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St. Matthew's Lutheran Church Winter
 

St. Matthew's Vision Team

Vision Team Progress Report:
May 10, 2005

The Vision Team has had two meetings since the last update: Saturday, April 16th, 2005, and Saturday, April 30th, 2005 – the latter was a consultation with Rick of Church Planning Resources. We’ve been concerned with the lack of interest and participation the congregation has taken with the Visioning process, and so these two meetings were used mainly to discuss ways to integrate the congregation more deeply in the process.

April 16th meeting:

1. We will do a series of 5 “Vision Team” newsletters, with articles relating to the Visioning Process, an interview with a vision team member (complete with a contest), an article on the website, and an article on a core value in each one. The first of these newsletters will go out this Friday.
 
2. We plan on doing a series of about six “Cottage Meetings” (day and evening) that will be promoted not only as “learn more about the Vision Team and share your ideas for the future of the church” but also as meet the pastor. Pastor Gordon has committed to attending each of these to better get to know the members. We will offer the Spiritual Gifts inventory to those attending.
 
3. These will be held over the summer, and will culminate in August with a Game Day/Barbeque that we’ll use as a bridge event for the stewardship drive and small group opportunities.
 
4. We discussed inviting Rick and Bonnie to address the congregation again.
 
5. We began working on a new Mission Statement for St. Matthew’s. We will continue this at our next meeting.
 

April 30th meeting:

1. Rick talked to us about bringing in the second tier of leaders for the Vision Team – he encouraged us to think of who we felt would be good and each make one contact (on a one-on-one basis).
 
2. He encouraged us to “raise the bar” with newcomers and people who are close to us individually – expect them to be intentional with their giving, both of time and financial support.
 
3. Rick also reminded us to follow through on the Spiritual gifts inventories – do a one-on-one interview process and share with each member what the ministries of the church are and how we can connect their gifts with those ministries. This supports the idea of not leading with the “we needs” (what the church needs) but helping people use their gifts most effectively to help not only the church but fulfill their needs as well.
 
4. Rick gave us an assignment to list our own “key passages” – Bible verses that motivate us and get us through.
 
5. We also planned the next newsletter at this meeting.
   

Our next individual meeting is tomorrow evening at 7:00 p.m., at which we’ll continue the brainstorming on the Mission statement and review our “key passage” lists. Our next (and final) joint meeting with Zion’s is Saturday, June 11th, at 9:30 a.m. at Zion’s.

Vision Team Update!

Your St. Matthew’s Vision Team has been meet a couple of times in March reviewing our last meeting with CPR (Church Planning Resources). We will be meeting with CPR and Zion Lutheran Church on our next meeting Apr. 2nd. The next topic will be Equip. This will be teaching us to use our small groups effectively. Small groups are not just 1 person, to be considered a small group there must be at least 5 people, so get ready to sign up!

We have started a couple of projects all ready, which we hope to be able to hand over to groups once the training is complete. We have implemented visitor welcome gifts, children’s activity bags, “business” cards - to hand out to newcomers with church contacts, usher and greeter badges have been ordered, a reserved seating cloth for ushers is being sown, our database for attendance and other useful info is being set up, and our quiz on the Core Value posters/words was given on Palm Sunday.

Just a heads up, Pastor would like announcements to be moved to 5-10 min before the scheduled service time. This way everyone can reflect and prepare themselves for worship in the quiet of the Prelude music. Also if your announcement is printed in the bulletin, you don’t have to get up in front of the congregation! Have your announcements handed into the office by Tuesday to have them printed up. Thanks!

Rejoicing with you in Christ’s Resurrection this Easter,

St. Matthew’s Vision Team

 

Greetings from the Vision Team!

February brings us more exciting things for St. Matthew’s! Your vision team met recently with CPR’s Rick and Bonnie Ehrheart for our 3rd workshop. This workshop focused on connecting people to God and to each other. We were given an individual “Nurturing Quotient” quiz to answer for St. Matthew’s.

At this workshop we also learned that people worship in many different ways, but there are 4 main spirituality types. A healthy church offers each of these 4 spirituality types a way to grow in their relationship to God. The spiritual types are; Heart, Mystic, Social Justice, and Intellectual. Examples of these could be, mentors for newcomers, a prayer/meditation group, a group that is involved with the homeless, or an in-depth bible study. These would provide people the choice and option to try different ways of worship, and yet be a part of the same congregation.

Even though there might be 4 different ways of worshipping, a church still needs to have a specific vision for itself, to define God’s purpose for St. Matthew’s. This is why you are seeing posters in the narthex with a different core value word every Sunday this Lenten journey. We as a vision team have come up with these values to define St. Matthew’s. Ask yourself, does this word help to define the spiritual DNA of St. Matthew’s? Do I agree? What word or phrase might be better? How does this word make me feel? We strongly urge everyone for your feedback on these words, via the newsprint paper, suggestion box or even on this website. We will be using the feedback in the future to define our vision statement, so all is welcome.

