Halloween Visioning!

Part One

We agreed that the relationship with our consultant, Bonnie, should be continued. Bonnie “set the direction” by “priming the pump” with “good questions” and did a good job of “leading without pushing” . The next time we meet with her we would like to learn more about how other churches are engaged in “Visioning,” though we do not want to “know their results.” We want our process to be authentic to our context.

Part Two

We looked for a foundational definition of “Church” in scripture.

We studied Matthew 16:15-19; Matthew 25: 31-46; Luke 9:1-6; Acts 1:6-8; Acts 2:41-47 and Acts 16:13-15.

We learned that the purpose of church is:

• To listen to God
• To offer forgiveness and reconciliation
• To lighten people’s burdens—taking care of disadvantaged people
• To look for Jesus in every day life
• To travel light
• To heal
• To share good news
• To be witnesses of the good that has happened
• To be empowered by the Holy Spirit
• To baptize and break bread
• To promote the three-legged-stool: Piety/Action/Study
• To live a common life
• To gather to pray
• To gather to listen to preaching
• To meet in homes…and where the people are

Part Three

We claimed “church growth” books from a table and explained why these books piqued our interest:

“Why Men Hate Going to Church” (Because it seems true!)

“Unlearning Church” (Because it seems like we have to do things very differently now!)

“Looking in a Mirror” (Because it helps us to know what kind of a church we are!)

“Sundays in America” (Because she visits lots of churches.)

“Church Transformation” (Because the author (Bill Kemp) came to our area recently.)

“Bowling Alone” (Because society has grown more private!)

Next Steps:

1. Doug will offer an overview of each book to see if the group is interested in reading one or two of them.

2. We will ask Stone Soup Groups to discuss visioning questions: A) What is the most important thing to you about this church? B) If God asked us to start something new, we should start with what?

3. Results of the above discussion will be shared with consultant Bonnie whom we hope will help us to synthesize the following three streams of data:

A) Our first discussion of what team members felt was most important about FUMC Hudson (see blog #1).

B) Our Part Two learning about the purpose of the church.

C) Stone Soup Group’s responses to visioning questions.

An editorial comment: The Stone Soup Groups will be finished by November 16^th, but since this is a holiday period, results may not be ready and thus a meeting may not be possible until January 2009.

Thanks for a great meeting everyone!

Doug