Mark Pratt-Russum's Report to Business Meeting July 17, 2022
This report comes as our community received the news that our beloved Friend Klarissa Oh announced her decision to step down from her role as a Released Minister in our community. Klarissa will be rejoining OAASIS, an incredible non-profit that she co-founded.
We find ourselves in another season of transition. We have had quite a few of these in recent years. So, we’ve had opportunities to practice! A question for us to consider: What lessons have we learned from previous transitions? What should we be keeping in mind as we move forward?
My hope in the coming weeks and months is to communicate as much as possible! A lesson I learned through previous transitions is that it is helpful to be more communicative rather than less. That is why I wanted to speak at the business meeting today and to share this with everyone afterward.
Last week I spent a lot of time talking to folks about where we are at. On Monday I met with Mike Huber, as a friend and mentor to hear what wisdom he has about what pastoral leadership looks like in our present day. I also met with my former supervisor Peg Edera, mostly for me to verbally process what is going on in my brain/heart. Elders met on Thursday and most of our meeting was used to discuss our thoughts on the transition and to start making some preliminary plans. From these three meetings, I wanted to share some initial thoughts and questions.
I am operating under the assumption that we will not be seeking to hire an additional released minister in the near future. There is always danger in assumptions, and so I wanted to speak it out loud so that there is the opportunity for me to be corrected if I am wrong! This assumption comes from my knowledge of our current financial situation, knowing resources are tight. Over the last couple of weeks, I have oriented my thinking about the transition with that assumption, and so I have been trying to imagine what my role will look like, alongside Holly’s, to meet the needs of our community.
The scope of my responsibilities now feels broadened, and in the last few weeks, I’ve noticed trying to get my head around that. I think there are a few ways for us to wrap our heads around the ongoing needs and goals of our community. The easiest way is to acknowledge the age range represented in our community, and the efforts we undertake to meet the unique needs of each of those demographics. From the care we provide in the nursery to newborns all the way to the care we provide for folks approaching the end of life. In between, we have folks in all sorts of various stages of life.
We can also think about subcultures within our meeting. This is a natural and beautiful part of any community our size. Here are some examples:
We have our beloved LGBTQIA+ Friends, and our continued welcome to that community.
We have Friends who are politically active, seeking out opportunities for activism.
We have Friends longing to have deeper conversations about the Bible, or particulars of the Christian faith.
We have Friends longing to have conversations about Spirituality that are broader than Christianity.
We have Friends wanting deeper interpersonal connections, and so who are looking for opportunities to fellowship together outside of Sunday mornings.
We have artists looking to share their work with one another. We have folks who are working hard in conversations about race.
At the business meeting I asked those in attendance to list some other subcultures at West Hills. Here are some that folks listed.
People who were present before and during the yearly meeting split and those who joined long after.
People who have been attending West Hills during Mike Huber’s leadership, and those who joined after his departure.
We have people with a broad connection to Quakerdom and those whose experience of Quakers is just at West Hills.
We have Friends with previous experience with Evangelicalism and those who have not.
We have Friends who have experienced trauma in the Church, and other expressions of the Christian faith.
When we step back and look at the beautiful landscape of our community, and the needs and desires represented here, how can we structure ourselves to nourish these various groups and demographics?
We have, as Friends, the expectation of shared leadership in our meeting. It is a beautiful and collaborative model, and I am already encouraged by several efforts currently being sustained by leaders in our community. We are also Friends who have committed to having released ministers and the expectation that some of the work we are being called to do is handed to me and Holly. I am so thankful that all of you have trusted us with this responsibility, and it is my hope that I can make you feel proud of the work I am doing.
So, partly the question before us is a dance between acknowledging the gifts that Holly and I have to offer this community and the stated desires we and God have for this community. Holly works about 15 hours a week, covering many of the administrative, logistical, and technical aspects of our community. I am released for 40 hours a week, of which about half of that time is currently allocated to children and youth, and the rest to overseeing the pastoral needs of younger and older adults and the functioning of our Meeting.
Our elders are holding a considerable amount of the tasks surrounding the health of the meeting, and all of you are holding the authority and responsibility of decision-making for our community. Going forward, I think there are a few ways of thinking about how to structure my released 40 hours so that I can come alongside all of the other leaders in our community in sustaining our Meeting, and seeing it into our future.
First, I can imagine that we create a new structure for our children’s programming. Instead of the responsibility being just mine to oversee the children’s program, we move towards having a vibrant children’s program committee, of which I am happy to clerk. Spreading the responsibilities of the children’s program out to a larger group of people will ease the amount of pressure on Sunday mornings, and may also create the momentum to attract new families and children to our meeting.
On a typical work week, I spend between 10-12 hours preparing for, and being with our teenagers. I anticipate continuing in this vein. The number of teens we have attending youth group is slowly dwindling, but we currently have about 15 active young people from middle to high school.
It seems wise, at this point, for us to draw on our Quaker distinctive when it comes to shared leadership, and to feel the thrill and potential of it. I am imagining that my role as one of your released ministers will be less about trying to tend to all of the needs and desires of the subcultures and demographics we listed above, but rather to equip, encourage and support the leadership nudges of folks in our community who feel called to care for these various folks.
If it wasn’t clear before, I hope we can be SUPER clear now…we hope you feel the hope and energy of creativity and potential at West Hills Friends when it comes to the ways in which you can be a leader. I imagine that I could structure my weekly and monthly schedule to meet with folks who are leaders in our community to find ways to support them and to come alongside them in their work. I want to set the intention of coming alongside and giving my support to leadings that individuals express in our community as a way to help create critical mass and momentum.
This is less of a concrete plan, but more of a brain dump of what has been circulating in my brain for the last few weeks. Again, my intention is for open communication. My hope in regularly speaking about this is that we can continue to collaborate as a community as we step into this next stage of our life together.