TCL Annual Report 2018

THE CHURCH LAB
ANNUAL REPORT 2018
E X P L O R I N G I N N O V A T I V E P A T H S T O S P I R I T U A L
M A T U R I T Y , H E L P I N G T H E C H U R C H F I N D H E R F U T U R E .

WELCOME!
American religious landscape is changing at a rapid
The
Perceptions of, and participation in, religious
pace.
is on the decline. Yet expressed spiritual needs
institutions
steady, if not on the rise! The Church Lab
remain
with meeting spiritual needs that are
experiments
in this time of change.
emerging
But it’s not enough just to meet
existing needs; we must help
people continue into a meaningful,
mature sense of spiritual identity. At
TCL, depth and nuance are
encouraged!
We have discovered the most
central and powerful way to
encourage positive spiritual
practice and maturity-building
practices is through a central
dialogical community. We meet
biweekly for interfaith dialogue.
Beyond this, we share opportunities
for local and global
service/mission, for creative
worship experiments, and
discipleship for participating
Christians. Pastoral care is offered
to anyone, no matter what one’s
beliefs are, with no strings attached.
There are folks who identify with
many faiths, or no faith at all, or who
are not sure what they believe, that
find this informal, small community
process as a beautiful way to ask
questions and explore one’s evolving
convictions in a safe, encouraging
dialogical space.
While we have been working on
dialogue in the lab for years, we
recognize that steep division our
socio-political climate and culture
create an even more widespread
need for a) dialogue practice and b)
equipping folks to hold dialogues.
We are eager to help share the
lessons we have learned so that
more people across our divided
country can build bridges for a
better future!
“Perfect love drives out all fear…” 1 John 4:18

WELCOME!
who consider The Church Lab as their church, or who
Folks
Christian with another faith home, or who are part of
are
faith or no faith, can all find their niche in the big
another
that is The Church Lab.
experiment
LEARN MORE!
Christians specifically can find
creative ways to go deeper in their
faith with The Church Lab, as we
experiment with meeting our 4
pillars of spiritual growth: dialogue,
discipleship, worship and mission.
To learn more about how you might
find your niche at TCL, visit
thechurchlab.org/what-how-who/
GIVING
We are powered by your generosity
exclusively. We run entirely off
donations! You can ALWAYS give
online at thechurchlab.org.
CONNECT WITH US
Website: thechurchlab.org
*Learn more from our community at
thechurchlab.org/blog
*Sign up for our email updates by
emailing one of us!
Emails:
Rev. Carrie Graham, founding
pastor: carrie@thechurchlab.org
Pam Jarvis, pastoral assistant:
help@thechurchlab.org
Social Media:
facebook.com/thechurchlab
Instagram or twitter:
@thechurchlab
Our most impactful giving is
through pledging.
Now that we're celebrating 5 years, we
To become a monthly or annual
partner, please email
carrie@thechurchlab.org. More info
is at the end of this report!
learned lessons we want to use to
have
others' experiments.
help
such, consulting and resourcing have
As
a vital part of our activities. Read
become
on to find out more!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TCL!
