Challenge and Opportunity 

There’s a rose in the fisted glove.
— Stephen Stills

Dear UUCC Beloveds, 

UUCC offers great promise to, and vests great agency in, its members. In UU congregations, ultimate responsibility rests in its members for how the congregation is organized, run, and paid for. We raise the roof, adopt the mission, and keep the church going, ourselves. 

With this reality in mind, I want to share details of four significant shifts coming in the next period of our congregational life, which you all need to know about:

1. The coming-due of our building loan in April 2026; 
2. The reorganization of the Owen Brown Interfaith Center; 
3. The growth and success of Cradlerock Children’s Center, our lower-level renter, leading to them exploring a move to larger quarters; and 
4. Shifts created by federal government retraction, uncertainty, and crisis

These shifts offer both challenges and opportunities to us as a community in transition.  Understanding these transitions will help you to more fully participate in upcoming collective decisions about how we move forward, and guide you in personal decisions about how you can help. 

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SHIFT 1: We Have a Building Loan that Comes Due in April 2026

First, did you know that UUCC carries a building loan? If you’ve been here a decade or more, you likely know this already.

When UUCC built our big sanctuary and the lower-level common space, we congregants raised $2.5 million in capital donations to finance it. (For names of larger-scale donors, check out the tree sculpture on the wall on the bottom floor of the building, opposite the elevator, which is pictured to the right.) Despite this success, we needed another $1.5 million to complete the building. So, we obtained, and now carry, a commercial building loan.

The challenge: This loan “matures” in April 2026, when the remaining principal balance is expected to be just short of $1.1 million. We have to pay this loan off — it’s essentially a balloon payment — or refinance it. The interest rate of a new loan will likely be higher — perhaps much higher — than the 3.95% on our current loan — due to changes in the national economy. 

That’s the challenge, what’s the opportunity? 

If, by some creative effort on our part — some combination of capital donations from members, personal low-interest loans from UUCC members (“Win-Win notes”), grants, possible external donations, income-generating events, creative negotiation with lenders — we may be able to reduce, or even retire, the loan. Currently we pay over $8,200 (principal and interest) monthly — over 10% of our budget, and nearly $100,000 annually — on this loan. Think of how our congregation would benefit if this burden was alleviated. 

The work to realize this opportunity has already started. Following a brainstorm by our Stewardship Council on March 11, the Board authorized the development of a “Balloon-Buster Task Force” to research and plan. Please be attentive to our communication pathways to learn more about progress in this important work. 

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SHIFT 2: Owen Brown Interfaith Center is In Structural Transition 

The Owen Brown Interfaith Center (OBIC) is a corporation co-owned by UUCC (90%-ish) and by CUMC (10%-ish). The leadership, governance, and management structures are in the process of being overhauled, with the creation of an OBIC Executive Director position (now filled by Kevin Buker), the elimination of the OBIC Building Manager position, and plans to transform the OBIC Board to be less management-focused and more strategically focused.

The challenge: This is new territory for OBIC, and we don’t know exactly how it will play out. During the initial period, there may be transitional costs. There is a lot of reorganization to complete, the website to update, etc. (FYI, fixing the carpet and chancel floor in our sanctuary is definitely on Kevin Buker’s punch list.) 

That’s the challenge, what’s the opportunity? 

The visionary focus of the OBIC Executive Director is to maximize the nonprofit mission and the financial vigor of OBIC. Right now UUCC pays an assessment of over $10,000 monthly to OBIC as its share of operating expenses, and over $3,800 monthly to OBIC to cover reserves for repairs. Better usage and rental rates would save us money — potentially a lot of money. 

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if OBIC’s new executive director and board were able to increase usage and recalibrate rents so that it was self-sustaining? Or if they were to discover that a third co-owner could be added to share the opportunities and responsibilities of co-ownership? And wouldn’t it be wonderful if the additional occupants lived vibrantly into this challenging moment in our American story? These shifts could substantially reduce the financial burden of OBIC to UUCC, even while promoting our mission of embodying Love in Action. 

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SHIFT 3: Cradlerock Children’s Center has Outgrown its Space

Cradlerock Children’s Center (CCC), the childcare and preschool center in the basement of our building, got its start in the early 2000s when several visionary UUCC members (notably, Rich Dean and former member Martha Fulda) had the idea of starting an early-childhood care and educational center, founded on UU values. UUCC ultimately midwived the birth of this most important community asset. Numerous members of the UUCC community donated funds to establish the Center, offered Win-Win notes to help with initial financing, and supplied sweat equity such as painting and creating appropriate décor. UUCC has always had a presence on CCC’s Board of Trustees (Rich has served throughout), and UUCC members and staff with young children have made substantial use of its services. 

