top of page
Search

My Thoughts So Far...

by Shelley Wagener

ree

This fall Pastor Robin Lunn, Cheryl Beaver, Susan Smith and I have come together as a Shepherding Team to study, pray and envision how a Justice-Focused Resilience Hub could take shape in our church property. The Hub would be an expansion of the long-standing mission commitments and vision of Salem UCC.


This is a natural next step after the congregation-wide meetings and discernment that have taken place over the past several years. We meet twice a month, and have committed to a substantial amount of reading, discussion, planning, and community visits, with the goal of presenting a concrete proposal at the 2026 Annual Meeting.


Here's a taste of what we’re doing and talking about. Click on the links if you want to dive deeper in the readings. Pastor Robin has purchased copies of the books listed, so when we are finished with them, she’s happy to share!

We are reading:


In our meetings we are discussing the following ideas that came from our readings so far:

  • FCCUCC "assets" - physical, financial, spiritual, historical, cultural, relational, etc.

  • "Desire Paths" evident in the mid-Willamette Valley (watch How We Gather above)

  • Building community through interest groups

  • Deepening existing groups with common meals, book study, etc.

  • Three essentials for thriving communities

    • Process for bringing people together around a core group identity

    • Community for accountability and support

    • Meaning-Making activities and experiences

  • Financial models for various "desire paths"


We have had conversations with:

  • Site visit: Leaven/Salt & Light Church; NE Portland - Pastors Alison Killeen & Jules Nielsen (9/7/25)

  • Zoom call: Church Building & Loan Fund (CB&LF) – Rev. Jill White (10/1/25- Zoom)

  • Zoom call: CB&LF Partners in Vision – Dr. Susan Mitchell (11/13/25 - Zoom)

 

Worship Explorations by Team Members Individually[v]

Each of us has committed to experience worship in other communities, both in person and online, and share what they show us about how God is moving and speaking to and through our neighbors.


In the words of Sue Phillips (The Spiritual Infrastructure of the Future):

“Yes, there are a million hard questions to address. But religious people thrive on these questions and always have, no matter how painful the process can sometimes be. We need to stop being paralyzed by the existential threat and start taking our faith seriously enough to believe it will survive in the wild.”

It is an exciting and essential time for us to renew our commitment to “walk together in all God’s ways”[vi]


All Shepherding Team members are happy to hear your ideas and share what we’re learning. Thank you for entrusting us with this good work.


With gratitude,

Shelley Wagener

 


[i] The Bush Still Burns by Terry Allen Moe (2021)

  • 30+ year journey of transformation from traditional church to a secular non-profit gathering of groups organizing for common good, with a worshipping community as one group alongside the others, and pastoral leadership providing staffing for the secular umbrella organization, legally a Community Development Corporation.

  • Evolution from Sunday congregation through adding a midweek, off-site spiritual community based in people sharing their stories with each other, called “Enterbeing”; to an intentional burial and rebirth “Redeemer died. Leaven/Salt and Light lives” (book cover blurb)

  • Paired process of spiritual deepening and community organizing

  • Growing community organizing with interfaith and justice-seeking secular groups joining forces to confront: drug houses in NE Portland; relief for poor households in response to the mandatory city taxes to pay for new sewer system; carving out funds and land for affordable housing in the midst of luxury-focused development in Portland (groups below developed in roughly this order):

  • Portland Organizing Project (POP)

  • Congregation-Based Organizing Team (CBOT) – national Lutheran body

  • Metropolitan Alliance for Common Good (MACG)

  • Leaven Community Land & Housing Coalition (LCLHC) - statewide

    • Sale of extra property, capital campaign, and use of all remaining designated monies to fund staffing and launch of a new community for three years.

    • Centrality of one-on-one conversations, and continual group evaluation


p. 4 “Could the church be awakened by embracing a deeper well of spirituality linked vitally to action through community organizing? Could the tandem of prayer and organizing be appealing to those who have given up on the church, who consider it judgmental and hypocritical, all talk and no action?”


p. 4 “We…live in a time of massive social and economic injustice, ecological devastation, and political uncertainty.”


p. 81 “Both power and powerlessness tend toward corruption in a malevolent cycle, a system of degeneration and injustice.” – reference to Ernesto Cortes, Jr.


p. 100 (quoting Walter Brueggeman, in Hope within History, 1987) “As long as persons experience their pain privately and in isolation, no social power is generated. That is why every regime has a law against assembly. When there is a meeting, there is social anger which generates risky, passionate social power.”


p. 101 “Who taught us that being downsized out of a career job, or not being able to pay rent, or having a nephew on drugs or in prison was dirty laundry? We were challenging the congregation to be more real with each other.”


p. 101 “Transformation is not the result of walking across a bridge over problems but a collective wrestling with them into the pits of change.”


p. 170 “Some of the new folks coming to Leaven were not interested in joining a church or becoming Lutheran. Leaven was a spiritual community, not a Lutheran church. On the other hand, Redeemer was a Lutheran congregation, and it was turning itself over to something only vaguely spiritual. How could these tensions lead to newness and not to conflict and fragmentation? How could all the variant voices be authentically heard in the new mix coming together?”

