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MINISTRY PLAN of FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH APPLETON, WISCONSIN 2009-2012
As a people called United Methodists, we covenant with God and one another to support the church through our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. Enlightened by our vision and committed to our mission, we will live faithfully within this covenant community as we faithfully fulfill our membership covenant. PRAYER Goal: To deepen the spiritual life of the congregation through the discipline of prayer. PRESENCE Goal: To increase the presence of people in worship and small groups; remove obstacles from experiencing the presence of God in worship and small groups; and making our presence more known in this community.
GIFTS Goal: To broaden the base of financial support for the church’s ministry and to identify and employ one’s spiritual gifts according to one’s servant profile.
SERVICE Goal: Increase the percentage of membership involved in service in the church and community.
WITNESS Goal: Enable membership to articulate our faith and challenge us to extend our witness beyond the walls of the church.
2009-2012 MINISTRY PLAN of FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH APPLETON, WISCONSIN MISSION: “The Mission of First United Methodist Church of Appleton, Wisconsin Is To Make Disciples of Jesus Christ” VISION: REACH an increasing number of persons, transforming their lives in a community nurtured by God’s grace. ENABLE persons to grow in spiritual depth MOTIVATE persons to witness in word and deed through faith sharing, mission, justice ministries, giving, and service to the local community and beyond MINISTRY PLAN As a people called United Methodist, we covenant with God and one another to support the church through our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. Enlightened by our vision and committed to our mission, we will live faithfully within this covenant community as we faithfully fulfill our membership covenant.
As disciples of Jesus Christ, we commit ourselves to move from Good to Great in these five areas of our covenant:
PRAYERS. Prayer is at the core of our spiritual lives. In all areas of our church life, how can we become more a people of prayer? PRESENCE. How will we increase our numbers in worship, small groups, adult classes, mission teams, LOGOS, Sunday school, youth groups, choirs, and fellowship? How can we improve our experience of God’s presence in worship? How can we strengthen the awareness of our presence in the community and beyond? GIFTS. Gifts represent both our monetary support of the church’s ministries--- as well as the spiritual gifts God has given us to empower ministry. How will we improve our financial stewardship? How will we identify and release the spiritual gifts God has given to us as a people of faith? SERVICE. All members of the church are called to serve. How will we increase the percentage of members involved in some area of service in the church or community? WITNESS. The Great Commission instructs us to “go make disciples.” This call is for every Christian. How will we encourage and empower the membership to articulate their faith in word and embody it in deed on a daily basis?
PRAYER 2009 1. What/Who/When Use ACTS model for all communal gatherings. Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. In order to help people learn to pray, we will teach this model and use it to help structure our corporate prayers at gatherings as well as in worship. Posters for model will be made for classrooms and gathering spaces. All leaders of teams, pastors and staff, will use this model when leading prayers at church gatherings. Staff will work together on creating the posters and having them printed for classrooms. Begin February, 2009 and use for duration of year.
2. What/Who/When All meetings begin and end with prayer. We will encourage the use of the ACTS model. Chairpersons and facilitators of teams and gatherings. Begin February, 2009. 3. What/Who/When Promote and create space for prayer prior to Sunday worship. Chapel can serve as prayer room most Sundays, offering setting, meditative music, and prayer list from email prayer list. Pastor Grace will create the list and have them available in chapel. Need someone to arrange music/candles/ambiance for room. Again, we will encourage the use of following the ACTS guide of prayer. Begin second quarter of 2009 2010 1. What/Who/When Use Finger Prayer Model. The five fingers represent praise, forgiveness, petition, question, and peace. We begin by praising God for who God is; we then confess our sins of commission and omission and ask for God’s forgiveness; then petition God for the needs of others and our own; honestly offer God the questions of our soul; and then we pray for peace in our world. Posters for model will be made for classrooms and gathering spaces. All leaders of teams, pastors and staff, will use this model when leading prayers at church gatherings. Staff will work together on creating the posters and having them printed for classrooms. Begin January, 2010 and use for duration of year.
