It is time for the people of St. Stephen to plan our future.
Why? Why not just keep things the way they are?
Both are great questions.
The first, why? may best be answered by the old adage that if we don’t know where we are going, any road will get us there.
If that is not a satisfactory answer — and it may not be. I would supplement the answer by telling you that, as a leader, I am more comfortable if I know more about our collective hopes and dreams for St. Stephen. It is a knowledge that helps me develop the tools I need (and that we all need) to achieve some of those goals. I am a pastor who likes to work with clear goals in mind. I like to know where we want to be in ten years before I chart a path that might take us in a different direction
The second, why not keep things the way they are? speaks to the present but not to the future. My understanding of the history of the church is that every generation has an obligation to pass the church to the next generation. That requires us to adapt to new circumstances. Folks who have been around here a long time talk about walking to worship. We don’t do that anymore. We once provided a school for the sake of this community. We don’t do that anymore either. Some ministries don’t make sense to continue. Other ministries are begun to serve new generations.
I have been with you for nearly two years. It has been a time for me to get to know you and a time for you to get to know me.
We are at the point now where I need to know (and you should want to share with me) the direction we want to travel together as a congregation.
I don’t know the extent to which St. Stephen has done long-range planning in the past. It seems to me from 25 years of experience that there are several ways for us to chart our future. I have done each of these in different ministry settings:
- I could set a direction based upon what I have learned about our congregation and community during the past 22 months. The problem with that approach is that we would get little accomplished because the goals I set may not be the ministry goals of the congregation.
- The staff could set a direction. St. Stephen is fortunate to have a very dedicated and proficient staff working on your behalf. They could chart a future based upon their own skills and interests. It is a slightly better approach that having me determine the congregation’s future by myself. But, still, very limited in the number of members it involves.
- I could ask the committees and Council to work with me to set a direction and determine the goals that we will pursue during the coming several years. There is somewhat more ownership with this approach but it still uses only a small group of people to determine our congregation’s goals.
- We could attempt to get as many members as possible involved in conversations about our passions as a people of God and set our direction based upon those shared passions. This is the best approach of all because everyone who wants to participate has an opportunity to be involved in a meaningful conversation about our individual passions.
I thought we would be able to get this process started months ago. When I formed a Core Team (more than a year ago) it was with the intent of training a group of dedicated leaders to do interviews and build a larger team of St. Stephen members who would go out into the congregation and learn something about the passions of our members.
I think we did a pretty good job of training those Core Team members to do the interviews but I wasn’t able to take it to the next level. Honestly, we had meeting after meeting cancelled because of the number of funerals that were conducted here during 2009.
Despite that, we got very close to beginning an “inreach” campaign (that’s what we call an intensive effort to talk with as many people as we can). A number of our members agreed to attend a community-wide training event. But, my surgery got scheduled just before the training and I wasn’t able to be there to let our members know how I wanted to apply what they learned for our ministry at St. Stephen. I don’t know what happened at that training but many of those who attended decided it wasn’t something that they wanted to do.
Now, we have a second opportunity to train St. Stephen people and conduct a congregational inreach. The training is being conducted under the auspices of NAOMI. Folks will be trained to conduct what we call a one-on-one interview. I abbreviate it as 1:1.
80% of the interview is devoted to careful listening. It is probably a skill that most of us can use. 20% of the interview is making use of the skills of courage and curiosity. The courage is hard to explain in writing. The curiosity is about showing a genuine interest in the other person and wanting to know more about what he/she has been willing to share.
This interview is not about “what do you think we should do at St. Stephen?” The subject of future ministries may never come up. In fact, it is more useful if it doesn’t come up.
Instead, it is about “what do you care about?” When we design our ministries in conjunction with what people care about, then we might actually get better participation in the ministries we decide to pursue together.
For example, member X might say we need more assisting ministers. But if no one cares about being an assisting minister, setting that as a goal is just a source of huge frustration.
If, however, member Y says she has always wanted to help kids with their homework and we find that several other members share the same interest, maybe we should start thinking about starting an after-school tutoring ministry for kids in the community.
I would be ecstatic if I could find 50 people who would be willing to conduct 250 congregational interviews (5 conversations each during the next six weeks). I would be ecstatic!
This is my hope:
- 50 St. Stephen people come to be trained to conduct 1:1 interviews. The training will be held at St. Anne Roman Catholic Church on Monday, April 12 from 6:00pm until 9:00pm. I have insisted that the agenda include time for a congregational “caucus” so that St. Stephen people can apply the training to our own planning process.
- Each of the 50 trained interviewers conduct 1 interview each week for the next 5 weeks. The results of each interview will be recorded on a form that you will submit to the church office. Results of the interviews will also be used by NAOMI to determine which issues they will concentrate on during the coming year(s).
- The Core Team will collate the report sheets and try to find passions that are shared by our members.
- We will reconvene the group of 50 in late May or early June to discuss and refine what we learned from our interviews. My hope is that this group of 50 (more is ok too) will make recommendations on our congregational goals for the next 3, 5, and 10 years. Maybe, even, they will re-write our mission statement.
What Does This Have to do with NAOMI?
Everything and Nothing.
Nothing, in that these 250 interviews are conducted expressly for the purpose of defining the future and mission of St. Stephen Lutheran Church. The 1:1 interview is a tool used in congregation-based organizing that is perfect, not just for this purpose, but for the purpose of enhancing relationships within the congregation.
It has everything to do with NAOMI in that one of the primary goals of NAOMI is to strengthen its member congregations. I will write further about the ministry and goals of NAOMI in a future pastoral letter. For now, you should know that, as President of NAOMI, I am firmly committed to the tasks of strengthening all of our member congregation as well as in fostering a climate of interchurch cooperation throughout the region. I believe that the climate of competition serves none of us. But that we are all better served with a new climate of cooperation. When eight (or more) congregations can join together so that all our members can learn the same set of skills, the entire Wausau faith community is better off.
One of my assignments at the April 12 training is to explain how the skill of 1:1 interviews can help congregations at the same time that it benefits the mission of NAOMI.
Whatever your experience may have been at a previous NAOMI training, I hope that my presence and my leadership at this training will make it a qualitatively better experience.
Will You Be One of the 50?
This is one of those times when I need your participation. If you have read this far, I know that you are one who cares deeply about St. Stephen Church and is interested in the future direction of our ministry.
I have this dream that congregational planning can be done by involving almost every active member.
Making the dream into a reality depends on all of you. If you are willing to step out in faith and take a risk, I believe that our future together can be very exciting. I invite you into that future.
