Cleaning the closet
25/04/22 02:02
On the list of chores for today is cleaning out a closet in the church basement. A bit of background is in order:
First of all it is important to know that for decades, Christian Education programs in churches across the world have been run on shoestring budgets. Although there is plenty of lip service given to the importance of Faith Formation and Christian Education, the programs have comprised a surprisingly small amount of the annual budgets of their churches. This has resulted in a concentration of creative ideas and programs that are planned to employ used equipment, create crafts out of discarded items, and teach with minimal resources. Limited budgets result in decreasing waste and, in many cases, a reluctance to discard items just in case they might later be needed. Churches that had large numbers of children and youth in the baby boom years of the 1950s and 1960s and have fewer children and youth today have used some of their educational space as storage for items that might otherwise have been discarded.
Our church building is the result of several major additions and renovations over the years and some of the basement rooms have seen different functions in different times. For more than four decades the church school shared space with a day care and preschool operated by Bellingham Technical College. Furniture and equipment were shared, but curriculum and resources were distinct. Adjacent to some of the rooms used by BTC is a large closet that was used for storage of church school curriculum and resources. Over the years it became a place to store boxes of old Sunday School Books and resources, boxes of potential craft items, and the like. At the end of Vacation Bible School, resources were sorted and some were discarded while others were retained just in case they might later be reused. A similar process occurred at the end of each church school year. Sample resources and extra copies of curricula were stored in boxes in the closet.
Then the Covid pandemic hit and BTC suspended the programs it was holding in our church. For nearly two years our congregation also moved its in-person faith formation programs to an online format. The result was empty and unused spaces in the church basement, and a need to re-envision the use of space. Single age classrooms from a graded system are in the process of becoming multi-use spaces. For all of that time, the closet in the basement was ignored, but occasionally boxes of materials were placed there when someone didn’t know where else to put them.
Early this spring Bellingham Technical College moved out of the building, consolidating its daycare and preschool programs to an on campus site.
In a new arrangement for our church, our building is now the temporary home of Garden Street Methodist Church, which has sold their building and is meeting in our building as they assess directions for their future. The arrangement is brand-new, but so far it seems to be a positive move for both congregations. They plan to move their church offices to our building this summer.
The closet is in the area where the Methodist Church will have its offices. Emptying the closet has become a priority and today is the day.
For more than four decades we have been pastors and teachers in the United Church of Christ. Although we are new to this congregation, we are no strangers to the collections and clutter that occur. This particular closet, moreover, has been collecting items during about the same span of time as our career. As we look over the contents of the closet, we can see a bit of an index of our careers. “Look, here are some resources from The Inviting Word.” We remember working on the development of those resources. “Wow! Remember the Storytellers Series?” I wrote for that project. “Hey, these are from Seasons of the Spirit.” We both wrote for that project. “This box is Faith Practices.” I both wrote and edited on that project. Let's just say it is a bit difficult for us to move entire boxes straight into the recycling bin. We feel compelled to sort and to save some of the items that are stored in the closet.
So, we won’t be tacking the closet alone. We are meeting volunteers from the Faith Formation Board at the church early this morning for a work day to empty the closet. Our goal, among other things, is to minimize the amount of items from the closet that end up in other rooms and resource areas. On the other hand, we’ve been around Faith Formation programs long enough to know that we might regret discarding some useful resources, so we know that some things will be preserved. Hopefully the items that our congregation no longer needs can be recycled in ways that limits the amount of waste that ends up in the landfill.
It occurs to me that sorting out the closet is a good metaphor for this phase of our professional lives. We have had a lot of wonderful experiences over the decades. We have participated in a host of different programs and projects. There are some memories that we will forever treasure. There are others that constituted learning experiences for us, but don’t rise to the level of “forever stories.” As we go through the physical sorting of the closet in the church basement, we will go through a parallel process of sorting our memories.
The volunteers from the church are likely to hear a few stories as we haul the boxes out of the closet and sort their contents. I hope that we don’t bore them with our tales. On the other hand, reviewing the decades of history formed by sharing space with Bellingham Technical College is a useful exercise for the congregation. As we envision which relationships and programs form the future of Faith Formation ministries in our congregation, there is value in looking back and remembering the programs and relationships of the past.