2. What/Who/When Offer classes/workshops to introduce various ways to pray. These are to include: beads, labyrinth, memorization, journaling, medication, silent retreat, ancient prayers, centering prayers. These will be led by different people and created to address differing age levels. We hope to offer some of this information on our web-site. 3. What/Who/When Create a collection of prayers for personal prayer time as well as prayers for memorization. This will include prayers such as The Lord’s Prayer, the Serenity Prayer, and the Prayer of St. Francis among others. This will be created with different age levels in mind. All staff and laity will be invited to participate in the collection. The collection can begin in 2010 and expand into the following two years. What/Who/When Continue 2 and 3 from 2009.
2011 1. What/Who/When Use WEEK Prayer Model. Sunday: Pray for the local church, pastors, staff, ministries and needs; Monday: Pray for local community; Tuesday: Pray for the pressing needs and concerns of our nation and world; Wednesday: Pray for your family; Thursday: Pray for the poor and the needy; Friday: Pray for the sick; Saturday: Pray for extended family and neighbors. Posters for model will be made for classrooms and gathering spaces. All leaders of teams, pastors and staff, will use this model when leading prayers at church gatherings. Staff will work together on creating the posters and having them printed for classrooms. Begin January, 2011 and use for duration of year. What/Who/When Continue 2-3 from 2009. Continue 2 from 2010. 2012 1. What/Who/When Use a blend of three prayer models we have learned. Posters for model will be made for classrooms and gathering spaces. All leaders of teams, pastors and staff, will use these models when leading prayers at church gatherings. Staff will work together on creating the posters and having them printed for classrooms. Begin January, 2012 and use for duration of year. What/Who/When Continue using 2-3 from 2009 and 2 from 2010. PRESENCE 2009 1. What/Who/When Explore use of radio advertising on local stations. Work with Igniting Ministries on ads to raise awareness of our presence in this community. 2. What/Who/When Explore cost of direct mail to certain zip-codes and neighborhood blitz with door-hangings. 3. What/Who/When Explore means of advertising on the web. 4. What/Who/When Target Lawrence students with move-in helping hands and food. We will build a team this summer and be present on move-in weekend fall of this year. 5. What/Who/When Create a “Missing Persons Team” to make contact with persons who have been actively attending and then whose attendance patterns change. A coordinator has been secured and a team is forming to coordinate monthly contacts with people. Records will be kept and reports made to pastors and others who will do the necessary follow-up. We will launch this ministry before Easter. 6. What/Who/When Create a worship survey to ascertain obstacles that prevent worshippers from experiencing the presence of God during our worship times. Our goal is to remove as many obstacles as possible. The challenge here will be the separation of preferences from obstacles. 7. What/Who/When Explore the content of the 10:30 worship service in light of ways to help all age levels feel more connected to God in the worship experience. We will explore video, personal stories, music, and movement. We hope to implement some of these changes by fall of 2009. 2010 1. What/Who/When Implement use of radio advertising to promote awareness of church in community, use of Web, as well s direct mail. 2. What/Who/When Provide services that meet specific needs in the community, for example, a car-care clinic for single moms. Providers of such clinic will need to be recruited. 3. What/Who/When Provide the hospitality of a cool bottle of water to persons who are using the park. This may be done by members of our youth group and others, on Saturdays during the hot summer months. 4. What/Who/When Continue doing 4-7 from 2009 2011 1. What/Who/When Evaluate advertising; adjust plans as needed, and more forward. 2. What/Who/When Continue doing items 4-7 from 2009 2012 1. What/Who/When Continue all from 2011 SERVICE
2009 1. What/Who/When Continue doing our Mission Blitz twice per year. This is hosted by our Missions Team and will continue to offer opportunities for all members to be involved in mission in our local community.
2. What/Who/When The VIM team will do an annual mission trip, with hopes to expand this to more than one per year. Needs around the country will dictate the locations of these service opportunities. Efforts will be made to continue to expand the make up of the VIM teams.
3. What/Who/When We will link with organizations in the community who share the Good News and serve the poor and disadvantaged of the fox valley. We will invite them to visit our worship services to briefly tell their story and then follow up with a display in fellowship hall for the purposes of information dissemination and recruitment of persons who wish to get involved. We will both seek and receive requests and coordinate the presentations through the Missions Team, not to exceed one presentation per month on the 2nd or 3rd weekends. Efforts will be made for the presenters to speak to all three of our worship services. This will begin after Easter.
