0:17  
I said when I was looking at the questions like the whole main answer is just basically following the lead of your children and your congregation and their place in the world and moving through it. Oh, okay, we're done. No, I'm kidding.

0:31  
That's a wrap. Elizabeth and ginger, thank you so much for taking time out. I really, really appreciate it, and I have this video of y'all that I use all the time because it's so good, actually, a series of them. I think the last time we did a video like this was before the pandemic.

0:53  
I was thinking it was like January 2020, maybe. So, like, we didn't know what was coming.

1:00  
No. And at that time, you talked about, I was especially COVID, that you talked about a campus ministry and what that looks like. And you also talked about, like a a meal time for families that had my heart,

1:19  
what does that look like now?

1:24  
Um, have you heard the term throwing spaghetti at the wall? Um, because that has been since the pandemic, our literally entire staff metaphor for our entire programming, but our motto, it's our it's our church motto, yeah. Um, we're not having spaghetti dinners. We're just throwing it at the wall. See what's Yeah, because that's what I think. We have all these ideas, but we just don't know exactly what people need, and they they show us by showing up and responding and becoming involved. And so we're willing to, like, try something and know that it might stick and it might not, you know, and there's no shame in our staff, programming or planning, that if you try to do something and it just doesn't work, it's that's, that's just as important as doing the thing that does work. Okay, maybe it just made it gets attached to sparkly ideas. But when something, when you think like, oh, this is going to be a really cool thing, and then it, it doesn't stick. How? How do you metabolize that in yourself or amongst your team? How do you so I just want to name that. You know, the reason we've had to take this approach is because, especially through the pandemic

2:41  
and and we're still seeing the ripples, I think, of trauma in the kids. That's definitely the lens through which we're we're approaching programming. But the the needs, the needs change, right? So, you know, just as an example, right at the start of pandemic, everybody was all excited about zoom. And so we had, you know, all kinds of stuff going on online. And then I think when they went back to school in September, our families were just so screened out that we had to find ways to gather safely in person.

3:17  
And so we started doing some outside,

3:22  
distanced rituals and activities and craft stuff and oh, and ginger started delivering. So I think all the way, most of the way through the pandemic, we delivered house church care packages, right? So food and arts and crafts projects and, well, you should talk about that. It was your program. When you talked about that, we started doing a family dinner that was, like, super popular, which the model was, we all ate dinner together. We had childcare providers, and then we had either more formal programming or just a chance for parents to sit down and talk. And it was completely free. So we just, I literally ordered gallons and gallons of soup from a local Co Op, and made literal with lots of help. So much help. Um, we just delivered an entire dinner to people with other things to connect them from church so and we did it once a month or twice a month, I don't remember. It went back and forth depending. And so we had like I would make. I would take the church basement because we couldn't be together, and I would get them all set up. And then volunteers would come and pick up their 10. And then we they would deliver them door to door to door. And that lasted almost until we could start safely gathering again. Yeah, well, and like the quilters baked cookies and, you know, they're, they're anyway, it was, it was. It was really a labor of love.

4:54  
I'm feeling interesting too. I know we're here to talk about programming for families, but I.

5:00  
Uh, part of what happened was because we were feeding the families, somebody said, Well, we need to feed the elders too. So now the elders get soup in a visit once a month.

5:13  
So

5:15  
because family programming isn't isolated in to family ministry, it's we see it kind of we, um, we have the full time staff of me as, oh, I have a new title, Director of faith formation as of last night, um, and then Elizabeth as full time minister, and we have a full time music director. And none of us, and Elizabeth talks about this really well, but none of us are siloed. We, it's more like the Venn diagram, or like this. You know, overlapping ministries. Nothing happens in in isolation of one another and in our in our ministry. Okay, I've got two questions. When, what was your What was your title before? Um, what time? No, I'm kidding, yeah. So I love changing her name

6:03  
and her title.

