewed by prospective applicants. The goal would be to complete this work before the end of December. The Edens pointed out that it would also be a good idea for us to upgrade our website since many minister candidates will look there first for information about the Church.

The second phase of the process will be to form a Senior Minister Search and Call Committee whose work will begin this coming January. This committee will screen applications, listen to recorded sermons, interview candidates, check references, invite selected candidate to visit and meet with Committee members and others, and eventually make a recommendation to the congregation to call one of the candidates.  A special congregational meeting will be held to vote on the call.

Website Upgrade – Calls for upgrading the website have been coming from many quarters, but the need for an informative, intuitive, and visually appealing website for the purpose of recruiting a new minister (not to mention new members) has made this a compelling priority. We have started reviewing websites from other churches and looking for names of consultants who could help us with this process. A proposal will be brought to Council later this Fall.

Strengthening Governance Implementation Task Force – Laurie Otten reported that the task force has put together a document which is meant to reflect overall procedural guidelines from the Church Council, a "how-to" of church governance, building on the By-Laws, and amplifying and clarifying aspects of church governance. These guidelines will be sent out to Council members, Support Boards, Ministry Teams, and others for review and comment within the week with the hope that we may discuss them at the next meeting of the Council.  

As always, if you have questions or comments, please contact us individually or at: Officeofthemoderator@hillschurch.org