 

  • Just as physical infrastructure shapes and limits industry, technology and transportation, the historic infrastructure of the institutional church keeps re-producing the past, even as newer generations become less and less interested in what churches offer, and ‘vote with their feet’ to move on to other opportunities.

  • People still want what religions used to provide but many don’t find it in the form churches continue to offer. They are seeking it in other places and modes. They follow varying ‘desire paths’ to find community, comfort, meaning, self-actualization, shared efforts for the common good, and experiences of spiritual connection with a power greater than themselves.

 

[iii] How We Gather/ Harvard Divinity School 2015 by Angie Thurston & Casper ter Kuile (article & YouTube video) https://youtu.be/HypLUkTasxA?si=dLVBFd6obXoKIlQB, and The Power of Ritual: Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices by Casper Ter Kuile (2020)

  • Emerging groups are striving to foster new paths for personal growth, spiritual fulfillment and human connection that once was fulfilled through belonging to religious institutions. The groups are self-supporting, or may require payment to support the venture, and encourage the commitment that comes from having money invested.

    • Organized groups for sharing joys & sorrows and shared meals – deepening community: The Dinner Party, grief support groups, interest groups

    • Groups with charismatic, inspiring leaders – in person and online (fitness, motivational conferences, musical and literary festivals, speaker series, martial arts teachers, leadership development programs)

    • Physical experiences leading to ecstasy and mind-expanding fullness – in the presence of others: intense fitness, running, mind-altering drugs, yoga, dance, concerts, hikes, biking, roller derby, cosplay (costumed role-playing of literary, superhero, video game characters), political protests and group actions, night-time graffiti, daring extreme sports.

    • Groups that provide positive peer pressure and accountability to achieve personal goals: 12-Step groups, Crossfit, Book Clubs, Weight Watchers

    • Maker spaces to support and inspire creative expression, skills development and producing art, food, carpentry, metalwork, bike repair workshops

 

[iv] We Aren’t Broke: Uncovering Hidden Resources for Mission & Ministry by Mark Elsdon (2021)

  • Example of the bold revitalization of a historic Presbyterian campus ministry property on the University of Wisconsin Madison campus, through development of a multi-story student apartment building on the former parking lot, led by a clergy-couple just out of seminary, and a committed, forward-thinking Board.

  • Collectively, churches have assets of property and money which can be leveraged for higher and greater purposes than they are currently.

    • Utilize property for community good, beyond Sunday services

      • Redemptive Entrepreneurs

      • Social Enterprises

    • Invested funds can and should be used to make a positive social impact as well as earn interest

      • Impact Investing

  • Goal to find a synergy of revenue-generating activities and generous sharing of resources: “Align Money and Mission” p. 123


p. 83 “The potential impact from new uses of church property is enormous…Methodist leaders in North Carolina have estimated that church property is in actual use about 12 percent of the week…The Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church estimates that almost a quarter of its congregations will close over the next five years, at a rate of from 40 to 50 per year.”


p. 83-84 “Recent studies suggest that more than one-third (ten thousand out of twenty-eight thousand) church buildings in Canada will close in the next ten years.”  Quoting Graham Singh of the Trinity Centres Foundation in Montreal: “Traditional church worship and ministry models ceased to operate successfully some forty years ago and have not been replaced by anything new…In other words, churches have resisted innovation to the point where the undercapitalization of their heritage buildings has reached an almost irreversible condition.”


p. 166 “Membership and giving may have declined, but God has not declined…God is at work in the world right now with all we have and despite all of what we perceive to be missing…There is no better time to dream big and take some risks. The needs are great, the opportunities, even greater. And the resources are there…Let us imagine a different future and get to work.”

 

[v] Visited in person

St. Thomas Church

St. Mark’s Lutheran

Queen of Peace Roman Catholic Church

United Church in Tallahassee

University Church Chicago

Westminster Presbyterian

1st Christian Disciples of Christ


Viewed Online

Generations Church (Eugene) – Salt Company

Holy Resurrection Greek Orthodox Church

First UMC – Micah Building

Salem Alliance

First Presbyterian Church

Trinity Covenant

 

[vi] Salem Church Covenant of 1629 (Massachusetts)

 
 
 
bottom of page