6:06  
Um, so prior to this, I was Director of Family Ministries, which was maybe, like four years or something. And then it was, you know, Director of lifespan religious exploration we've always used. And then it was Director of Religious exploration. And then way back when I started in 2004 it was Director of Religious Education.

6:28  
And I actually think that that's like a nice metaphor of how we've changed looking at

6:33  
Children's and family and our ministry as a whole, as a church.

6:39  
You all are so intentional. And I hold that up is I find it very hopeful

6:46  
in the ramp. How did that happen? Because that is not by that's not by accident. That's Elizabeth. You have to talk about that, because you've really held that up for us.

6:59  
Well, you know, I just

7:01  
my approach to supervision is basically empower and support the ministry of my colleagues, right? And so we just, we're, we're like a three legged stool, and

7:18  
we just cover the bases, and we do that for each other. You know, Ginger supports my ministry. I support hers. Sam supports both of us. We support him. You know, it's just,

7:31  
it's, it's one of those, the sum is great, or the the total is greater than the sum of some of its parts. I think understanding the staff team, as a team in pretty much every dimension of church life is what gets us to where we are.

7:49  
And we've been lucky in that. Well, Ginger's a rock star. All of our music directors have been rock stars. You know? It's, it's like, you just have to let them shine.

8:01  
Yeah, what I always appreciate in being in your presence and being in your congregation is there's a mutual respect and that you lead toward you lead with each other's strengths. It's a congregation for those following along at home. It's a congregation that has a real clear understanding of its mission,

8:23  
generosity lives there, and it's in a part of Idaho where it's gorgeous and

8:32  
you don't doubt for a second that your congregation saves lives. That was something we actually talked about at the we had a

8:41  
religious educator retreat. And

8:46  
that was some we've talked a lot about metrics right since COVID. Like, how are we measuring success? How, you know, and it's not, it's no longer kids on Sunday morning, and it's no longer even, like, right, right? We're not counting children on Sunday morning and saying, this is we are. We're more successful because we had 10 more kids this year than last. That's not That's not a meaningful way. I don't find anymore to measure our message and who we're impacting and and we're not counting it even kids like serve through the week, because we have families that only come to our picnic ministry, and we have families that only come to the dinners and families that only come Sunday, and that's one reason why we offer the plethora, because everyone needs to find their home and their way to that serves them. So it's and it kind of makes people crazy, but I'm like, I don't really think there is necessarily, like, a a way to measure our success, other than, are we truly leaning into our mission with love, and are we leading with love and in our community? You know, I hear people all the time saying, you know, I don't ever come to your church. I've actually never been there, but because you exist.

10:00  
And I have more hope and faith in the world, or I feel like that your existence is important to my being able to live in this community safely. And that is, that's what we're doing. If we can hear that, then that's, that's what we exist for. We don't exist to necessarily get people into our doors. We exist to be our new building. Has this chalice? Have you seen it? We should send a picture, but it's, it's a rainbow chalice that's

10:32  
glass, you know, fused glass, stained glass, and it literally, we're kind of centered just above downtown, and there's a light behind it. So we literally are shining a rainbow light over our town. And if we can do that, meta, you know, actually do that, then that's means that we've done every that's what we need to do. I even prepared myself ahead of time so I wouldn't cry. Yeah, no, the measuring impact over counting is very counter cultural.

11:06  
How, how do you talk about that at boards? I mean to people who are like, But show me the numbers.

11:15  
So

11:17  
we just tell it like it is, but, but there's a couple key understandings that are part of our ethos at this point, that are shifts that kind of took place over time, I think. But they were, they were, they sort of become refrains or inflection points or something, and the first is, is really to understand, and this is true of campus ministry and our ministry to families that our job is not to recruit, but to serve, right? And so you go where they are, you meet them, you ask them what they need.

