Next Steps--mid-July to September
Dear fellow Calvary parishioners,
I am writing to give you an update on the Our Church 2030 initiative. The all-parish Survey has been distributed and you have responded by providing valuable feedback on your views of religion, spirituality, and Calvary now and what you would like it to be in the future. We had over 150 completed surveys, which represented approximately a 40% response rate. Outstanding!
Thank you all that completed the survey. We also received some excellent feedback from individuals who are no longer parishioners of Calvary. Since an important objective of this initiative is seeing how we might better serve the spiritual needs of the community, we are now seeking the opinions of those who have no connection to Calvary.
It will take us several weeks to fully analyze this data. It is, however, very clear that you were open and honest with your responses and invested a significant amount of time to complete the survey. You gave some important positive suggestions, as well as detailed comments on areas where you are not satisfied. We will take all of these into account in creating not only a vision, but an action plan to realize it.
Stepping back, my most important observation is that your responses to the survey show how passionate you are about the future success of Calvary. Your active engagement is vital and the open dialogue that we are beginning to establish with the surveys will be an important part in shaping our vision for 2030. We look forward to sharing the results with you.
The next phase of the initiative is all about increasing our dialogue. We will be holding small group discussions in the latter part of the summer and into the fall to focus on key areas of interest that were surfaced by the survey. These will be single-topic sessions, where we roll up our sleeves and work together to define a vision for that key element of our ministry. We envision these discussions will be professionally facilitated among 12 to 14 parishioners for approximately 90 minutes.
Potential topics might include:
Role of Christian teachings, spiritual services and prayer: This would include role of Christian education, spiritual growth, elements within a given service or types of services, sermons, role of prayer in our lives and pastoral care.
Importance of social justice, peace & human dignity: Types of outreach and social issues, including environmental issues that we believe in and support as a community.
Size and Scope of Calvary. What is the right size of Calvary and what drives that determination. Do we want to be a small parish where everyone knows everyone and has significant volunteer responsibilities? Alternatively, do we want to continue to strive to be a larger program-oriented parish. Here we also discuss the role and commitment of the two schools.
Calvary campus utilization and waterfront environmental sustainability: Ideas on how best to utilize the campus, embrace technology and provide outreach and support to issues impacting our local community.
Naturally, there will be overlap between the topics. In the next several weeks we will post the proposed topics and schedule of sessions and you will be able to sign up electronically or by calling the office. Depending on the interest in a topic we might hold multiple sessions and potentially ones by Zoom. We will also include members of the community not affiliated with Calvary to obtain their best thinking. Given everyone’s summer schedules, these sessions will start in August and run into September, potentially October.
I want to once again, emphasize the passion we felt from the parish when reading the survey results. Our success lies in harnessing our collective passions to create that compelling vision that will more spiritually engage not just us but also members of the community who are not yet connected to Calvary.
Not surprisingly, the survey surfaced issues that you were not satisfied with. Many of these concerns were comparisons to the past and things should be like the way they were back “then.” As we know, the world, more specifically religion and how people find their spirituality, has changed dramatically over the years. We will listen to these concerns as compared to the past, but we also need to take a positive attitude in looking to the future and how Calvary can meet the needs and desires of those who have never associated with us.
We know, and our research confirms, that Calvary has many strengths. In structuring our dialogues we will focus on the best of what is and use this as a platform to build future directions. It is far too easy to focus on pitfalls and problems with Calvary, but in doing so we will probably get stuck. We need to challenge ourselves to explore strengths and successes that already exist, both internally and externally, and leverage those to create a future vision. This will also require us to rethink roles at all levels to align strengths to execute the vision. We believe positive approach leads to extraordinary performance by reinforcing relationships and culture, creating common vision and direction, promoting learning and innovation, energizing collective action and engaging our community.
That is a very high goal to achieve, but we can. Those of you who know me might agree that I am a bit of a dreamer. One quote has influenced my life since high school, by Mark Twain:
Don’t part with your illusions.
For if you do,
You may still exist,
But you have ceased to live.
I believe we can build on the best of the past and embrace current trends and new expressions of spirituality to have Calvary be a catalyst for a growing learning community at all ages that engages people’s hearts and minds. I passionately believe that together we can because “Calvary Cares.”
Thank you for your support and yes, patience, as we work through this process together.
All my very best,
Spike
On behalf of the Our Church 2030 Task Force:
Terri Brennan
Kristin Foster
John Groton
Bill Hoffman
Paul Leeming
Spike Lobdell, Leader
Barb Silver
Brooke Stoddard
Jim Taylor
Lori Taylor, Ex Officio
The Rev. Gillian Barr, Ex Officio