News from Visioning Committee

Report: Ideas from Discussion on April 15, 2012

On Sunday, April 15, approximately 35 people met to discuss our March retreat with the Rev. Ken McFayden. Brian Pettit skillfully moderated the discussion on issues we explored from Ken’s presentation and sermon. First, in small groups, we reviewed what Ken’s talk meant to us. Ken had explained that many congregations are very good at “what” they do and “how” they do it but not very good about understanding “why” they do things. For instance, if our “why” is to celebrate the love of Christ in our lives, then we should say that clearly.

We talked about our “whys,” our beliefs and our visions. Small groups then presented to the larger group. The second activity was to brainstorm ideas for activities, projects, and how our beliefs could be transferred into action. We posted all our ideas on pegboards then we categorized them using colored dots. A green dot represented the question, “What should NPC do just the same?” Blue dot: “What should NPC do more of or a new thing?” Yellow dot: “What should NPC do less of?”” Red dot: What should NPC stop doing due to limited resources or because its champion is gone?” Each of us had a limited amount of dots and “voted” with them. We had a lively conversation after this activity. We signed all our ideas and solicited champions for those who wanted to carry on an idea.

Visioning committee met on April 25th to review and consolidate all the data from the 15th. This information was e-mailed to all members who had attended either the retreat or the follow-up meeting. Session was also e-mailed the results, and they can also be viewed here. We have some wonderful “Why” statements and lots of great ideas. As visioning committee is not the governing body of North Church, we are passing this data on to Session for review and action. Session will be discussing this information at the June meeting, so we await further direction.