Pastor has announced that New Member classes will begin Sunday Feb. 27 at 1:00. If you know someone who has questions about Lutherans have them come! (Even if that person should be you!) We recommend that you also try the new Sunday school classes that Pastor teaches. They must be good, the class has grown so much that it has moved from the Adult Sunday school room to the Fellowship hall! And as you grow in your faith, bring your children to do the same at children’s Sunday school, both children and adult classes are at 9:45am.

As promised, we will be having a recurrent Greeter/Usher training between services Feb. 27, in the Adult Sunday school room. Anyone is welcome to attend. For those who are interested and have questions, please see either Mike Ware or Karla Stoker, or leave a message at church.

One last note, during our Lenten soup suppers (6:00pm Weds) we are going to be handing out “Welcoming Quotient” quizzes to anyone interested in filling one out. The vision team did these quizzes and we are now looking to see how others view St. Matthew’s welcoming tactics, so that we can adjust accordingly to improve these areas.

Please feel free to ask us any questions, and we look forward to your participation in God’s vision for St. Matthew’s.

Growing with you in God’s Grace,

The vision team.

March 13, 2005

"BELONGING"

A welcoming environment of acceptance
and nurturing where all are empowered to
share their talents and gifts to foster
growth in our relationship with God and
others.

Being part of a group that
makes a difference.

The LORD has brought you safely here.
Come home with me. There is no need
for you to keep standing on the outside.

-Genesis 24:31


"TRUST"

Depend on God
for everything.

Trust in the Lord with all your
heart and lean not on your own
understanding: in all your ways
acknowledge him, and he will make
your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Feb. 27, 2005

"Teamwork"

To Achieve God’s Purpose We
Will Work Together In Unity.

May the God who gives endurance and
encouragement give you a spirit of unity
among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus,
so that with one heart and mouth you may
glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ.

Romans 15:5-6

Feb. 20, 2005

"Communication"

Connecting members and community by
sharing God’s message, through various
means of media, to teach and to invite
participation in our church.

Matthew 18:20

Feb. 13, 2005

What Do You Think?
These posters are here to have the congregation of St. Matthew’s consider
the core values of what we believe is St. Matthew’s.
We from the vision team have come up with 5 different values that we
feel defines our “Spiritual DNA” (What it means to belong to St. Matthew’s).
These values in turn will then be used to help give St. Matthew’s a purpose
driven mission for God, our vision statement. These core values should be the
key to every activity that St. Matthew’s does.
We will have a poster each week of these 5 different values and invite all to
take a moment to reflect on the word that we have chosen.
We are asking for feedback on what you think on the value, do you agree, not
agree, think there is a better word or wording. We need your input so that we
can successfully write our vision statement for St. Matthew’s, and we want
one that feels like our congregation. Don’t you?

Thank You!
The Vision Team
Send your thoughts to the Vision Team

Hello from the Vision Team!

As you may or may not know, St. Matthew’s has a Vision Team
currently going through a course taught by Rick and Bonnie Ehrheart of
Church Planning Resources. We try to meet once a month, and share the
meeting with Zion Lutheran Church. Each church works on their own
individual needs, but we do like the interaction and ideas from others. Our
next meeting with the Ehrhearts is Feb 12th.

Some common questions about the Vision Team can be answered.

What is the Vision Team?

We are members of St. Matthew’s who have volunteered to help St.
Matthews be the best it can be. We work on ideas and input for changes
(yikes did I say that word!) that will keep our eyes on the future of St.
Matthew‘s. We make recommendations to council or other areas of church
i.e. Sunday School, to review a new way of doing things or possibly a new
project. We won’t be knocking down walls or completely change Sunday
service, but you may find a small nudge here and there. You can
always come to us if you should have questions.

Who is on the Vision Team?

There are 9 members of the team; Janis Finlinson, Margaret Galgerud,
Brian and Ronda Schuster, Mike and Karla Stoker, Mike and Kate Ware,
Rochelle Windley.

We are all volunteers, there are no paid positions. Feel free to ask us
questions.

Have there been any changes attributed to the Vision Team?

While for the most part the Vision Team will be working behind the
scenes, you may have encountered some minor changes already. Currently
we are working on welcoming techniques. To date we’ve updated the
answering machine to include the web site and detailed directions and
information about St. Matthew’s, included a warm welcome to our bulletin
for newcomers, strived to have “exit” greeters at the end of service to
invite everyone to fellowship, and send out evaluation questionnaires to
guests. In the near future we will be having recurrent training for ushers
and greeters, update for the information kiosk, and possible modifications
to our bulletin.

We encourage all to participate in making St. Matthew's a welcoming
church. Every smile counts!

Look for more updates and information on how to participate in the near future!