Congregational Growth Ministry Team minutes

Last meeting: Oct. 14, 2008

Attendees:

Bob Heil

Rich Flamang

Shannon Howard

Jen Wageman

Staff:

Jan Sommerfeld

Excused:

Gary Akgulian
Pastor Dismer
Collin Goldschmidt

Dale Hershfield

Lance Schmidt

Items that may require Council action: None

Items that may require budget/finance coordination: None

Important items of information:

2009 goals: The team reviewed the Council’s Vision 2012 strategic plan and discussed the Growth Ministry Team’s role in achieving its goals, including:

· “Obtain a 29.8 percent increase in worship attendance.” The team discussed methods of retaining members, keeping them involved at FELC and connecting them to other members of the congregation.

2008 accomplishments: The team reviewed its accomplishments this year, including:

· Developing a welcome team to greet visitors and connect them to our ministry opportunities.

· Establishing a strong name tag awareness program, especially at the Downtown Site where two make-your-own name tag stations were developed, resulting in an increase in the number of members wearing the clip-on name badges.

· Refining and improving the New Member Sessions by incorporating testimonials from current members, creating a more dynamic format and including a meal component.

· Becoming more educated on assimilation concepts and techniques by listening to a collection of CDs provided by Bob Heil.

· Evolving the concept of a Connection Center into an actual design, with the help of members skilled in woodworking.

Annual report: Dale will be asked to write an overview of the work done this year by the Growth Ministry Team (see highlights above).

Welcome Center signage: The team viewed two colorful 36” x 48” signs reading, “Welcome Center,” that were created by our sixth-grade Sunday Learning Time students and agreed the students did a great job. These signs will be placed next to a table in each gathering area in conjunction with Phase I of the Connection Center.

Recruiting welcome team members: Several members have been tapped to become part of the welcome team and have accepted the call to serve; we’ll continue to extend this opportunity to members. A suggestion was made to invite these folks to form a task force to provide the framework for this future welcome team. Rich will write a “job description” for the welcome team participants. Members of the Growth Ministry Team are asked to include their thoughts on the qualities needed for this role and forward them to rich at rflamang@new.rr.com so he can compile it and present it at the next meeting on Nov. 11.

New member information form: A suggestion was made to include the question, “What did you like about FELC.” A suggestion was made to invite new members to attend future New Member Sessions and offer testimonials.

Audio clips on Web site: The team agreed that it would be effective to include audio testimonials on the Web site regarding members’ activities in various ministries and addressed the feasibility of making this happen. Perhaps this would be an ideal project for confirmation students to tackle.

Submitted by:

Jan Sommerfeld