TO Committee!

April 11, 2007 by
Filed under: Church New Member Process, Religion 

(well, at least To Task Force)

I met with our pastor last night about the “other idea” that he had.

It seems that he’s been reading a lot of the stuff on my blog (Hi, Jeff!) – particularly the stuff that I’m writing about new members and visitors.

He’s looking to put together a task force to study how the church is perceived by visitors, seekers, and the surrounding community.

He’s asked me to chair the task force.  There will be a small number of chosen members (as opposed to “whoever wants to show up”) and the team will work for about 18 months.  I asked for a co-chair who has been around a while and knows the church and lots of members because I’m fairly new and haven’t gotten to know all that many people.

Beyond that, the charter and membership are still up in the air.  We’ll probably get the team together in May to organize, and then take the summer for each member to do some homework (probably some books to read) and get started in earnest in the fall.

I will likely have to limit my blogging on this Task Force to what we are willing to say publicly.  I will probably do some blogging about the committee process in general, particularly successes.

One thing that I can promise – I want your help.  I will be asking questions over time about how each of you handle different issues or answer different questions in your community.  I’ve found that I have a fairly diverse audience of church-related people (and others!) and I’d like to leverage that to help.  In return, I promise that by the end of our process I will blog some useful information gained by experience – just as I have with the Reconnecting with Faith retreats.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments

5 Comments on TO Committee!

  1. Pastor Lance on Wed, 11th Apr 2007 3:39 pm

    2. Mark,
    What a great idea.

    Here are a couple of thoughts.
    1. Before critiquing how your church deals with visitors you should have your team members visit several churches in the area to find out what other churches are doing to welcome visitors.
    2. Ask some people from your circle of friends/acquaintances to visit the church and give you some feedback. You could do this before the task force/committee begins their work.

    My prayers will be with you and your team.

    Pastor Lance
    FullCourtPresby.blogspot.com

  2. Mark on Wed, 11th Apr 2007 3:47 pm

    3. Lance,

    We’ll definitely be doing #2. I already have a friend who owes me a Secret Visitor trip – I did it for the same committee at her church.

    #1 – A good point. I already have that experience through my search last year that landed me at this church. It’s probably a good idea for others on the team to do the same, and I hadn’t thought of that.

    Keep the good ideas coming!

  3. Quotidian Grace on Wed, 11th Apr 2007 3:53 pm

    4. Good luck with this! You are a great person to put in charge of this group. I’ll be very interested to hear how the process goes and whatever you are able to share.

  4. jim on Wed, 11th Apr 2007 4:46 pm

    5. Great! You never know who reads your blog do you?

    We visited a Good Friday service at a local Lutheran church, my wife is absolutely convinced the ushers only smiled at people they knew and recognized….ice cold reception toward us. They were also positioned half way down the isle so you had to walk to the middle of the sanctuary to get a bulletin…very awkward and off putting to say the least.

  5. James on Tue, 24th Apr 2007 9:49 am

    6. Mark,

    These are great ideas. I will be looking forward to hearing more.

    James

Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!