Congregational Growth Ministry Team minutes

Last meeting: April 14, 2009

Attendees:

Chris Allen

Rich Flamang

Jen Wageman

Staff:

Jan Sommerfeld

Excused:

Pastor Dismer

Shannon Howard

Lance Schmidt

Items that may require Council action: None

Items that may require budget/finance coordination: None

Important items of information:

Cost-cutting efforts: Suggestions to reduce the cost of paper included increasing our efforts to encourage members to sign up for the electronic version of the monthly newsletter rather than receiving a hard copy in the mail.

• Set up a sign-up sheet for the online version of the newsletter on tables in the Gathering Areas, possibly on May 31, at the church picnic.
• Re-run the cost-savings message (paper copies of the newsletter vs. electronic) that was published in the announcements and newsletters during the fall 2008 stewardship campaign.
• Include verbal announcements periodically, encouraging members to sign up for monthly newsletter online.

To encourage stewardship, it was suggested that we promote Simply Giving, the automated electronic giving program sponsored by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, at a table in the Gathering Area, possibly during the church picnic.

Communications update: Rich met with ministry team leaders before the general meeting today. The group agreed to meet quarterly to review the main topics among ministry teams in order to keep the seven ministry teams up to speed with each other.

Growth Ministry Team roster: Jen will get the e-mail addresses of the recent new members and encourage them to join the GMT. Our goal is to recruit two members who worship primarily at the Downtown Site.

TV ministry: The team discussed pros/cons of including a bar on the bottom of the current broadcast of our 8 a.m. Downtown Site worship service on local cable Channel 4. Possibly messages include upcoming events, such as the church picnic; our worship times; Web site. Jan will contact TV ministry volunteers to see how complicated and labor-intensive it would be with the current software to change the message monthly and to see if anyone would be willing to do this.

Connection Center: Rich reported that an FELC member will donate $1,000 for the materials needed to build one connection center. Rich will contact the members who are donating their labor to build the unit to see if Labor Day is a feasible for its debut and to finalize the design plan. Two Dell computers have been donated. Remaining equipment needed is a monitor, which can be purchased for roughly $199 (19-inch screen). It will be connected to the printer in the office.

FELC promotions/advertising:

Jen will bring an example of the fall directory published by the Appleton Area Newcomers Club at the next meeting, along with the advertising costs. The team agreed that since this publication is directed at our target audience it would be a wise investment to include an FELC ad.

• A member of another ministry team suggested to Rich that FELC canvas Appleton’s north side to invite the community to the picnic. Rich will contact that member with our ideas on promotional efforts, such as signs, etc.

Submitted by:

Jan Sommerfeld