Summer is upon us, and as we catch our breath and prepare
for the fall. For me, it is a time to
dream and plan --- but maybe most importantly --- to take stock on where we are
as a church, and try to come to some conclusions about what needs to be done.
It was just a little over a year ago that we met with the
Conference Fruitful Team. While I
believe they provided for us some excellent insights into some of the
challenges here at Ridge Church, most of their remedies were too cookie cutter
for us.
So one year later, where do things stand. They highlighted five areas of concern, and
we have had varying levels of success within those areas.
Develop a clear shared Mission and Vision. For the last three years, over the first
couple of weeks of January I have preached a multi-part sermon on our Vision
and Mission. Every Sunday, I try to work
into my sermon or a prayer our vision.
My fantasy is that everybody knows what our Mission is: (Ridge Church
exists to make Disciple for Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World),
and what our vision (how we accomplish the mission) is: (We of Ridge United
Methodist Church are united with Jesus Christ in His ministry of compassion for
all people by offering HOPE,
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
and MEANING FOR LIFE.) The reality is we have much more work to
do. As we move forward, every ministry
is going to be asked to report on how they are fulfilling our Mission and
Vision.
Improve Communication. This had a number of different aspects to
it. One of the facets was we needed to
improve our website, and last month we launched a wonderful new site. I wish I could say that it is 100%
operational, but even at its current state it is much better than our previous
site. We still need to improve how we
communicate to non-church members through social media and traditional media
sources.
A second area of communication we sought to improve was
signage. This issue has not been
seriously looked at yet.
A third area was how we communicate to you, the
congregation. Holly has done a great job
with improving the newsletter and making it relevant in style and
substance. We added the rolling
announcements at the start of the worship service and we send out regular
emails about what is taking place. We
need to tie our communication to our mission and vision better and will work on
that this fall.
The biggest area we struggle with communication is as a
staff. The notion that this is a problem
is crazy since we meet together every week, but we have not done a good job at
sharing and seeing beyond our area of expertise. This is going to be a top priority.
Stewardship. I
was surprised that this was identified as a concern. The people of Ridge Church are extremely
generous. You not only support our local
church, but you reach out and support ministries throughout the region and the
world. If there is any area of concern
it is to get our debt taken care of. We
need to get the Fellowship Hall paid for and do some major remodeling to the
original building (Education wing). We
are planning a Capital Campaign for this fall.
Are last two areas are the ones we are just now starting to
get a handle on. And I have to be honest
and say that I have dropped the ball on keeping them as a priority. Without a doubt they are the ones that will
be the most challenging to implement, but are critical to the future of Ridge
Church.
Develop an Intentional Discipleship Path. Kathy O’Brien and I are working on a model
that we are going to use for confirmation this fall and adopt church-wide at
some point. Beyond Disciple Bible Study,
this will be the most comprehensive and intentional path that we have
created. We also are looking at ways of
identifying the ministries that everyone participates in, so that we ensure
that nobody falls through the cracks.
Keep this in your prayers along with our final prescription.
Create and Intentional Plan to Develop, Train and Deploy
Staff and Leaders. Last fall, Keith
Howard and I began working on a whole new way to lead the church. With Keith’s move to Denver, the hard work of
creating this system ground to a halt.
For the last few weeks I have been trying to put the framework we had
discussed onto paper so that I can share it with a small group of leaders. My hope is that we will roll out this new
framework in January,
I also am taking quite seriously the need to audit the
staffs roles and responsibilities to make sure that they will be aligned with
Mission and Vision of Ridge Church. This
will be presented to the SPRC no later than the September meeting.
There is a great deal of exciting things going on at Ridge
Church, but at the same time it is scary because we are having to honestly
assess what we are doing and what we should be doing. Please keep this in your prayers!
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