4. What/Who/When Through all the above and through specific efforts at Sunday school, LOGOS, and youth group, we will seek to involve children and youth in all aspects of mission and outreach. All who work with children will seek to find a way for children and youth to participate in this fundamental of their faith.
2010 1. What/Who/When Continue all from 2009 2011 1. What/Who/When Evaluate and alter and continue with all that is being effective. 2012 1. What/Who/When Evaluate and alter, continuing with all that is being effective. WITNESS 2009 1. What/Who/When We will employ a variety of means to teach people how to articulate their faith. As United Methodists we are quite adept at witnessing in deed, but are a bit challenged when it comes to articulating our faith. We seem to know approaches that are not appealing but have difficulty identifying ways that allow us to share our faith story. We will attempt to address this in a variety of ways: Offer book studies on the topic, using the classroom as well as the web. Sermon series will be shared based on courses taught in this arena, giving broader exposure to the congregation as a whole. Opportunities will be given to share our faith as well as hearing others share theirs so as to enhance our ability to articulate our own faith. We will use lay speakers as a part of our Lenten series and from time to time will use lay speakers for worship. Other opportunities will be explored. 2. What/Who/When Create community events that will engage the entire membership (and possibly participate with other faith communities) to provide visibility to the community our desire to serve the needs of our community and beyond. Explore what we have done in the past and what might be needed for the future. 2010 1. What/Who/When Explore hosting a Bible study for the Emergency Shelter or one of the other outreach ministries in our community. Also, explore how this may be done for the county jail. 2. What/Who/When Continue efforts from 2009 2011 1. What/Who/When Create a speaker’s bureau from our church to offer ourselves to community groups. What/Who/When Evaluate and continue effective efforts of 2010 2012 1. What/Who/When Work with district on participating in Community Change Circles. This effort is supported by our District Superintendent; need to explore ways we may participate. 2. What/Who/When Continue to employ efforts from 2011 that are being effective. GIFTS 2009 1. What/Who/When Offer NETWORK TRAINING which provides training on identifying one’s Spiritual Gifts, Passion, and Personal Style. This helps create accurate servant profiles for members of the church so persons can find the place where they will be most fruitful and fulfilled in their ministry area. Once this is done, we will then reformat our job descriptions to speak the same language of this discovery process. Doyle will first do training for the staff after Easter and then train the Lay Leadership team in early fall of this year. We also need to develop a version of this to offer to our children and develop “heart awards” to celebrate their use of their gifts. 2. What/Who/When Offer clear communication regarding church funds to entire congregation. This will be assigned to the Finance Committee and Endowment Committee for their review and implementation. This is to begin by end of first quarter. We then will evaluate whether we are meeting our goal. 3. What/Who/When Advertise in-kind contributions from membership. This will be assigned to the Board of Trustees for implementation. This is to begin by mid-year. 4. What/Who/When Teach about tithing through sermons, articles, and possible classes. 2010 1. What/Who/When NETWORK TRAINING will be offered to all chairpersons and leaders of church teams. This will include the Church Council members. Those trained will be invited to offer the course at a variety of times to the members of their teams and others of the church membership. 2. What/Who/When Continue using and exploring new ways to do 2-4 from 2009. 2011 1. What/Who/When Continue offering NETWORK TRAINING and helping people discover the right place to serve, for the right reasons, at the right time. The goal will be membership saturation with the concepts and vision of this tool. As we discover our spiritual gifts, personal style, and God-given passion for serving in the body of Christ, we will be moving closer to our Good-to-Great vision.
2. What/Who/When Continue using and exploring new ways to do 2-4 from 2009. 2012 1. What/Who/When Continue NETWORK TRAINING for staff, committee chairs, and membership as a whole since committee leadership and membership continues to change.
2. What/Who/When Continue using and exploring new ways to do 2-4 from 2009. (Typed by Rev. Doyle Blanton) |