W h e n T C L w a s b o r n , l i k e m o s t n e w b o r n s , s h e w a s n ’ t e n t i r e l y s u r e w h o
s h e w o u l d b e c o m e y e t . F r o m t h e b e g i n n i n g , w e e n g a g e d i n e x p e r i m e n t s
w i t h h i g h r i s k s , a l o n g w i t h s t e p s a n d m i s s t e p s o f t r i a l , e r r o r ,
r e f l e c t i o n s , l e s s o n s g l e a n e d , a n d o n t o n e w e x p e r i m e n t s ! T h i s g a v e u s
c o n s t a n t n e w l e a r n i n g f o r o u r t o o l b o x . S o o n t h i s p r o c e s s b e c a m e t h e
h e a r t b e a t o f T C L ’ s c u l t u r e .
B o t h i n s t r u c t u r e a n d c o n t e n t , T h e C h u r c h L a b i s a g i a n t e x p e r i m e n t ,
b u i l t t o h e l p o t h e r s e x p l o r e a w a l k i n t o d e e p e r s p i r i t u a l m a t u r i t y , b o t h
a s i n d i v i d u a l s a n d a s a f a i t h f u l s y s t e m .
W h a t a j o u r n e y i t ’ s b e e n s o f a r ! W e h a v e h e l d w e l l o v e r 1 0 0 d i a l o g u e s
a n d s e e n m i r a c u l o u s b r i d g e s b u i l t , w i t n e s s e d l o v e w i n n i n g o u t o v e r
f e a r , f o u n d a m o r e i n - d e p t h c o m m i t m e n t t o o u r f a i t h e v e n a s o u r
a p p r e c i a t i o n o f o t h e r s ’ c o m m i t m e n t s i n c r e a s e d . C h r i s t i a n s , w h o h a v e
b e e n a t t i m e s t h e l a s t o n e s o n t h e d i a l o g u e t r a i n , h a v e o f t e n f o u n d a
n e w t y p e o f s p i r i t u a l h o m e t h e y d i d n ’ t k n o w e x i s t e d b e f o r e . I t o f t e n
i n v o l v e s l e a r n i n g f r o m o u r l a b p a r t n e r s o f d i f f e r e n t f a i t h t r a d i t i o n s , o r
o f n o t r a d i t i o n a t a l l .
A s 2 0 1 8 d r a w s t o a c l o s e , w e c e l e b r a t e n o t o n l y w h e r e T C L h a s b e e n ,
b u t w h e r e G o d i s l e a d i n g h e r n e x t . M a y G o d h e l p u s t o c o n t i n u e t o b e
f a i t h f u l i n o u r o w n l a b o f e x p e r i m e n t s , a n d m a y w e i n c r e a s i n g l y b e a b l e
t o w a l k h e l p f u l l y w i t h o t h e r s l e a r n i n g t o t a k e r i s k s t o d e e p e n f a i t h
c o m m u n i t i e s a n d b r i d g e c u l t u r a l d i v i d e s .
B e l o w w e c e l e b r a t e T C L ’ s j o u r n e y s o f a r b y s h a r i n g a s a m p l i n g o f
p h o t o s o v e r t h e l a s t 5 y e a r s , a n d b y h i g h l i g h t i n g o u r n e w e s t m i l e s t o n e s
f r o m 2 0 1 8 .
Happy Birthday, TCL!
I celebrate the space TCL cultivates for people to courageously and lovingly engage strangers and
neighbors around vital conversations.
-Terra McDaniel
TCL Birthday Wishes
Strangers becoming friends and friendships becoming stronger via dialogue and understanding.
Congrats on 5 yrs - May there be many many more!
-Almas Ali
I celebrate The Church Lab because it lets me meet people who think and believe differently from
myself in an environment that lets me work toward an understanding of how their spirituality, humanism,
and sense of self builds their ethics and morality. This helps me come to know them as a person instead
of as a stereotype of their faith or philosophical community.
-David Dashifen Kees

