St. John's Lutheran Church

Forward Planning Meeting

April 5th, 2011

 

Attendees:  Pastor Gary Landsness , Tony Chihak, Steve Powell, DickKirchoff

(kirchoff@premieronline.net), Dale Hurt (djhurt@msn.com), Wayne Heien.

 

The forward planning committee has been working on a plan for getting involvement from the various Church committees concerning what we can do to improve our two minimum factors.  The team has rolled out a common message to roll out to the various committees and groups.  

 

Committees targeted included: Church Council, Education, Youth, Outreach, Property, Worship, Elderberries, & Women's Circles.

The Forward Planning committee split up into teams of two and rolled out NCD involvement to the various committees in March.  The assignments for the rollout are listed below:

  • Outreach (Pastor Gary, Steve)March 7th  7PM -  outreach through multimedia, advertising was the main focus from them, services on DVD, various groups coming to talk about what we are doing/ supporting, will begin streaming the service on the website, formation of a separate committee to focus on communications/ media

  • Youth Committee (Wayne, Steve ) March 14th  5:30PM - they are already doing some things that are consistent with addressing the two minimum factors, recommended for them to reach out to the youth and understand what they also want to see from the Church, youth leadership conference in Des Moines and similar programs

  • Church Council (Pastor Gary and Tony) March 14th 7PM - offsite overview

  • Education Committee (Dick, Steve) March 15th 7PM - looking for help, input from others, maybe we can give them some additional ideas such as workshops, leadership conferences, ect.

  • Property (Tony,Dale)March 28th 7:00PM - gave them ideas on how to help facilitate the other groups, getting a projection system in the auditorium for overflow, get a flatscreen in the lobby to loop info, getting a dub system to be able to turnaround the video within a day. 

  • Worship (Pastor Gary, Steve) March 28th 7PM - take the 10:45 AM service to a newer/ contemporary mode/ more use of the multimedia - will test it out at Easter Vigil service

  • Women's Circles (WLCA board) - Pastor Gary and Dick will meet with Marcia - will meet with them in about a week

Gary will have the various committee minutes distributed to the Forward Planning committee.  Next meeting we will review the meeting minutes of the various committees and look for the common themes of empowering leadership and loving relationships.

 

The forward planning committee will also begin to develop goals and timelines next month.  Examples of possible goals:

  • Perform a repeat NCD survey by Dec 31, 2011

  • Have each committee address at least one of the minimum factors by June 1, 2011

We will better define these goals in the upcoming month. 

Next Meeting May 3rd  at 7:00PM

 

Forward Planning Meeting

March 1st, 2011

Attendees:  Pastor Gary Landsness , Tony Chihak, Steve Powell, Dick Kirchoff, Dale Hurt , Wayne Heien.

The forward planning committee has been working on a plan for getting involvement from the various Church committees concerning what we can do to improve our two minimum factors.  The team has developed a common message to roll out to the various committees and groups.  Committees targeted include: Church Council, Education, Youth, Outreach, Property, Worship, Elderberries, & Women's Circles.

The template included:

  • Overview of the NCD process and our minimum factors: Loving Relationships and Empowering Leadership

  • Examples for each specific committee to help plant seeds for each separate committee

The Forward Planning committee will split up into teams of two and roll out NCD involvement to the various committees in March.  Pastor Gary will give a heads-up to each committee that we will be speaking with them.  The assignments for the rollout are listed below:

  • Outreach (Pastor Gary, Steve)March 7th  7PM

  • Youth Committee (Wayne, Steve )  March 7th  5:30PM

  • Church Council (Pastor Gary and Tony) March 14th 7PM

  • Education Committee (Dick, Steve) March 15th 7PM

  • Property (Tony,Dale)March 28th 7:00PM

  • Worship (Pastor Gary, Steve) March 28th 7PM

  • Women's Circles (WLCA board) - Pastor Gary and Dick will meet with Marcia

 Next meeting we will debrief on how things went with the various committees.

The forward planning committee will also begin to develop goals and timelines next month.  Examples of possible goals:

  • Perform a repeat NCD survey by Oct 1, 2011

  • Have each committee address at least one of the minimum factors by June 1, 2011

  • Provide a workshop on the "3 colors of love" by Aug 1, 2011

We will better define these goals in the upcoming month. 

Next Meeting April 5th  at 7:00PM

 

Forward Planning Meeting

February 8th, 2011

Attendees:  Pastor Gary Landsness , Tony Chihak, Steve Powell, Wayne Heien, Dale Hurt.