11:55  
And that's, that's, that's, that's our ministry is, how do we serve? What? What do we have uniquely that we can serve this particular demographic or these particular people, and then the other you know, when, when we get pushback,

12:12  
you know,

12:14  
like, for example,

12:17  
you know if people start talking about the the pledge drive, and how, how such a big portion of our budget goes to these ministries, to people who are not necessarily able to pledge right now, and all it took was a couple times of saying, Look at the people in leadership now,

12:35  
and who are they? They are people who raised their kids in this church. Look at the major donors, who are our major donors, almost entirely people who raised their kids in this church.

12:47  
Wow. So you need to understand, you know. And some of them, I asked point blank, and when your kids were little, did you have the capacity to volunteer and donate? And oh, god No, and it's like the light bulb goes on, and there's just this understanding.

13:03  
And people will say explicitly, you know, I'm going to give this extra chunk of money to the church because I want to make sure that this is viable for future generations. We don't want to saddle the young folk with a mortgage. We don't we want to make sure that that this place is going to be alive and vibrant. I don't feel like I get a lot of pushback about that anymore. And I think, yeah, like you said, it just took a couple times of saying this, and then people

13:29  
like, I just don't I the board. Never like, I've never been asked to justify my hours or my programming or my budget based on, like, how many people am I serving? I don't. It's just a unique, amazing place. I just, I feel, and a lot of it is because of Elizabeth's, you know, shining support and her leadership. I think that makes a huge difference. The minister makes a huge difference in that culture. And we just, it's people don't question, why are we feeding students twice a month on campus without doing any proselytizing whatsoever? We just literally show up and give them food, homemade food. Um, people, they don't question that. They just think, yes, this is our ministry. We are. Our job is to make the world a better place, and if we do that by feeding a hungry student, then that's how we do it. I mean, talk about the church being child and family centered. They literally allowed. I mean, the building is beautiful, and we won, like an award for the architecture and all this stuff, and yet they're like, No, we need to put the playground in the front, in the front of the building. That's where the playground goes. It doesn't get hidden in the back the you know, this is the place where the playground is front and center, and it's gorgeous and beautiful, and it means that when people walk up, they know this is a place that children and families belong and have and have and are inherently a part of the congregation. Mm.

15:00  
It's just so clear, you know, like the physical representation. We've got the rainbow flag, we've got the rainbow window. We've got this beautiful playground space.

15:10  
We've got the little free pantry,

15:13  
which is like, supposedly the best stocked little free pantry in town.

15:19  
Just saying

15:21  
we're such a beacon of belonging. I mean, that's just so clear in everything you do. Oh, that's a sermon title. I'm writing that one down. There you go. There you go, beacon of belonging.

15:35  
Take me through a Sunday. What does Sunday look like?

15:40  
I'm on the Sunday,

15:43  
we can say it depends. But everyone gathers a little late,

15:50  
not like really late, but like five minutes ish, 10 minutes late ish. People still streaming, um,

15:59  
you know, we have our greeters and all of our people. And the children's

16:06  
rooms are on the same floor as the sanctuary. So the kids come in, they can hang up their coats. Sometimes they just run straight into the RE rooms. We have our child care providers there for the littles are the ones who just, there's a few that just never come in to the service. I actually had to, like, convince them last time, because I was like, you're going to, we're going to go play on the playground, but you should come in to the service. We do our openings.

16:36  
Elizabeth can talk a little bit about the service, but after the time for all ages,

16:43  
the children come to an all ages mini children's chapel. And I have a basic reframe, but it changes all the time, because the kids, you know, either want to share 10 things or they are ready to play almost immediately. So it just goes with the flow. It usually, we usually do some reflection on the time for all ages and what the service is about in some child friendly way. And it's all ages. I mean, we have literally two year olds with 12 and 14 year olds in this room,

17:16  
and they ring the gong, which is a new thing I bought the we had a 12 year old who just had to have a gong for camp blue boat the UU summer camp. So I bought one. I thought it was going to be like this big, but it's like an actual Gong. Um, so now that's used every week in our Sunday school, and then we either have some special programming that's all these ideas have come from the kids. We have a UU writers club where they get to write stories. Um, we have a D and D group for the older kids, uh, uu D and D group, um, and those are always options. We have music, a music program now once a Sunday and then, but yeah, and that's been a big hit. And then we I just have open free play from my Montessori play based background. I just have rooms full of things that the children just get to do. They just get to choose their own, their own way in that space, um, and then when the parents are done, the kids don't ever want to leave and

18:23  
get cookies. I wouldn't want to leave either.

