Cynthia Campbell - McCormick Seminary President

In the midst of her busy schedule, Cynthia Campbell was gracious enough to sit down and visit with me about my sabbatical work.

She began with what to me is an intriguing, compelling question: If there weren't a Presbyterian church in your neighborhood or community, why would there need to be one? This is a question worth pondering... and worth finding an answer for!

Cynthia was also very helpful to me when she asked what it was that sparked my sojourn in this area. I replied that, although I've been thinking and studying and praying and reflecting for years on different ways of being the church, the specific thing that sparked this sabbatical was our financial situation at Central. And, I said, chief among the drains on our finances is our building... with utilities alone costing us between $25,000 and $30,000 each year! Then there is the usual upkeep and repairs, but there are the long-term, major needs that we need to address in our building: the heating system (not just the boiler), deterioration of some of the stained glass windows, the continual moisture problems that we have, etc.

Cynthia replied by saying that if the church building is problematic, then we need to deal with the building! That helped bring things into focus for me. Merging with another congregation in our building, or bringing in other non-profit corporations in our building is not going to solve the building problems that we have. We either need to fix the building permanently, or else abandon the building and come up with something new. I know this sounds radical, but it makes sense to me. I already have passed this along to our Long-Range Planning Committee and to our Session. I also just shared this in my newsletter page at church that will be mailed out this week. We'll see how this "plays" in the congregation in general - although this seemed to make sense both to the LRP Committee and to the Session.