As we used to say on the ranch, “Hold on to your hats! It’s going to be an interesting ride.”
First of all it is important to know that for decades, Christian Education programs in churches across the world have been run on shoestring budgets. Although there is plenty of lip service given to the importance of Faith Formation and Christian Education, the programs have comprised a surprisingly small amount of the annual budgets of their churches. This has resulted in a concentration of creative ideas and programs that are planned to employ used equipment, create crafts out of discarded items, and teach with minimal resources. Limited budgets result in decreasing waste and, in many cases, a reluctance to discard items just in case they might later be needed. Churches that had large numbers of children and youth in the baby boom years of the 1950s and 1960s and have fewer children and youth today have used some of their educational space as storage for items that might otherwise have been discarded.
Our church building is the result of several major additions and renovations over the years and some of the basement rooms have seen different functions in different times. For more than four decades the church school shared space with a day care and preschool operated by Bellingham Technical College. Furniture and equipment were shared, but curriculum and resources were distinct. Adjacent to some of the rooms used by BTC is a large closet that was used for storage of church school curriculum and resources. Over the years it became a place to store boxes of old Sunday School Books and resources, boxes of potential craft items, and the like. At the end of Vacation Bible School, resources were sorted and some were discarded while others were retained just in case they might later be reused. A similar process occurred at the end of each church school year. Sample resources and extra copies of curricula were stored in boxes in the closet.
Then the Covid pandemic hit and BTC suspended the programs it was holding in our church. For nearly two years our congregation also moved its in-person faith formation programs to an online format. The result was empty and unused spaces in the church basement, and a need to re-envision the use of space. Single age classrooms from a graded system are in the process of becoming multi-use spaces. For all of that time, the closet in the basement was ignored, but occasionally boxes of materials were placed there when someone didn’t know where else to put them.
Early this spring Bellingham Technical College moved out of the building, consolidating its daycare and preschool programs to an on campus site.
In a new arrangement for our church, our building is now the temporary home of Garden Street Methodist Church, which has sold their building and is meeting in our building as they assess directions for their future. The arrangement is brand-new, but so far it seems to be a positive move for both congregations. They plan to move their church offices to our building this summer.
The closet is in the area where the Methodist Church will have its offices. Emptying the closet has become a priority and today is the day.
For more than four decades we have been pastors and teachers in the United Church of Christ. Although we are new to this congregation, we are no strangers to the collections and clutter that occur. This particular closet, moreover, has been collecting items during about the same span of time as our career. As we look over the contents of the closet, we can see a bit of an index of our careers. “Look, here are some resources from The Inviting Word.” We remember working on the development of those resources. “Wow! Remember the Storytellers Series?” I wrote for that project. “Hey, these are from Seasons of the Spirit.” We both wrote for that project. “This box is Faith Practices.” I both wrote and edited on that project. Let's just say it is a bit difficult for us to move entire boxes straight into the recycling bin. We feel compelled to sort and to save some of the items that are stored in the closet.
So, we won’t be tacking the closet alone. We are meeting volunteers from the Faith Formation Board at the church early this morning for a work day to empty the closet. Our goal, among other things, is to minimize the amount of items from the closet that end up in other rooms and resource areas. On the other hand, we’ve been around Faith Formation programs long enough to know that we might regret discarding some useful resources, so we know that some things will be preserved. Hopefully the items that our congregation no longer needs can be recycled in ways that limits the amount of waste that ends up in the landfill.
It occurs to me that sorting out the closet is a good metaphor for this phase of our professional lives. We have had a lot of wonderful experiences over the decades. We have participated in a host of different programs and projects. There are some memories that we will forever treasure. There are others that constituted learning experiences for us, but don’t rise to the level of “forever stories.” As we go through the physical sorting of the closet in the church basement, we will go through a parallel process of sorting our memories.
The volunteers from the church are likely to hear a few stories as we haul the boxes out of the closet and sort their contents. I hope that we don’t bore them with our tales. On the other hand, reviewing the decades of history formed by sharing space with Bellingham Technical College is a useful exercise for the congregation. As we envision which relationships and programs form the future of Faith Formation ministries in our congregation, there is value in looking back and remembering the programs and relationships of the past.
As we used to say on the ranch, “Hold on to your hats! It’s going to be an interesting ride.”