The forward planning committee has been working on a plan for getting involvement from the various Church committees concerning what we can do to improve our two minimum factors.  The team still needs to come up with a common message to roll out to the various committees and groups.  Committees to target include: Church Council, Education, Youth, Outreach, Property, Worship, Elderberries, & possibly Women's Circles.

The template should include:

  • Overview of the NCD process and our minimum factors: Loving Relationships and Empowering Leadership

  • Examples for each specific committee to help plant seeds -  some possible examples:

    • Reach out to members that have potential/ talent and get them involved now, not three to six months from now

    • Empower the leaders to do what they feel would work to improve their area they work with, sky is the limit.  Remove the hidden barriers, help empower them.

    • Have existing/potential leaders go to training, workshops, etc.  Give them the opportunity to network with other individual in similar roles in other congregations.

    • We could focus on another night such as Wednesday for adult/ supplementary education(paradigm shift)

    • Youth could offer childcare in the afternoon during advent to allow the parents either an afternoon alone or time to do Christmas shopping.

    • Reach out further into the congregation to get additional people to be trained on the sound/video system and offer it up to the community (weddings, schools, other congregations, etc.).  Pictures of babies for baptisms, videos of the babies when they were bought home, recording confirmation service, place streamed video on the screen.

    • Now that we have people familiar with the system, bring back in the original video/audio equipment vendor back in to train the current users on more of its capabilities.

    • Bring back In-reach through small group grassroots activities

    • Council could have a retreat and have mini workshop dealing with empowering leadership and loving relationships (3 colors of love).

We will update the Council on this plan next week.  The expectation from council members will be to support this process and also follow up in the upcoming months looking for themes of addressing our minimum factors (empowering leadership and loving relationships) in each of the committee reports.  If gaps persist in a committee then the council should reach out to forward planning to provide assistance.  

Tony and Gary will put together an outline of the template and distribute to the Forward planning group for review before the next meeting.  The template will be finalized next meeting and we will assign teams of two to each group/committee for rollout in March. The goal is to develop a structured approach so the Forward Planning team members can break up the work load and each take a committee to engage.  This method should help facilitate biotic growth of ideas along with implementation.

 

The forward planning committee will also begin to develop goals and timelines next month.  Examples of possible goals:

  • Perform a repeat NCD survey by Oct 1, 2011

  • Have each committee address at least one of the minimum factors by June 1, 2011

  • Provide a workshop on the "3 colors of love" by Aug 1, 2011

We will better define these goals in the upcoming month. 

Next Meeting March 1st at 7:00PM

 

Forward Planning Meeting

January 4th, 2011

 

Attendees:  Pastor Gary Landsness , Tony Chihak, Steve Powell, Wayne Heien, Dale Hurt, and Pastor Bob Vaage from First Lutheran Church in Milford.

 

Pastor Bob Vaage is the external coach for our journey through the Natural Church Development process.  Pastor Bob has also taken his congregation though this process, so he also has the advantage of implementing this process.  One area that he stressed was communication (we should error on the side of over communication). 

Communicating out the results of the Church profile is the first action the team needs to take.  We have put together an outline of what the committee is working on in the year-end report for the Forward Planning committee.  Pastor Gary will also have the results of the Church profile added to St. John's website. 

 

The group also discussed the Church's two minimum factors: Loving Relationships, and Empowering Leadership.  Several ideas were brainstormed for potential use in the near future.  Both areas had the common theme of increasing the minimum factor and re-assessing in the future.  We will better define those goals in the upcoming month.  Additional ideas:

 

Loving Relationships

  •          Public recognition for volunteers (recognizing teachers, ushers, etc. at church service)

  •          Recognition meal for volunteers (possibly team up with another congregation to have them serve our volunteers and we could reciprocate)

  •    Picnics, ice cream socials, golf outings (try to have more fun - were common in the past, but we have drifted away from these activities)

  •          Softball league, bowling league with other congregations, etc.

  •          Salt and pepper club re-invented

  •          Utilize a Lenten sermon theme on "Loving Relationships"

  •          "3 colors of love training" for committees and council members

     Comments:  "Loving Relationships" being a minimum factor is not surprising if we look at recent history.  The Church has had a difficult time sustaining the In-reach Committee causing it to be currently disbanded.  This is just one piece of evidence that supports what the profile has found.

 

Empowering Leadership

·         Create a process for identifying potential leaders in the church and provide development and support for these individuals

·         Improving how we identify people's gifts and talents and matching these up to needs in the church.

Next month the forward planning committee will develop a plan for getting input from the various Church committees concerning what we can do to improve our two minimum factors.  The goal is to develop a structured approach so the Forward Planning team members can break up the work load and each take a committee to engage.  The committee will also begin to develop goals and timelines next month.

 

Next Meeting February 8th  at 7:00PM

 

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