Milestones
-Raised more than ever before for
our 2018 operating budget
-Hired a part-time pastoral
assistant, moving forward on
helping others learn how to do
nontraditional ministry
-Renewed our monthly blog
content work, authored by the
community
-Created a more personalized
quarterly check in system with
donors
-First BOD retreat ever!!!
Milestones cont.
-First facilitators’ training offered, a
1 day training for those that want to
have better facilitation skills in their
current context, or who may want to
continue in a process to become
TCL facilitators
-Offering an interfaith book festival
at dialogues that doubles as a
fundraiser
-Offering a DC brunch/fundraiser
for Carrie to talk about dialogue:
how to
approach it, what to expect

-Offered first facilitators’
practice dialogue, with
Carrie coaching someone
who may one day start their
own dialogue group
-Moving to Little Green Light:
smoother way to process any
donation
-Movement on written
materials to help folks
engage dialogue TCL style,
and to consider what it takes
to do nontraditional ministry
with the future of Church at
heart and in mind
-First consulting retainer
with a church, who has hired
TCL to help them discern
who they will be in the
future!

DIALOGUES
Every two weeks, a group of 6-10 people gather in a living room. Among
us may be mainline Protestant, Evangelical Christian, Catholic, Pagan,
Shia Muslim, Ahmadiyya Muslim, Agnostic, LDS/Mormon, nonidentifying/seekers
and mystic perspectives.
Thanks to video chat, we are a hybrid local and national community! We
have TCL dialoguers, participants and supporters all over the country!
Some of our "regulars" hail from Virginia, New York, and Chicago. See our
Reach Map later in this report to get a sense of where TCL folks reside!
It is vital for us to have conservative and liberal viewpoints in the room
together. This may be the biggest bridge to work on in this era.
At first, dialogues are about education and awareness. As participants
see each other again and again, and sincere community becomes
possible, our time grows us in rich ways.We acknowledge one another's
dignity of experience, we laugh together, even as we approach issues
where disagreement is inevitable. We are challenged in our own spiritual
lives to reckon with the mutually exclusive angles of our friends' beliefs
with our own. Our prayer life may change, our perspectives may shift, our
ability increases to hold neighbors in love that approach life so
differently than us. We discover a more nuanced faith, and a capacity to
extend love in a deeply meaningful way in our current political, cultural,
social climate.
-Miracles
-Sexual Harassment and Religion
-Forgiveness
-TV and Religion
-Children and Religion
-Hate
-Self-sacrifice and Boundaries
-Secrets and Religion
-Wildcard: Bring whatever questions
you have for each other!
2018 Topics
-Gender Expectations and Roles in
Religion
-Ritual Show ‘N Tell
-Why Is There Suffering?
-Science and Religion
-Addiction
-Civil Disobedience
-Death
-Joy
-Recorded Dialogue: Topic Chosen by
the Interfaith Group

egularly get out of the living room and
We
our communities, practicing love with
into
hands and feet, reflecting together on
our
that shapes us and our faith lives. Here
how
SPECIAL EVENTS/FIELD TRIPS
are our 2018 special events and field trips:
-Maundy Thursday worship experiment
with house church New Table
-Interfaith book festival and fundraiser
-Annual volunteer day with Community
First!
-Village Freedom Riders documentary
viewing and discussion on MLK Day
-Buddhist Temple Tour
-1st facilitators’ training day
-Chinese New Year Field Trip back to
Buddhist Temple
-Wrap up Harvey Help Adopt-a-Class
Program in May
-1st gratitude “party” exercise
-1st coached facilitator-in-training
dialogue
-Fall labyrinth walk with Linda Webster
2018 Field Trips and Events

Church Lab digs into risky experiments and learns
The
lessons from them! This helps us grow as a
big
and it also helps equip us to share with
community,
what we're learning. We come alongside each
others
to glean lessons from our experiments in the
other
ways. Join us!
following
CARE AND
PASTORAL
SUPPORT
LEADERSHIP
Discipleship
For Christians in TCL's community, we
offer a small biweekly gathering for
Christian discipleship. We find our
dialogue community can healthily
sharpen the specificities and roots of
our faith, so we get together and talk
about how we're growing into a
deeper relationship with God from a
Christian perspective. We reflect on
how our reflections intersect with
daily decisions and behaviors. Our
weekly question is "...and where is God
in all this?!"
Many folks who participate in TCL's
community have their own
worshipping communities, whether
Christian or not. Some claim TCL as
their primary church family.
Discipleship is a particularly great
place to be if TCL is both your primary
interfaith and Christian family.
b) prioritizes faithfulness and integrity
as part of the discernment process
toward an organization's future.
and Workshops
Trainings
For faith or business leaders:
We are beginning to offer training in
facilitation of dialogues or difficult
conversations, along with an
upcoming variety of workshops on
vital topics for church systems and
other organizations.
Pastoral Care
We offer care to anyone that needs
a listening ear, or may have big
questions about their spiritual life,
regardless of background or belief
system. This is a vital practice for
us.
Consulting and Incubators
It can be difficult for institutions to be
as nimble as necessary for the risks it
takes to foster a more thriving
community. Your established system
may benefit from help in conducting
experiments that can develop your
future. How? Partnering with The
Church Lab might be a great way to
go.
TCL is a) equipped at its core to
experiment and effectively share
resulting lessons gleaned and

MISSION
Everyone connected to TCL is invited to
serve alongside one another, and to
encourage one another in supporting our
local and global communities. This year,
we wrapped up our Southeast Texas
Adopt-A-Class efforts for Hurricane
Harvey recovery, and we held our annual
volunteer day at Community First
Village. We also celebrated our year-end
event we call Advent Conspiracy, where
we share stories of causes that move us,
pool donations and explore volunteer
opportunities for next year.

REACH AND ONGOING PROJECTS
Ongoing Projects
-We are getting ready to produce written materials to share tools and reflections
from the Lab with folks.
-We are working to raise funds right now that will help us pursue capacity
building through grant writing, media publications and more concentrated
relationship development efforts.
-Podcasts: We will conduct experiments of 4 different types throughout 2019!
-We have monthly blog content written out of the TCL community, which we offer
on our website and mailchimps!
-We are smoothing out our donation processes with Little Green Light services,
starting with our year-end donations and 2019 pledges.
-We continue to keep an eye on opportunities to help Burkina Faso, with hopes
that we can work toward building a school there one day.
-We will continue to sustain meaningful partnerships with support partners.
-Our BOD continues to increase their leadership and activity, which has and will
continue to smooth out operational processes and provide a strong trajectory of
organizational health and growth. Hooray!

