Read the Congregational Responses to the Interim Strategic Plan. These responses have been organized into natural categories and are being considered as the Strategic Planning Committee does their continued work. The Committee plans to present their finished work to the congregation in March.

The November 2007 Congregational Responses from the Interim Report of the Strategic Planning Task Force

1. Worship

Suggestions for morning services:

• Move services to 9am and 11am with education concurrent (9:30am)?
• Encourage Art and Dance by wider circles of people
• Reduce length of service – more child friendly
• Have children more involved in worship service
• Change liturgy less frequently
• Change music less often
• Do not lower standards of language and liturgy
• Our worship is special, unique – don’t dumb-down
• Involve small groups or Households in worship planning
• Making materials more visible and accessible for visitors: racks on chair backs, overhead electronic projection.
• COS has a reputation for being innovative, but now seems to be adverse to change.
• Develop more connections between worship and outreach
• Maintain our identity while remaining open minded as we grow

Suggestions for evening services:

• Reclaim evening worship or eliminate it
• Education on Sunday night
• Change Sunday evening to Household time?
• Replace Evening Service with Education hour

Suggestions for a new service:

• Start a third service – new style: acoustic folk? Full support of congregation
• COS needs to rejuvenate – start a daughter church in 5 years
• We used to have Household worship 4 times a year
• Can we make a strong, serious sustained effort at a Saturday night service?

Suggestions for administration:

• Develop a job description for the worship committee that would provide guidance in the decision making process and delegation of authority

2. Social Analysis – Who are we? How to minister to subsets?

• Ask what we can offer to each group
• Address the post-high school leaving of church – 80%?
• Relate to churches like us (Woodlawn, etc.)
• Identify our groups in new way: Social and Spiritual
• Find out who belongs – charter, older, children in Christian school, etc
• Why do people leave COS? Move elsewhere, join another church, quit church, etc?
• What is the optimal size of the congregation: How big do we desire to be?
• Require all council members to attend an Understanding Racism worship
• Enrich our relationship with Coit Community Church
• Acknowledge we are a racist institution and commit to combating racism

3. Outreach: Missionaries, Evangelism

• Where is social justice in our organization?
• Deacons should help people identify a ministry for their involvement
• Expand outreach to encourage personal growth
• Where is evangelism? On the chart?
• Maximize our partnerships with missionaries
• Is our outreach from an antiracism perspective? Are we a church community eager to learn?

4. Spiritual Development

• We should grow “deeper” first, rather than think of numerical growth
• Make COS a “space for the broken” – safe
• Create a permanent room for prayer/spiritual
• Read “Bible in a year”
• Have an altar call now and then
• Teach us how to simplify our lives
• Council Members need boldness in asking about spiritual growth
• Focus on mutual support, promote mercy and justice – spiritual growth
• Where is spiritual growth on the chart?
• Create prayer hotline for members and missionaries
• COS has become established. Do we like that identity?
• How do we continue to become more international and diverse but also continue to embrace an ancient liturgy?
• Be intentional about becoming more reflective (as compared to “busy”)
• Keep the Prayer Guide
• Recognize that a necessary part of our faith formation is the understanding the impact racism has on us individually and institutionally

5. Education

a) Adult

• Develop focused adult education
• We need some help for those who know Scriptures less well
• We need more “skeptic Sundays”
• Use different venues for adult education
• Move adult education to Wednesday
• Use testimonies to promote adult education
• Council members should attend adult education
• We need to sell adult education
• Get current adult education attendees to invite others
• We need to renew the “ministry fair” / booths
• Have an adult education on hospitality
• COS needs to work harder at ‘in-reach’ as well as outreach. Set goals for personal and congregational growth.
• We need to work harder at helping both children and adults grow in faith – esp. teen years.
• We need more practical application, practicality to teaching and preaching. We are weak in putting it to work in our lives.
• Parents need to become role models for importance of education
• Encourage each ministry area to develop an integrated philosophy and strategy to address antiracism in all programs

• Education time on Sunday nights?
• Offer more variety of topics for adult education
• Suggestions for topics: how to reduce our busy lives; how to ‘awaken’ our need for God in our lives; testimonies…..
• Need more publicity for adult education programs
• Use adult education time to start addressing COS’ weaknesses through discussion and brainstorming sessions.
• There has been a general relaxation of the formerly high standards of worship and adult education.
• Dialogue with Jews and Muslims in GR

b) Youth

• Focus youth on outreach
• Use interconnected (intergenerational) age groups for youth ministry
• Catechism must be part of youth training.
• Doctrines and characteristics of the CRC need to be taught to the youth
• Need to increase involvement of young people who do not take advantage of what is already available.
• Develop curriculum and other means of learning on antiracism issues