18:27  
Do you have trouble recruiting adult companions for that? So I've changed my thought on that a lot.

18:37  
15 years ago, I would have had two adults per class structured curriculum. We're doing this, and it would have been set in the fall. I would have set every I would have known exactly what lesson plan we were doing for at least six months. And now I literally come up with that through our ministry team, because I want the adults and the children to have a at least similar themes and and similar emotions and experiences through and so the children's chapel changes based on what we're doing in church,

19:09  
and we have a very small core. I also used to really encourage parents to help, and now I'll do anything I can to not ask a parent to step in, because they need to be in church. They have to have that moment. That's what they're yearning for. So we have a couple grandmotherly people. We have a couple people who have older kids, and they have said that being in church school is their ministry. And then I've been hiring more and more care providers. Most of them are students from the two universities, and I literally just hire as many people as I can, we'll have sometimes, you know, four or five. And luckily, the church budget has expanded to meet that so that they that's who's watching the kids, because I want to give the parents as much time as possible to experience worship in their their.

20:00  
Pursuit of spirituality.

20:02  
How do you Okay, so if you because you hire, you've got some folks that you've hired, which also implies that there is some built in accountability, kind of Yes, different with than volunteers. How do you prepare? How do you like develop those, those folks, then that work with that.

20:21  
The volunteers, I feel like, are grounded in you use them and what they're doing already, they've been our just our long term. I mean, they've been with us for years and years and years the new child care providers, um, I'm very careful with my interview questions of them to make sure that they know, and I have interview them at the church so they see the space they can really immerse in

20:43  
and just talk to them about those things. I mean, I just tell them straight out that this is a place where we want children to feel loved and centered and that they you know, I just talked to them about what it means that we every family is loved no matter what here and and I just ask them, Is that something that you can do? And universally, their answer is yes. I also send those interview questions out before the interview, because I don't want anyone to be surprised at they sometimes people see church and then they're surprised at the church that we are. And so I make sure that they know what they're getting into beforehand, and they just, they just do it. I feel like they

21:28  
when you walk into a space like that and you want to be with the children, do you? You can just bloom in that space as a child care provider, as a, as a, as a, as and that that's not even the right term. We should probably come up with some amazing term for them. But as a person who cares for children, when you see that they're loved and centered in that way, you just you're able, it just comes naturally to support that environment,

21:53  
I feel like we should. We should take a video and send you a video of what Ginger has done such a beautiful job setting up the space that the I do have a video. I used it for my credential, and it's just the children in free play. I'll have to spend it. Oh, please. Well, but it's, it's like, so, so, like, there's a the at the back of the hallway, there's, there's this space. And it could just be dead space. But instead, she, she put in these, like, giant Legos that you can use to build furniture and stuff reaching. They're reaching the ceiling there right now, okay,

22:28  
I don't, yeah, I don't take them down. I just leave whatever they build. The the nursery space is so sweet. It has some of the nicest toys. You know, we've got this arts and crafts room with like free, free art. And there we can have all the glitter. And then, and then, you know, where the kids love to be the most is in their spirit play classroom, which is a it's got a dividing wall so that we could split it into two, if we went back to, sort of the the more age grouped

23:01  
format. But I mean, it just, it's beautiful. It's set up like a chapel, and it feels like home to them. And, you know, we've been really so our other, our other motto, other than throwing spaghetti at the wall, is, is strong core? Soft? Bees. Wait, wait. Strong. What? Strong core? Strong. What