2019 PREVIEW
WHAT TO EXPECT NEXT:
-Offering mentorship, discipleship and
evolving leadership training in nontraditional
ministry for our pastoral assistant, whose role
will continue to evolve as part of our mission
of training experimental leaders for the
Church’s future.
-Maintaining healthy system for
experimentation and ministry, in part by
evolving the board's role and creating new
channels for fresh, invested leadership
perspectives
-Continuing dialogues, discipleship, periodic
worship and mission
-Experimenting with podcasts
-Continuing and expanded pursuit of
consultation with other churches and leaders
-Publishing our first written materials to help
others dialogue or pursue nontraditional
ministry
-Offering a 2nd (or more) facilitators’ training
day
-Offering coaching for facilitators-in-training
-Offering new events, to be contextualized
toward specified needs based upon each
request, both locally and in other geographic
areas

FINANCIAL REPORT/NEEDS
Mission
2018 BUDGET
Pastor Salary
Grant Writing
Squarespace
Domain Name
Donation tracking
Taxes
Misc Fees
Assistant
Snacks
Board Retreat
$3,565.00
$21,278.40
$1,800.00
$156.00
$20.00
$600.00
$100.00
$188.00
$1,980.00
$72.00
$242.88
Mission
2019 BUDGET WISHLIST
Pastor Salary
Grant Writing
Squarespace
Domain Name
Donation tracking
Taxes
Misc Fees
Assistant
Snacks
Grant Writing II
Podcast
Discretionary
*$4,150.00
$21,278.40
$1,800.00
$156.00
$20.00
$600.00
$100.00
$188.00
*$6,980.00
*$750.00
*$3,200.00
*$60.00
*$1,000.00
Total
$30,002.28
Total
$40,282.40
* indicates an increase in line item from previous year or a new line item for upcoming year
PLEASE GIVE, IT'S EASY TO DO RIGHT NOW!
We need your generosity to keep up this good work!
If you’d like to give a one time donation, we would be so
grateful! You may do so right now, with great ease, at
thechurchlab.org.
Monthly pledgers are our most impactful donating partners.
To become a pledger, please email help@thechurchlab.org
and let us know you’d like to set up a convenient way to
pledge. We will get you set up and will be thanking you for
miles!

Church Lab is a cooperative endeavor! There are stellar
The
to thank for making this ministry not just possible,
people
SHOUT OUTS
but thriving! Mega thanks to:
Our donating partners directly make TCL possible, and we are thankful for the ways God
weaves our friends’ generosity together to make this endeavor a reality. Thanks be to God for
you!
Pam Jarvis is our pastoral assistant who took a risk to join our adventures in an unprecedented
role this year! We are deeply grateful for Pam’s hard work, creativity, competence and
passion. She is willing to get uncomfortable to be a part of this grand experiment, and we are
so happy to have her in the Lab!
Jenny Karr, our fundraising coach, provides generous support to The Church Lab in a myriad of
ways, and has done so since our beginnings!
Stacey Schwenker has served as secretary of our board this year, getting our records in better
shape, and heading up various organizational pursuits that make TCL a much better
operation!
Aaron Karr has served as treasurer of our board this year, giving hours upon hours of time to
research and implement the best financial services possible for our donors and for our own
smooth operations!
Jenelle D’Alessandro has served as the chair of our board this year, making sure our
increasingly active board and brand new board members are connected and informed!
Rev. Justin Fung, Dr. Jennifer Rosner Lessard and Rev. Sabrina Chan are our board members,
and have served for 5 years. We are so grateful for their help and leadership all this time!
Kelly Dunlap, Sara Burback and Jewel Stone are our new board members and have bravely
onboarded to our TCL adventure!
Linda Webster generously donated books for us to use for our interfaith book festival this
year, as well as helping lead a Labyrinth walk this fall!
Emily Buikema designed this annual report, an increasingly vital project for our operations! Big
thanks to Emily for sharing her gifts with TCL!
Carrie has a support system that makes her experimental work possible from behind the
scenes, whether by mentors, friends, folks that help her process leadership decisions or
simply help her get some rest or play in. She is immensely grateful for those that help her
become a better pastor by making sure she is a whole human. Thank God for y’all.