Interim Report #9, 1/30/25

Transition from Task One to Task Two. Immigration Enforcement and Safety Concerns. Organization of Committees. Staff responsibilities.

Developmental Task One

Friends and members of Fountain Street Church, we are making good progress. I continue to hold open office hours at least three days a week and they continue to be regularly filled with individuals bringing their stories and legends into my office. I’ve stopped counting interviews, I’m well north of 200 and counting. I’ve filled four entire journals with hand-written notes.
If you haven’t shared your story with me and you can spare the time to visit, drop us a line at office@fountainstreet.org or simply visit this link and find a time that works.
Otherwise, put pen to paper or summon forth your favorite note-taking app and write something down and send it my way.

I am a collector. I want to understand the orbital physics of this place. I have an insatiable fascination with your answers to the specific question - what drew you into some relationship with this church?

Out of these relationships has arisen revolutionary actions and commitments and social justice programs and music and art and poetry and worship and all of it - nearly all of it - is interesting and worthy of reflection.

Yet the time proceedeth and we’ve got to get ourselves moving on to the second developmental task in the interim journey, which I will illuminate below. It is tied to the first but it expects of us at least a cursory understanding of how we arrived at this place.

I will not stop executing the demands of the first task - this business of “understanding our history.” We have more work to do, in any case, but there are several ideas that I still must bring to life. Many will not be successful, but they must at least be attempted.
As briefly as possible:

• We continue to develop the back-end of the Digital Archives project with our partners at the Grand Rapids Community Media Center. This project will receive its own special “launch” as it deserves community-wide attention.

• The history podcast (for lack of a better word) is still in the works. I’m sorting through the sermons you’ve provided me, we will be formatting them for public release, and you’ll be able to listen to the spoken history of the full 154 years of our formal history.

• People continue to bring me archival materials and I continue to unburden myself of them into the care of our church archivists.

• The timeline project will continue to be populated, slowly, with new items for the benefit of members, visitors, and guests in our church Social Hall.

• I will finish my new tour series in time for our lenten season and make these tours available for our many talented docents and tour guides.

I completed a four-part sermon series on the various theologies of Fountain Street in historic context. I’ll provide links, here, to both the sermon videos as well as .pdf transcriptions so carefully created by the talented Kayle Clements. (We’re working our way back toward the old sermon subscription service that was, at one point, a powerful tool for disseminating your curious theologies.)

The Fountain of History - January 2025 Sermon Series at FSC

Part 1 - Ecclesiology - Jan. 5 - “An Ecclesiology of Outsiders”
Video / Transcript

Part 2 - Music - Jan. 12 - “A Sacrament of Song”
Video / Transcript

Part 3 - Missiology - Jan. 19 - “Theology and Human Rights”
Video / Transcript

Part 4 - Homiletics - Jan. 26 - “Process, Liberation, and Post-Denominationalism”
Video / Transcript

Here is a link to a .pdf of local historian Tim West’s fantastic monograph, “The Theology of Fountain Street Church in Historical Context.”

For a wonderful conversation about Process Theology in the context of one scholar’s individual journey (in one specific thread of Christian experience) I recommend listening to the interview Nomad Podcast recently recorded with Thomas Oord.
“Thomas Oord – Reimagining the Divine After Omnipotence (N328)”

Note: This business of sermon transcriptions greatly troubles my spirit.A sermon is not intended to be read. It is, according to my theory of preaching, an utterly unique occurrence. I’m somewhat lukewarm, even, about recording the damned things - but Kayle and his team do a phenomenal job and the pandemic really transformed sermons into a digital medium and this is Fountain Street and recording sermons is pretty foundational to worship in this place.A worship service is singular, irreproducible, it is time-outside-of-time. It doesn’t do well to make a graven image of the thing.And I don’t preach the way I write and I can’t explain the difference between the two - and not for lack of trying. I’m struggling in this very moment trying to make sense of it.Allow me, then, to apologize and make an analogy. “Reading a play” is somehow less than “watching a recording” of a play, and the recording is yet again somehow less than sitting in the audience.

The second developmental task of the Interim Process has been defined in many ways - but it is, essentially, seeking clarity around the “facts on the ground.” What is the work of the church as it currently stands?