CCC has been so successful that it has now outgrown its physical space. Here is what CCC Board members Rich and Jessica Beldin say about CCC’s plans: 

"With UUCC's leadership and support, CCC has realized its goal of providing quality daycare and preschool service to our community. We are perhaps the best program in Howard County, our enrollment is at capacity, and we have ~90 families on our waiting list. CCC's success has led us to expand our program to serve more children with expanded facilities. The space we have rented within OBIC has served us well but achieving our mission to better serve our children and the broader community, CCC is currently exploring options for renovating and renting a larger facility."

This is a true success story that both CCC (and its director and staff) and UUCC can be mightily proud of. 

The challenge: If CCC departs, OBIC loses a big renter; and, unless a new renter is located before CCC takes their leave, we may have a significant dip in revenues. This could happen as early as August 2025 — or, depending on numerous factors — later, or even not at all. 

That’s the challenge, what’s the opportunity? 

CCC has been paying substantially below-market rent. Initially this choice was deliberate, to support the Center as it moved toward financial stability. Their transition to a bigger space would mean that CCC can serve even more families, while the available space at OBIC could be re-rented at a higher rental or building-use price, helping UUCC and CUMC. 

So, this is a win-win for everyone. If you see CCC board members Rich, Jessica, or John Seed around, or have a chance to speak to the CCC Executive Director, Amanda Morton, or any of the CCC professional staff, please give them your best wishes and your gratitude. Even if they relocate, the positive relationship between Cradlerock and UUCC can continue, and even deepen. 

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SHIFT 4: The United States Since January 2025 

This is the dreadful shift that we’ve all been living through — an America on a precipice of losing its democracy, and in which the federal workforce, and those who work with federal contracts, are suddenly insecure in their jobs serving our country.  And one in which increasing numbers of marginalized groups — including BIPOC, Palestinians and Jews, women, immigrants and other migrants, and LGBTQIA+ folks — are targeted by the administration in acts of gratuitous cruelty intended to instill fear and paralysis. 

What will be the impact on the capacity of our congregation to support UUCC’s operational budget? So far, UUCC’s budget drive seems to be about where it has been historically at comparable points (though we always wish for more — and thank you to those who have pledged!), but we cannot predict whether it will eventually end with a fully-funded budget. 

And that’s the challenge: Will we be able to fully, equitably, fund our budget? Will we be able to sustain ourselves while individuals in our midst are facing life-threatening losses of jobs and careers, and still worse for some, the loss of basic human rights? If not, very painful cuts would be in the offing. Will we be able to truly live into our mission? 

The opportunity: From the perspective of one who has lived in the tension between Humanistic UUism and active resistance to White Supremacy Culture, the current agony seems to have brought us closer, as a congregation and as a community, and it is serving as a beacon of hope and comfort. We are all, painfully, in this together, moreso than when people who look and love like me — a white, cisgender, straight woman — felt less threatened. It has offered a profound lesson for anyone willing to take it in — that injustice anywhere is, indeed, injustice everywhere. 

UUCC can offer a community of acceptance, safety, kindness, compassion, support, and advocacy for people who are staring down the sharp point of the spear. I see it in the faces of increased numbers of newcomers, in the proliferation of tearful hugs and the sighs of relief at entering the sanctuary, in the surge of volunteers stepping up to help. I see it in the energetic participation, by our congregants, in activism beyond our doors. 

I am optimistic that some of this nascent, outstretching energy can translate into new or increased pledges, to achieve our budget drive goal. It will take an extra helping of generosity and faith, and we can do it. 

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IN CONCLUSION: Challenge & Opportunity 

In 2025, I can’t think of a more well-worn phrase than “I won’t sugarcoat this.” And I haven’t. I’m known in my family as “the Anxiety Queen,” and these are such anxious times overall, given the political moment.   

But in this moment of interim ministry, when we are getting positioned to select a new settled minister, I am truly excited and optimistic about the opportunities presented by these shifts. I hope you are, too. With some creativity, flexibility, and the efforts of every person in our community — in the unique ways that each of us can bring — the opportunities presented by change can be fully realized. And we can more fully live into our mission to embody Love in Action. 

Please come talk to me, Rev. Lisa, or to any Board member at the Board Corner at social hour, if you want to kick these issues around or have questions. You can also bring up your questions, concerns, hopes and dreams at the upcoming Interim Ministry Report — Town Hall Meeting, at OBIC, after worship on April 6. We love to talk and connect. You are a blessing to me, to the Board, and to UUCC. You matter. 

In community,

Laurie Coltri
UUCC Congregational President