PHILLIP S SABATICAL FINAL REPORT, OCTOBER, 2013

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1 PHILLIP S SABATICAL FINAL REPORT, OCTOBER, 2013 As I look back over the last three months of Sabbatical and vacation, I see that many of the goals that I set for myself have been reached: I have read many of the books I set out to read. I have joined Goodlife gym and have a regular routine with increased health and fitness level and increased energy. I have learned a bit of YOGA and incorporated it as a spiritual practice into my daily prayer and fitness routine, (thanks to Kim Curlett) I have travelled to California and experienced how folks there are doing church differently. Some of those ideas are transferrable, some not. Thanks to Shannon for going with me and helping with the theological reflection. (See my June con-ed report for more details of this). I have rejoined Facebook and done some reflecting on its use for the church. I will soon be starting a blog or forum. I have done a personal faith review and happily reaffirmed my calling as believer in God, disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, and clergy in the United Church of Canada. A helpful part of that process was reflecting on why or why not someone would be even interested in God, Jesus or the church. Answering this for myself will be helpful as we all answer the question of who is our target audience in our marketing strategy. Over the next few months, I ll be telling you about all these things in more detail. I also have done a lot of reflecting on the state of the North American church, historical trends and Woodlawn United. I have several suggestions to bring back to Council for moving us forward in God s mission and ministry to the world. With 30 million dollars raised annually for Mission and Service nationally, 300 million for all purposes, and the parents of the baby boomers dying off quicker than new members join us, we do not primarily have a giving problem as much as a people problem David Armour- Philanthropy head of the UCC

2 1. Evangelism & Communication As I see it, this means that Evangelism or communicating the good news of God s unconditional love needs to become the number one priority of our congregation. The purpose of evangelism is to give hope and healing to those despairing individually, as well as those who are depressed about the state of the church and the world. The Kingdom of God/ heaven is here and growing in our midst and we need to invite people to join us in this work of healing and promoting God s inclusiveness and equality. Woodlawn United and the United Church of Canada are already evidence of this at work! While increase in numbers of members is not the primary goal of evangelism, it is a happy result when we do it well and make the invite. We need to begin to think of ourselves not just as a welcoming church, but an inviting church - not just waiting for people to come to us but taking the message to them where they live. For those in the church that think that seeking membership increases is not a proper goal, we need to ask ourselves whether the church can be a useful instrument in promoting God s mission and ministry. If the answer is Yes, then why not seek to invite others to join us in this important life work? The focus on Evangelism is not a new emphasis for me. You have heard me speak of this these last couple of years. What was new for me during this Sabbatical concerns how we should go about doing this. Ministry leadership needs to continue to offer education classes to help people not only act for justice and healing through their faith (we are historically good at that), but to articulate their faith to others in words (we have forgotten how to do this). Statistics tell us that 80% of those who join a church (the community, not the building or worship service) do so because of a personal invitation from a friend or family member! We also need to take more seriously how we project our message to the community and world at large. This brings me to my second recommendation. 2. Marketing and Publicity

3 If we believe that the church and Woodlawn United has a valuable role to play in God s mission and ministry in the world, then we need not be ashamed in making publicity/marketing ourselves a priority. For too long we have hidden our light under a bushel basket! We need a reenergized marketing and communication committee. We need a much better website with lots more visuals. We need a job description for a webmaster than involves daily updating. We need to recruit a person who sees this as a priority of their ministry. We may need to pay for this website or person but I believe it would be a wise investment! We need a new church sign- (happily in the works) and some guidelines for its use (we have a wonderful location for this!) We need to reactivate our Facebook and Twitter accounts and find someone to manage them. We need to explore other social media avenues like Instragram. 3. Worship We need to offer our services in a way that meets the needs of both those who want a more traditional service as well as in new formats and new times for others. Perhaps we can offer a second contemporary worship service in the evening - not even necessarily on Sunday. This could be smaller, more intimate, perhaps in our new chapel? It could have more discussion in small groups, or feedback to a message; it could have comfortable seating and welcome coffee in the service; it could have more contemporary music. This would be worship for those who attend. We also need more small groups like the couples club or UCWs, meeting in people s homes or local pub and including food and drink. Current Woodlawn members value friendship and community and this happens best in small groups. If you think of the metaphor of the church as the body of the risen Christ, these small groups are cells. These cell groups could focus on a particular purpose or group of commitments - faith exploration, spirituality, political action, resistance to consumption and care of the environment- lots of possibilities- each group could develop their own Rule or set of common actions committed to.

4 4. Positive & Encouraging Outlook Finally, while we need to acknowledge when things go wrong and not avoid controversy, we need to resist the spirit of negativity in our dealings with each other and how we portray ourselves in the community. There is enough negativity in all our lives. Every week in worship I wonder what tough situations people are dealing with in their lives and how we can assure them of God s presence and love in the midst of it. I have heard lots of optimism and encouragement from people in the community concerning our renovations! Thanks to all those who have worked so long and hard on this! It has happened despite those who thought it never would! Another example of what is working well is Stewardship. The current stewardship team has done a wonderful job in highlighting the need to think about our resources of time, talent, treasure, tissue and terrain. They also have made a valuable and needed addition to our life together as a congregation through regular updates about finances - our needs and historic trends - all done in a positive and encouraging way. We need to continue to highlight our mission and ministry to the congregation and community. Jesus was correct in his assessment that one s treasure and heart are linked and together. People give what they have received from the heart, in appreciation. One additional project that would help continue this positive approach is to take seriously the need for a narrative budget - a visual connecting of our mission and ministry to the finances that make them possible. This could be a joint project of ministry team, Stewardship, A&M and Communications. We could aim to have it done by annual meeting time. As we celebrate on anniversary weekend the huge milestone of our faith journey as a congregation - our completed accessibility project - we will already have met as for a congregation retreat a few weekends before to discern together where God is leading us. I am so happy to be part of such a wonderful congregation and ministry and staff team and am very excited and anxious to discern the next leg of the faith journey together with you!

5 Thank you for this opportunity to step back from regular duties to reenergize and assess, and to look at the bigger picture! May God bless us as we continue to journey together and we become even more effective agents in making God s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Phillip Kennedy