Here is my interpretation of the Second Task from my original prospectus for this project:
“Describe (in detail) the current identity and operations of Fountain Street Church. Not “who we could be if we did XYZ,” and not “who we claim to be in our bylaws and vision statements,” and not “who we were fifty years ago.” (Hopefully, we already did the latter during step one.) We’re looking for a clear and forthright description of the facts on the ground.
This will include accurate data about everything from finances and attendance/participation to staff/leadership expectations. This information isn’t intended for public review and it is emphatically not intended to be a performance review of the church! Nor is this an open invitation for scrutiny or judgment. It is the work of gaining clarity about the current internal systems within your organization.”

Concerns about ICE enforcement in our community

Many of you have reached out to me with concerns about the local implications of recent Administrative Orders and their enforcement regarding “sensitive locations” including churches. Specifically regarding Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Allow me to make a couple of things very clear:

1. Fountain Street Church is a church and our campus is private property. There are legal implications that distinguish churches from religious nonprofits and other organizations (including secular non-profits.)

2. We are working very hard with our partners from local constituent organizations to get everyone up-to-speed about any changes in enforcement procedures.

3. We will make sure that staff and leadership are kept up-to-speed regarding current policies and procedures.

4. You may see signage indicating that Fountain Street Church is a private facility and that we expect all law enforcement to comply with current statutes.

5. Nothing has changed and we have no reason to suspect that there is cause for alarm.

6. Any FSC staff or leadership who may be impacted by the actions of the state will have the total and unconditional support of the church leadership.

7. We take the personal safety of our members and guests extremely seriously.

8. We are in relationship with several local organizations who are doing very good work in this area.

9. FSC does not take a “congregational position” on discreet social issues, however many groups internal to the church may do so at their discretion.

10. Our policies and procedures regarding the disposition of our campus, however, may change from time to time depending on the circumstances and the needs of our community members. The church campus is distinct from the church, itself.

If you are concerned about these actions and changes in the way in which our government treats minorities in our nation I recommend that you attend an ICE Rapid Response Training and listen to the concerns being shared by local immigrant-led organizations - most especially by the leadership of Movimiento Cosecha Grand Rapids.

Opportunities abound to participate and get educated. Read The Chimes - and subscribe if you haven’t already. Voice your concerns.

I am happy to speak with anyone who has concerns about these matters.

Committees Continue Apace

Our recently reformed Properties Committee is doing tremendous work. I am absolutely floored by how quickly the members of this team are getting up-to-speed on the work of caring for our historic building.

Work is being carried out in two distinct areas to address the following questions:

1. What must we prepare for as we consider the needs of the physical plant over the next two decades?

2. What will Phase Two of the 2nd Century Capital Campaign entail?

These are only discussions and conversations. Congregational input will be sought in all of these matters.

The Finance Committee will be re-launched following the February meeting of the Governing Board with new members and new charter.

Finally, the new Governing Board, itself, has had its first meeting and the member roster is available on the website. The meeting minutes will be available on the website as well, as soon as we are able to determine a means of posting them regularly.

The Financial Reporting of the church is growing clearer by the moment - and this brings me to the business of a few minor staff transitions.

Staffing for Oversight

Cassie Veach, our administrative assistant, has graciously agreed to step into a full time role as our church Administrator. Cassie brings a tremendous wealth of experience and creativity to this role and has assisted us throughout the current financial review process.

Many of the tasks that they will be doing already have procedures in place.
We will be retaining the assistance of our contracted CPAs at Hungerford to assist on-boarding Cassie and on-boarding the Finance Committee over the course of the next two months.

Let me say again that my ultimate goal is to provide the GB with an accurate monthly Financial Report of the entire accounting of the organization, and to provide church committees with accurate monthly P&L statements regarding their specific funds.

Giving is still strong and I am proud of the speed and clarity with which we have made this turn-around. When the Finance Team is up and running and the new Financial Policies are hole-punched and placed into a binder I will open a bottle of good prosecco that has been sitting in my office fridge for far too long.
I’ll share it with your Governing Board Chair who, frankly, deserves the lion’s share of the credit. Spalding Wall represents the right person in the right place at the right time - and I don’t think most people realize how miraculous that really is.

I am going to send this report to print. I have much more to share with you but I need to focus on a few important upcoming events.
This is me, asking for your patience, as I work to budget a bit more time into my schedule to make these reports deeper, more engaging, and a bit more focused.

Thank you, as always, for giving me the opportunity to serve this tremendous organization.

Sincerely,

Rev. Nathan Dannison