Church Growth and Discipleship Minutes - March 26

Parish Thoughts on Church Growth and Discipleship

Sunday, March 26, 2006
Bob Stephan, Nancy McSorley, Diana Smith and Pat Donovan

St. Mark’s is a large program church where people have a sense of belonging and receive support from small group ministries. How can we deepen our culture to increase the number of stakeholders that will lead to natural growth? Parishioner comments can be grouped under a few main categories:

We need to change our attitude:

In a big church many find it hard to get traction when they join. As a parish we need to be more welcoming and recognize that many people just need an invitation to test the waters. The onus falls on each parishioner to become a disciple of Christ and an ambassador of St. Mark’s to both the community and each other.

Our joy of being here should be apparent to others we meet and infectious in spreading that feeling within the parish community and beyond.
Our church needs a new reputation in the community of being open, dynamic and welcoming. This is created by a general sense of happiness and great preaching.
We need to change our attitude from talking about the negatives to talking about the positives and expect the best of each other and not the worst.
People need to use Christ’s model and become a disciple to spread the Good News.
Our mission is not only to the community, but to those who are on the fringes in our own parish…they need to be invited to become stakeholders as well
Greet members when you see them outside of the parish.
Look for someone you have never met before and extend an invitation to join in.
Personal contact is the key. Many people are not self starters and need to be invited.
Do we welcome or discourage parishioners wishing to join our small groups? Are there unspoken barriers to entry?
Invite a person who has left St. Mark’s to come back and give us a try.

Are we comfortable and happy enough about our church to invite an outsider in and feel good about it?
You need not invite a person to participate in worship…invite them to one of the other outreach activities that are not religious…yoga, music, etc.
If each parishioner made two phone calls a year to invite a new person to an event that could increase membership dramatically.

We need a formal way to incorporate newcomers and follow up:

We have dropped the ball when it comes to follow up with new parishioners. Self starters do well here and eventually get traction, but many fall by the wayside. We need a way to get them involved while being sensitive to their willingness to join in.

We need to catch newcomers the first time they come here.
Give the lay heads of the small groups the names of newcomers and some background information, so that they can solicit newcomers to join in.
Publicize the names of newcomers on the website, bulletin or Lion’s Roar so that we can reach out to them at worship and during the week.
We should use the realtors to solicit newcomers through mailings.
Should we have newcomers stand in church and be recognized?
Can everyone name a newcomer?
Newcomers should have a personal visit at their home by a parishioner to welcome them and introduce them to the programs of the church.
The list of small groups, with leader contact information should be available to everyone to make it easier to introduce newcomers to groups they may have an interest in.

Marketing and Publicity:

We do a poor job advertising all that is happening at St. Mark’s. We do not appear regularly in the paper. There is no full time publicity person. Publicity is a volunteer position that is supported by Rhonda Morrill.

We need to let the community know what we are doing.
We can help publicity by having the small groups send in a piece 2x a year with a picture to Eloise for the paper.
Each parishioner should be a personal ambassador to the community to create buzz and awareness of what we are doing.
We need a full time staff position for marketing/publicity/communications.
We should have a formal marketing program that spreads a consistent message of how we want to be identified in the community.

Suggested follow up:

Should we host a meeting of the lay leadership of the small groups at the end of the program year to further brainstorm about increasing communication, incorporating newcomers, identifying and mentoring new leaders, upcoming ministry fair, publicity and other issues? This would take place early June. Should we do the same or something similar at the beginning of the program year?