Our Leadership Board held its first ever town hall meeting at 9:45am on Sunday February 25th. The primary purpose of the meeting was to invite the congregation into the conversation that the Board has been having in its first two meetings. That conversation has been centered around two key questions - “What is a disciple?” and “is our current mission statement adequate to guide us toward making that kind of people?” I asked those at the town hall to reflect together upon the first question and then shifted the second away from a yes/no question in order to facilitate better conversation by asking “What does it mean to love with the heart of Christ?”
The goal in having this conversation is to determine the extent to which we already have a shared and clear understanding of why our church exists. Only by defining “our why” (in other words, what we are trying to accomplish here and now?) can we make strategic and effective choices about policies, budgets, staff, etc that will help us accomplish what we’re trying to accomplish. If we don’t know what we are trying to accomplish, it’s very hard to know if we are successful - this conversation will pay dividends as we begin to more explicitly name and move toward church wide goals.
As this conversation moves forward, we will continue to move quickly in developing ministries, events, programs, and other opportunities to share the love of Christ with each other and our neighbors. You can always go to fumcbeaumont.org/board to find more information about the Board’s role in those decisions and plans. Over the next two years, it will be absolutely vital to ensure that the decisions and investments we make begin to align with our shared sense of purpose. The feedback below will summarize what we heard at the town hall and within the board, with links to all the unedited answers. Parts 2 and 3 will follow in the next week or two with my reflections on what has been said and where we go from here.
Feedback Data and Highlights
A full set of notes on all the feedback received can be found here and as part of the Pastor’s report and two addenda here. Highlights from that raw data are below.
Straw Poll Responses:
_20_ I love our mission statement and believe we should move quickly to align all we do around it.
_10_ I like it but I’m not sure it’s sufficient or specific enough to guide our goals and decisions.
_1__ I’ve never been completely comfortable with it and think we need to get back to square one.
_2__ Other: “vision” rather than “mission” … not the meeting we expected
Highlights From the Feedback
Be welcoming and hospitable!
Remain here, love neighbors, AND go beyond
Be followers of Jesus Christ;
Live and love like Jesus
Develop a relationship with God
know AND do
Joy in all things
Be a listener
Submit to discipline
Tell our story
Unconditional acceptance of others
Condemn injustice
Help, not enable
Love as Christ loves
Listen, listen, listen
Unconditionally loving everyone
Forming relationship with those helped
NEED to feel loved and valued
Present where we are located
Open-welcoming
Remain here, support this community
Value every person
cooperative
Act “Christ-like” in everything
Support the city of Beaumont
Serving and witnessing
Invite friends and neighbors to join us
For part 2, click here.