Catch: The Wrap Up

While four weeks is rather brief considering the history of our class studies, we managed to pack in a lot of good discussion and visioning.  It turns out that all of us have dreams and ideas for Grace UMC and while we didn’t stick to the study all that closely, it did give us a framework for thinking about where we want to go and how we can get there.

We did some thinking and planning about our worship and study space.  We have LOTS of ideas for our church building!

-Brighten up the area outside the sanctuary with light and art

-Create more welcoming coffee and donut area as well as space to gather
-Add recycling baskets (not blue bins) outside of the sanctuary for bulletins and other papers

-Update signage throughout the building

-Utilize Wesley Hall for our Sunday School class

-Find ways to add information at entrances re: Sunday School, Events, Comfort Critters, the church, etc.

-Continue to work on how to utilize the outdoor space effectively and to find ways for it to be used on a regular basis

We also talked about reimagining our identity as a church and thinking about how to embody who we are through a new or updated logo, mission statement, and sense of purpose in our community.

This last week was all about making a plan.  Here’s a summary of what we discussed:

What makes our church unique?

-Great preaching

-Focus on education and learning

-Dedicated members

-A desire to serve

-Members who are humble/serve with their whole lives

-A practical note: our convenient location

-No sense that there are matriarchs/patriarchs with unequal influence

How can we connect with first time visitors and our community?

-Weekly informal social gatherings (Saturday morning/weekday evening basketball, etc.)

·         Also allows for planning simultaneous events

·         Open to the community, regularly scheduled

-Following up with visitors

·         Have the liturgist do follow-up calls.  Why?  The liturgist is visible during worship and therefore familiar AND the liturgist will not be up front the next week and can follow up in person during worship

·         Announcing and passing out registrations pads

·         Add visitor gifts to the narthex, ushers set up during worship, one last point of contact before visitors leave

·         After 3 visits, pastor meets for coffee OFF SITE (to find out more about them, their interests, etc.  More about the people than a “meeting with the pastor”)

-Update information in the pews by the hymnals – give more of a sense of who we are

-Be prepared for youth and older children at any given time, have volunteers ready to create “instant Sunday School” if necessary

-Connect with our GCDC families in a more intentional way

-Additional mailing to consider: 5^th Sunday brunch with all the dates for the year – if there is not the budget for an entire zip code, perhaps just the visitors from the past 6 months-1 year

Several other classes and groups are also working their way through this study and we hope to team up with them soon and share our ideas.  We’ll also be working to educate the rest of the congregation on the work that’s being done to determine our direction as a community of faith.

It’s an exciting time at Grace UMC!