23:21  
does that mean? So which means, you know who you are, you know why you're there, and everything is grounded in love, strong core, but you make it up as you go along. You keep your knees soft, and you respond to what's in front of you. And we really, you know, we've really, quite intentionally, coming back from from pandemic. It's like, they don't, the kids don't need more information. And I say that as somebody and was frustrated by the fact that I didn't know my theology, my UU history. You know, like we both grew up uu. I don't know if you have the same experience I did, but I got to seminary and was like, I know nothing about my faith,

24:07  
which bothers, bothered me. But, you know, post pandemic, these kids are still they're still traumatized, yeah, so what they need is not information about their UU history or roots. They need a place to be held and loved. They need a place to regulate their nervous system

24:29  
and just not have to try so hard just be loved the way they are, so like we and, you know,

24:39  
I can't remember

24:42  
other than than than one conversation in like, my fourth year here, there's just, there's no, you know, problem kids. There are no behavioral issues,

24:54  
you know. And even when we did have some kids that were behaving inappropriately, like ginger, basically.

25:00  
Configured the program to hold them and serve them. I know she's got a gift for creating

25:09  
this incredible, loving, hospitable, gracious space, and the kids respond, and their parents respond, and the whole and it radiates out. I mean, she always gives me credit for stuff, but ginger is the heart of the church,

25:25  
and I felt that same way. I could not have named the seven principles when I graduated high school. I probably could have given you one in seven and one in between. And I grew up UU in this church, so there's that extra element, but it's not for their lack of trying to teach me like I remember many a lesson on that, but what mattered was, What mattered was that I knew I was loved no matter what, for who I was and for whoever I was going to become.

25:55  
And that gift is what drives every day, every day I do my work if, if the kids can come to a place where they know that they will be loved no matter what, for who they are today and who they are going to become, then we've done our work. Because there's no other place in the world that you know their parents give them that. But you have so many, you have so many expectations for your child, like I have a middle schooler, and it's like, how do we negotiate becoming a grown up, and yet, then I can send him to church, and it's just he's just held in love, and the kids know that, and when they step into that space, they know that we had and we don't. The other big change was dividing by age, like Elizabeth said. So last week, we had 25 kids in these three rooms, and the babies, really, and the toddlers, we try to either keep them into the nursery just because of choking hazards, or we have enough people we they they can be kind of monitored more closely and followed from our child care providers, but we it's an all ages thing all of the time, and we have specific programming for middle schoolers and high schoolers where they get to form that group, and they get to form their connections with each other. But Sunday mornings are for everyone all of the time,

27:18  
and they it's just magic when you when you open the space where you just provide materials for them to just explore, then suddenly you aren't struck with all this. Like, well, this isn't developmentally appropriate for this kid, because worship is developmentally appropriate for all ages, and playing is developmentally appropriate for all ages. So when you put that together, there we are, yeah, and you and you've got, you know, I think of playing or having a writing club, or D and D when there's grandparents of the congregation floating around and being accessible for however you want to process it. Come on.

28:00  
I'm just I'm so grateful. I'm grateful for you all, and

28:05  
I wish I lived in Moscow Idaho.

28:08  
We wish you lived in Moscow Idaho too.

28:12  
What advice do you have for religious educators, teams, ministry teams, perhaps, who are struggling with feeling like they're enough where they're

28:28  
like, What on earth to do in this still kind of limbo time

28:37  
I've struggled with that a lot. Like, I get that imposter syndrome of like, well, what am I really doing? Why is the church even paying me to just like, let children play?

28:47  
But

28:50  
I think it goes back to that when you know, be gentle with yourself, and to know that we are also still processing, we're also living in a high stress time, and what we need just looks incredibly different from what we used to need, and that's okay, and the important thing is to this core, strong core, soft knees, that you we know what our values are, and we're willing to move in a different direction.

