Growth Group

Meeting Minutes 11/24/08

Members present: Jim Kupel, John McCall, Rick Angell, Dave Allen, Kendra Palmer, Jerry Onos, Stan Jordan, Elinor Redmond

John opened the meeting with a prayer at 6:30 p.m.

I. John reported that 16 ‘prospects’ have been worshipping regularly with us. From what they say, we seem to be developing a brand identity: welcoming, diverse, forward thinking and mission minded. Ours is the only church that fits that description in the South Portland, Scarborough, Cape Elizabeth area.

II. Structure: Dave prepared the agenda and facilitated the meeting. The group agreed that the job of taking the minutes would rotate among the group members. Dave will facilitate the next few meetings and prepare the agenda. We agreed that the 6:30 p.m. meeting time works.

III. New member focus groups: Jim will facilitate a group after church on Sunday, January 11, 2009. We will invite the 30-35 adults who joined the church most recently. Kendra will draft the letter of invitation and work with our new Church Secretary, Jen Dealaman, to mail them on December 28th. The letters will be signed by Dave. Either Dave or Stan will attend the event to take notes. Kendra will write a small announcement of the event for the Beacon and it will be listed in the bulletin.

Jim passed around a protocol for focus groups. Kendra commented that having a structure shows the importance of the questions to us as a church.

We focused on possible questions (Jim is looking for 12 questions):
• Prior church experience and current experience
• From ‘successful tendencies’: add good sermons to music, social justice, high energy
• We want insight into what the experience of coming to our church as a new person was for each of them. What could we have done better?
• Articulate the characteristics of this church
• When you think of Sunday morning here, what words come to mind? (gives a perspective on how you are perceived)
• How have you connected with the life of the church beyond Sunday morning?
• Would a mentor have been valuable?
• (Magic wand) If you could change one thing, what would it be?

IV. Power of Invitation and Welcome: We discussed several points from this handout.

John focused on ‘Making your entire church a welcoming community’ – we really need a large team, a group far bigger than the number of people sitting around the table. Kendra said we need to involve all church groups in extravagant welcome, reaching out to new members. Are groups represented? For example, do the people we help through Community Crisis Ministries become part of our congregation? Jerry wants to recruit member for the Growth Group through the existing Teams (Council, Mission, SLW, Administration, Education). He will go to the Mission meeting on December 4th to discuss our work and invite them to come to a growth meeting.

Rick’s Beacon article was a great way to let the congregation know that the Growth Group exists and what our purpose is. How could the mission of other church groups tie in with extravagant welcome? Our group will formally adopt a mission statement of our own. We will discuss it at the next meeting as well as ‘hospitality basics’.

V. Other Business: It would be great to have a person or 2 in the Narthex after church to escort newcomers to coffee hour. John said the use of the word ‘mentor’ is confusing and misleading. We need to use a different name.

Next Meeting: Monday, January 5, 2009 at 6:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Elinor Redmond