St. Matthew's Episcopal Church Life Together Retreat Flipchart Notes

I. Themes from World Café Session: March 2, 2008

1. fellowship
2. friendship
3. closeness
4. welcoming
5. tradition
6. life
7. family
8. community
9. home/church home
10. diversity
11. children/youth
12. liturgy/progressive liturgy
13. accepting/come as you are
14. a readiness for change
15. some sense of fear/we will change too much/ loose what we have
16. proceed with caution, don’t grow just for growth’s sake
17. we didn’t hear anything about ‘Jesus’….(just noticing that, no judgment about what that may or may not mean)

The So what of all this.

how do we keep on doing well what we are already doing/ hold on to our legacy and expand on it
tension between creating the new and nurturing the old analogy of vineyard, planting the new vineyard, pruning and cutting back that which isn’t ‘producing’ of the old vineyard

II. Themes from World Café second session (outwardly focused/serving the wider community)

1. a lot of questioning about what do we mean by ‘outwardly focused’
2. do we want to be ‘outwardly’ focused?
3. this is the mission
4. desire for focus…what is our collective response
5. a warning to be sure and balance the nurturing of the internal community while attending to the external community
6. it is important as a faith community…if we want to grow we must be externally focused (the paradox…don’t be outwardly focused in order to grow, but being outwardly focused encourages growth)
7. the motivation is not self-serving…we are called to be present to the world
8. so much of the ‘what ‘ that we are doing now is a remnant from the past…there is some sense that we are resting on our laurels
9. there is a sense that what we are doing now is ‘piecemeal’ and fragmented
10. desire for more intentionality…how do we establish stronger relationships with Texas Migrant Council, Moorehead School etc.
11. outreach in relationship with the broader community
12. a desire to be a community of discernment, to figure out together ‘what’ we should be doing
13. we don’t know enough of what currently exists within the wider community
14. desire for a systematic and systemic approach…we need to communicate about what we are currently doing…need more coordination and organization, we need a way of knowing what we have internally…what are our circles of influence that we already have within our parish community that we could leverage/maximize when needed
15. we want to be engaged in the outreach…not just writing a check
16. it seems like a lot of what we are currently doing is providing ‘facilities and space’ for other organizations

The So what of all this…
• desire to focus and make a strong impact(while not discouraging the individual projects)
• with caution/discernment
• be intentional
• we will know if we have discerned, if it is a good fit when we get strong support, people show up (if no one shows up for a project/initiative, then we know we don’t have a good fit, we didn’t engage in a collective process of discernment)
• we must discern the ‘what’, it isn’t clear yet…however there were strong themes of
  • children
  • elderly
  • feeding the hungry
• we do need to figure out ways in which we can communicate more effectively what we are already doing
• we clearly need more data

III. What is becoming clear in light of all that we are saying/noticing/discerning

1. St. Matthew's is in a relative state of growth and renewal-that was preceded by a period of decline, we seem to be in a pattern of renewal-maintenance-decline-renewal-maintenance-decline
2. as we think about expanding our capacity to reach out to the community, to invite more to come into our parish family, to provide more programs for our families, we will have to attend to the fiduciary aspects of all this, and our own internal capacity to provide what we want to do
3. we may need new models of infrastructure (committees, commissions, guilds, etc.)bcause everyone is over-extended as it is

IV. What are our next steps as a LTC (brainstorming session)

1. next training session at Indianapolis Center for Congregations (ICC) is in November, 2008
2. we need a way to go back to the congregation and share what we have learned so far, and go deeper into some of the issues that have emerged (i.e., what is meant by ‘outwardly focused’)
3. we need to report to the Vestry
4. we need to organize the community meetings (external community leaders, etc.)
5. we need to complete the history video
6. we need to raise the matching funds
7. we may want to explore having additional focus groups/creating subsets of like minded people to go deeper into some of the issues that emerged

V. Given our time and resources, what are our ‘real’ next steps?

1. organize the community meetings (June 25, 4:00-5:30) - we want to explore with civic and church leaders their understanding of under-met needs - we want to explore with civic and church leaders their capacity or willingness to collaborate in meeting the wider communities under-met/unmet needs - we want to explore with civic and church leaders their needs and vision for serving the community - a natural ‘by product’ of this meeting will be the chance to build relationships and network with other like minded community leaders
2. Meet with the Vestry/provide update (August 6 or August 7)
3. Provide parish opportunities for continuing the conversation( July 6 and August 17 after 9:30 service)
    - these gatherings will be more than just an update
    - will allow for sharing of the themes, perhaps going deeper with some of the issues/questions
    - will need to personally contact some of the members who perhaps couldn’t make the World Café events or who we know will provide insight and wisdom to encourage them to attend these sessions
    - may provide a second round of these gathering in mid August to September
   Andy will find space/location
   Esther will draft the letter of invitation
   Contact information (name ,title, organization, address, phone number, email) will be provided to Tom by June 6th and he will put into a spread sheet mail
   letter by June 9th
   June 23rd deadline for newsletter, Natalie will draft a communication based on retreat notes
   invite Vestry to attend the 6/25 Community Meeting
    - October 11, 12 Waycross Parish Retreat (perfect time to provide DVD of Vicar of Dibley)
    - Natalie will continue to work on the history video with Barb Kemp and the youth

VI. Unresolved Issues/Ideas

1. organizing a meeting with other Episcopal Churches (explore collaboration opportunities in variety of ways)
2. invite Alice Goshorn to speak to committee/representative of committee to explore how St. Thomas has supported the clinic
3. to explore with other similar sized churches to St. Matthew’s have they engaged in creative and focused outreach missions (St. David’s , etc.)
4. other meeting dates for the committee