• Continue to develop a spiritual aspect for Cadets and Girls’ Clubs.
• Why are only grades 3 to 6 involved?
• Maintain a strong kids’ program – more references for children of all ages in the sermons.
• There is a lack of children’s involvement in the worship services – sends a message that worship is for adults.
• The length of our services is not child-friendly – 80 minutes is too long.
• Are our young people getting the Reformed grounding they need to sustain them once they get beyond high school? Reports say that 80% of them are no longer involved in their churches a year after high school graduation.

c) General

• Create opportunities that do not overtax volunteers – allow them to serve shorter times.
• Make the educational times shorter.
• We should try to focus on a theme and not try to focus on everything.
• Evening worship needs to be ‘re-claimed’ or eliminated.
• We need more opportunities for intergenerational education and spiritual formation.
• The current model of church education between the services puts it in competition with fellowship on Sunday mornings. Can we re-think a way of doing both?

6. Hospitality

• Integrate refugees more fully into the congregation
• Make every effort to involve new members in worship, committees, households, life of the church
• Assign a sponsor to a new member
• “Dinners for 7” helped us reach across our ‘natural’ boundaries in COS
• Have an adult education on hospitality
• Use survey card for visitors
• Show hospitality for singles, non-Dutch (a big problem)
• Get more people involved as greeters
• Put greeters at end of services too and during announcements
• We need to focus on “rich fellowship among members,” now that we are a large congregation
• Invite visitors to dinner
• We disconnect our outreach activities from the recruiting of members. We reach out to disadvantaged people, but tend to attract affluent people like us as members.
• Calling for more nursery helpers on a Sunday morning sends a bad signal to visitors.
• COS has too few people with gifts of hospitality, service and administration.

• Many feel that COS is not hospitable, but there are some members who like being given their space.
• Can’t people just make eye contact and say “Good morning”? People seem to be so busy, or important, or shy, that they can’t even say “Hello”! And at potlucks, speak to the strangers among us, not just people you know. Help people feel welcome and connected.

7. Pastoral Care (Parishes / Households)

• Parishes do not work as well as households for pastoral care
• Identify members skilled at pastoral care (team of ‘pastors’)
• Encourage households and small groups to nominate council members
• Households should be a vehicle for communication – prayer chain to spread the word / news
• Assign elders to households
• Re-think congregational life
• Households do not deliver pastoral care
• Rotate committee membership to encourage new ideas
• Connect households for annual meetings (2 x 2)
• Figure out who cares for refugees – elders or ??
• Households offer more intimacy than parishes
• Households and parishes overlap and there is confusion. Either forget geography or be entirely geographic.
• Connect parishes together
• Clarify relation and duties of parishes and households – if we keep both
• Rotate households – some are willing to change
• Use clipboards with info regarding those in need (e.g. homebound, ill, etc.)
• Worship is why people come to COS in the beginning but engaging them in ministry is the challenge
• Develop an annual opportunity to enter/exit/change households
• We need a better system for pastoring/caring. Explore options i.e. Stephens’ Ministry
• Keep new member class together longer so that assimilation is stronger.

• Concerns raised regarding the pastoral work of elders
  • role of elders seems to have narrowed from oversight of church to pastoral care
  • frustrations with the scope and size of pastoral care duties
  • elders don’t feel well-prepared for work of pastoral care
• Jack should give reports to elders on his pastoral visits
• Elders need to focus on their parishes.
• There needs to be increased support and visibility given to household structures, which are designed to connect members in a large church.
• Some people do not want to be part of a household.
• Should the Sunday evening worship service be changed to the official time for households to meet?
• Elders need to get to know people, so that it is easier to ask where they are spiritually
• How can council members promote spiritual growth?
• There is unevenness in the number of visits parish elders make to the people in their parishes. Some do it once a year; others do it once every two years; some make no visits at all.
• Concern about the intense racial outreach and the meager cultural/ethnic outreach. While anti-racism is part of congregational life, how large a part should it play? Is pastoral care and the health of community life suffering?
• Combine households for some meetings.
• Friendships can also be formed though serving on a committee or doing other church work.
• So many people are connected to Calvin that some folks feel like outsiders.
• Pastoral care is the responsibility of elders and ministers.
• Minister of Congregational life has a blurry job description.
• Have a Hospitality Committee and congregational training about how to be hospitable to visitors.
• People should be invited / assigned to do specific things.
• Focus on building community – re-evaluate how existing mechanisms are working (households, parishes, and Wed. nights).
• There seems to be a lack of felt community.
• Can elders receive training in pastoral care from some of the resources in GR, like Pine Rest Congregational Resources?
• Restore the role of congregational / staff oversight to the elders of COS.
• Evaluate the delivery of pastoral care in the congregation. Explore ways for the pastors to share their expertise and training: 1) with the elders to strengthen the delivery of pastoral care at the parish level 2) to provide households with the skills and tools to become spiritual homes for their members.
• Some people feel that despite a church staff with profound gifts, they themselves “don’t have a pastor”.

8. Communication :

Thoughts and reactions to the perceived existing situation in regard to communication within COS:

• The interim report outlined two types of communication challenges: communication between and among congregational leaders (staff, council, committees, etc.) and communication between congregational leaders and the rest of the congregations.

• The evidence for the congregation’s belief that communication in COS is in need of improvement comes more from the many suggestions for improving communication that were made than by a large number of complaints about poor communication. Communication was not specifically identified as a strength or weakness by either our earlier SWOT analysis or our congregational survey. However, some factors identified as weaknesses, such as perceived weaknesses in congregational life and in congregational leadership, can be interpreted to indicate weaknesses in communicating to the congregation what all is going on rather than actual weaknesses in congregational life and leadership. One small group wonders if the proliferation of programs and activities is the main problem and not just the communication about the programs and activities. [NOTE: An observation: It is important that when concerns are expressed concerning the congregational life or the church’s decision-making process that we not assume that in fact all is fine and it is merely a matter of people not understanding all that is going on or how our decisions are reached. That may or may not be the case.]

• All the comments on communication that were found, except one, dealt with communication between congregational leaders and the rest of the congregation, not between and among congregational leaders. The exception was concerned about communication/transparency within council, committees and church staff.

Suggestions for how to improve communication within COS:

• Almost all of the suggestions for improving communication fell into one of two categories:

• One was to make more and better use of electronic means of communication. Use of more emails on both the congregation-wide and parish levels was suggested, as was a weekly newsletter to be posted on the church’s website or sent via email. The use of blogs for two-way communication and the sharing of ideas and reactions is another possibility that was suggested. A recorded phone line could give information on prayer requests and updates on prayer requests from the previous Sunday. Also reactions and comments could from time to time -be solicited on specific topics. Further development of the church’s website was encouraged by multiple people.

• Many suggestions for improving communication also fell into the category of making more and better use of more traditional means of communication. Some suggested a regular newsletter; others suggested more attractive and user-friendly bulletins, with pictures, headlines, and other attention-catching devices. Distributing council minutes was suggested. Some also suggested more use of the welcome table and the back area of the sanctuary or café area to put up pictures of elders and deacons, identify key committees, and highlight up coming events and activities, such as up-coming as education classes (adult, youth, and children). A few suggested that revitalized households could become part of a communication network. Work to make elders conduits of information for their parishes (parish email lists would help here). Publicize church community resources better.

• In addition to these suggestions a few persons suggested checking communication systems in other churches (perhaps especially some of the large churches in our area) to obtain ideas.

• One other suggestion was to create an “owners manual” for new members (and, perhaps old members as well) that will describe how the church is organized, who’s who, and how one can best become a fully participating member in the on-going activities and decision-making processes of the church.

9. Administrative Processes

Thoughts and reactions to the perceived existing situation in regard to administrative and decision-making processes of COS:

• Most of the concerns expressed in regard to administrative and decision-making processes revolved around Administrative Committee elders and their respective roles. Several expressed the idea that elders should have a larger role in decision-making and staff oversight and Administrative Committee a lesser role.

• Some concerns relate to supervision of staff members.

• Some also felt that job descriptions for staff and volunteers were not sufficiently clear or detailed.

• Miscellaneous concerns included COS becoming overly rigid and adverse to change, COS trying to pursue too many ministries all at once, and households no longer having a decision-making/decision-input role they once did. One group wondered about who actually runs this curious administrative structure from day to day?

Suggestions for how to improve the administrative and decision-making processes of COS:

• Corresponding to the first concern, a number of suggestions involved giving more responsibilities to the elders and fewer to the Administrative Committee. Administrative Committee would then become largely—or even totally—an administrative, not a decision-making body. (Which, we assume, would mean an equal reduction in the elders’ pastoral responsibilities.)

• Some suggested that more precise job descriptions for staff and volunteers be developed, that strategic priorities be given to each staff member. Some suggested that accountability by the staff to Council is weak because staff manages everyday affairs, even the council agenda. Accountability is critical to staff morale and retention.

• Another suggestion was to rotate membership of committees, with persons encouraged or required to step down from a committee for a year or two after having served on it for a certain number of years.

• There were also a number of specific suggestions that were made only once or twice: cutting down on the number of our ministries, making sure each program is accountable to someone, hiring a church administrator, and clarifying that committee meetings are open (this might more appropriately be placed under the communication heading), seeing supervision by the Council as problematic.

• Another suggestion (and one that does not really fit here) is that we now begin planning for our transition for when Jack retires.

Submitted by Janice McWhertor

December 31, 2007