Growth Group

Meeting Minutes
1/5/09

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

Dave opened the meeting with a prayer at 6:30 p.m. No changes were made to the minutes from 11/24/08.

I. Preparations for the 1/11 Focus Group:
Dave folded, stamped and sent 34 letters. To date 3 people have accepted the invitation. Jim will facilitate and Kendra will attend as an invitee. Stan will take notes. On Saturday Kendra and Jim will call invitees who have not responded if attendance appears to be less than 6. Kendra will be in touch with the Church about responses.
Refreshments: Kendra will make something, Jim will bring cider and (someone) will fetch a carafe of coffee from Wright Pavilion.

We reviewed Jim’s (excellent) discussion guide in detail:
He will point out that Stan is taking notes of what people have to say but not recording their names with their comments. On Dave’s suggestion, #6 (areas needing change) will focus on areas where the church might do a better job of making people feel welcome. The same focus will be placed on #10 (magic wand). The answers to #4 (In the early days, what kept you coming back?) and #10 will be the most useful as well as whether someone is comfortable inviting others to the church.

We hope for a good conversation. This is a self-selected group, a group which chose to come (and continue coming) to our church. We wondered about obtaining anonymous feedback from people who did not respond to the invitation. Also, we wondered about a way to survey people who attended church for a while and then disappeared. That will be a future project.

II. Mission Statement
We started with a statement drafted by Stan (thank you for getting us started!):

‘To seek ways to increase the number of people participating in the life of our Church and from that foundation to seek ways to increase the church membership.’

John: add extravagant welcome.

Elinor: what about building relationships?

We want to be able to measure success (attendance and membership)

‘We seek to extend a warm welcome that will incorporate people into the life of the church (leading to increased attendance, participation and membership).’

From Elinor, other possibilities:
• To extend a warm welcome, building a strong relationship with people coming to our church and to include them in the life of the church so that they will join us in attending services, participating in our community and formalizing their relationship with church membership.

• To provide the structure to warmly welcome newcomers to our church, incorporate them into church life and lay the groundwork for attendance, participation and membership.

• To provide structure to warmly welcome newcomers to our church, build relationships with them so that they are part of our church community, attending services, participating and joining.

III. Mentor Program
HOORAY! We agreed on a name: Parish Host. The word host implies knowledge of the church and allows for flexibility in the length of the relationship.

We reviewed Dave’s draft for the Parish Host Program:

2. The host needs to know the physical layout of the church and how to find things out.
3. On Jim’s suggestion, we added ‘be able’ (What would a parish host be able to do).

We added linking people up with something they are interested in. (Determine what the new person’s interest might be)
John said the relationship should be 2 way and should start after a few months’ attendance.
Kendra will research whether the UCC has any guidelines for parish hosts and look into what other churches do.

4. Characteristic: Consistent (outgoing) but not pushy.
5. Success: Eliminate ‘getting them to attend regularly/join’
Know their personal needs in relation to their church experience.
6. Most of these materials are available (the Directory includes the phone list and the membership list)

Kendra queried how to track people. How will we find out about people who stop attending? We will need a focus group for the hosts.

Add #7: Following up with parish hosts.

Dave will supply us with an updated version.

Jim: Future agenda item = re-visit our current welcome and invitation process from the aspect of having a host in place. There may be other things to implement over time. Should attendance at small groups be passed along to the office?

John requested help in phoning people who have received an invitation to next Monday’s Inquirer’s meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 8:20 p.m.

Next Meeting: Monday, February 9, 2009 at 6:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Elinor Redmond