29:18  
So be gentle with yourself, and know that it is enough,

29:21  
that you are enough. I mean, I guess the the the only thing I would add to that, you know, as as as the minister, is like, don't let your ego get in the way of supporting and letting your your religious educator, step into their the fullness of their ministry.

29:43  
It's just wasteful. Frankly. Don't be territorial. The more ginger, the more I give ginger space to step into places and roles, even some that she's been uncomfortable in. I.

30:00  
I don't push you too hard, right?

30:04  
Um, but the more you know we create the space, the the the more the ministry blooms, right? Don't be don't be selfish with the ministry. This has been a hard lesson for me to learn, because, you know, you want to be, you want to do all the things, but the more I give away, the more we're able to do as as a community and and that means the staff team, it means my pastoral ministry team. It means my shared worship team, like the more I invite people to step into that space and they claim their power, their ministry, their voice, like the tide just right, right, raises all the ships. And I mean, I guess the advice that I would give for churches that are really struggling to have kids is program for them anyway,

30:55  
and program for them in ways that invite the adults in the congregation in because it's not just kids who don't need what they used to need. It's not just kids who

31:12  
need need regulation and support and unconditional love and acceptance and just to be held that way. You know, this is a college town. I think our folks are grown ups here. They like to think that they're, they're, you know, they well and they are. They're very, very smart. There's a very high intellectual capacity.

31:34  
And what they think they need in terms of, like, intellectual content, is not what they actually need. What they think they want isn't what they actually need. The more we shift worship toward this model of vulnerability, emotional support, honesty, authenticity, and away from, you know, the Sunday morning lecture,

31:57  
the more our folks respond. There's one other thing, Elizabeth, that you say all the time that resonate like almost every day. In the last couple weeks, I've been telling myself, which is, it's not what you do, it's how you show up.

32:14  
And that to me, in the last couple of weeks, maybe month, where I just cannot get everything done at the end of the day. I cannot get everything done by the end of the week, and I just feel like I'm floundering. Is actually the time that I need to step away from the tasks and ground myself and look at my core and look at the values and look at love at the center, and then show up with that. And so if I'm doing too much, it means that I'm not showing up with the the heart of the faith that I'm trying to give or trying to create space for and so I actually need to scale back and find that in myself and then come forward with it. So it means walks. It means, you know, watching the leaves fall yesterday, all the leaves from my tree, because we had that hard frost literally dropped. We have that one of those trees that will drop the leaves in one day, and I was so stressed, and I saw it out the window, and I literally just stood under the tree, and it was just leaves raining down on me. And I sent my board report in really late, but I did that first.

33:22  
I'm so glad your board report was late, because you might have missed the leaves, I know. And you know how many people said, oh ginger, we really can't handle your board report being this, like zero

33:34  
so well. And honestly, I mean, how many times have one or the other of us shown up and said, I didn't have time to write my board report like, no pushback.

33:43  
So it's not, it's not what we're doing, it's how we're showing up, exactly.

33:48  
So good, so good. And I feel like we've got, like, a whole all these sayings that could go, you know, needle, put needle. Yeah, point on pillows. And I don't want to lose something that I've learned from Elizabeth, that you've you've said over and over again to colleagues, is everything in church requires a pastoral response. So I think if there was pushback for a board report, it wasn't about the board report, and it probably required a pastoral response. Yeah, yeah. So

34:24  
throw spaghetti at the wall,

34:27  
presence over productivity

34:30  
and

34:32  
strong core, soft knees,

34:36  
and then I have an image of bubbles on your playground

34:41  
and the beacon, the chalice beacon, just shining out, shining out.

34:49  
I am so grateful for your team, your generosity. Over and over again, you've continually said yes to me over the years to tell your story and.

35:00  
And I'm really grateful for your congregation.

35:04  
Thank you. Thank.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai