Tag: Church Growth

A cross with the words ministry plan in the background.

Ministry Plan, Again

 

September brings with it the end of Summer and the beginning of a new school year and resumption of many other things that occupy our church and family calendars most of the year. This Fall at Immanuel, September also signals the beginning of a new chapter of congregational life as we consider a plan for our ministries into the future.

The Ministry Plan is a document I have been working on this Summer that is the product of the first two Steps of our planning process and will be used to guide our decision-making in the future. The Ministry Plan is where our conversations, meetings, prayers and ideas find a tangible result: a list of prioritized goals for Immanuel Lutheran Church & School.

The Immanuel Church Council will get a first look at the Plan at its September meeting. I will have a presentation on it at the September 29 Voters’ Assembly. But here’s a preview:

Our discussions over much of the last year have produced many ideas for evaluating, enhancing and adding to our ministries. These ideas have been grouped into six general themes called
Ministry Targets . The six Ministry Targets are these:

  1. We receive from God to empower our service to others
  2. We equip disciples of Christ to serve others
  3. We care for each other as a family
  4. We welcome the community to our campus
  5. We serve children and young families with God’s love and forgiveness
  6. We enhance and strengthen our ministries

Into these six categories our ideas have been organized, and out of these six categories have come both Staffing Needs (the people resources needed to carry out the Ministry Plan) and Campus Needs (the facilities needed to carry out the Ministry Plan ).

That’s a preview. For more, I invite you to attend the September 29 Voters’ Assembly. And as we get ever closer to taking the next step into our future as a congregation and school, I thank you again for your prayers and faithful presence and stewardship. Please continue to lend your time, talents and treasures to shaping the future of Immanuel Lutheran Church & School!

Pastor VanOsdol

Blog Note: New to Immanuel? Catch up on the entire VisionPath and Ministry Planning process to date, in chronological order, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

A cross with the words ministry plan in the background.

Ministry Plan

 

Because our Planning Process has one name—and the various Steps in the Process have other names—for the sake of clarity the only name I will use in this update is the Ministry Plan. The Ministry Plan is a document that will be the product of the first two Steps of our Planning Process and will be used to guide our decision-making in the future.

The Ministry Plan is where our conversations, meetings, prayers and ideas find a tangible result: a list of prioritized Goals for Immanuel. I am working on this Plan with Pastor Brath and a few members of the congregation. The Immanuel Church Council viewed the work to-date at its May meeting.

While still a work-in-progress, the Plan is organized into various Goals: Campus, Christian Education, Fellowship, Financial, Human Care, Ministry, Outreach, School, Staffing and Worship. Each Goal has one or more Strategies to accomplish the Goal: these are activities and projects assigned to groups in the congregation. Some of the Strategies are in the future; some are already in process, like exploring Online Giving, Adding a Worship Service, Sunday Hospitality and School Connections. My goal is to have the Ministry Plan ready to present to the Congregation in June.

One Strategy already in process is work on a Master Site Plan for Immanuel Lutheran Church & School, to give us a glimpse of what the Immanuel campus could look like in the future and to determine the best usage of our property and resources. Immanuel’s Campus Team was set up as a subset of the Council to help ensure that a variety of viewpoints are considered as we move forward in this process. This Team consists of:

Dana Emberton, President
Dave Houghton, Vice President
Catherine Benecke, Christian Education
Dan Thelen, Finance
Dick Sunderman, Facilities
Jeff VanUffelen, Immanuel Lutheran School

After several meetings with local firm McMillan Pazdan Smith, the Campus Team has shared the latest with the Council and has invited the Lead Architect for our project to present the Site Plan to the congregation, fielding comments and answering questions. You are invited to be part of this Informational Meeting that will take place following the Divine Service on Sunday, June 2. (No votes will be taken at this meeting.)

The school year is about to end and Summer is set to begin, but there is still plenty going on around Immanuel as we step into our future. Thank you for your prayers and faithful presence and stewardship. Please continue to lend your time, talents and treasures to the shaping the future of Immanuel Lutheran Church & School!

Pastor VanOsdol

Blog Note: New to Immanuel? Catch up on the entire VisionPath and Ministry Planning process to date here, here, here, here, here, and here.

A hand pointing to the word ministry mapping.

Planning Process Update

 

“Immanuel, God With Us, serving our neighbor
and one another with His love and
forgiveness.â€

Here is the latest on the steps taken in our Planning Process during the month of April and what is to come in the month of May:

1) Rev. Billy Brath (LCEF Planning Facilitator) was onsite Tuesday, April 2, to work with us on Step Two (Ministry Mapping) of our Planning Process. More than 40 members of Immanuel’s Church Council and various Boards participated in a Ministry Mapping Workshop; Pastor Brath leading us through a creative process of examining and enhancing some of our ministries. Three groups began work on 3 Goals:

a. Expansion of Worship opportunities (an additional weekly Service and/or expanded worship space)
b. Hospitality (enhancing the Church & School visitor experience through improved traffic flow, signage, fellowship and facilities)
c. Creating ministry opportunities to Immanuel Lutheran School families (strengthening the Church/School connection)

2) After Easter, portions of the same 3 teams will be invited to get together again for further planning toward these Goals. Also after Easter, other Goals will be identified and teams assembled/assigned to address the Goals.

3 ) The Goals identified will become part of a Ministry Plan that will be presented to the congregation. Rev. Brath’s timelime calls for the Ministry Plan to be in place by the end of May.

4) An important piece of the Planning Process puzzle is an evaluation of our current resources, including land and facilities. As the last Master Plan for Immanuel is nearly 20 years old and many changes have come to the Church & School, Five Forks and our Woodruff Road corridor in the last two decades, it is important to have a current update to guide future growth and development. At the March 31 Voters’ Assembly a motion was passed to enlist the services of an outside firm to help us put together an updated Master Plan and resource assessment: a planning document and conceptualization of how Immanuel Lutheran Church & School might exist in the future. The firm of McMillan Pazdan Smith has been retained for this work and Immanuel’s Campus Team (Dana Emberton, Dave Houghton, Dan Thelen, Dick Sunderman, Doug Eggert, Catherine Benecke, Jeff VanUffelen, Pastor) had an initial meeting with this firm during Holy Week.

New to Immanuel? Catch up on the entire VisionPath and Ministry Mapping process to date here, here, here, here, and here.

Pastor VanOsdol

A hand pointing to the word ministry mapping.

A New Name to Know: Ministry Mapping


As February begins, so does the next Step in the planning process Immanuel has engaged through the Lutheran Church Extension Fund. And one thing to which to alert you is a new name.

Since September, we have been talking about VisionPath: the name for Step One in the planning process that has consisted of the Congregational Survey and Vision Event and culminated in a Vision Statement. This Step has involved much work by the VisionPath Leadership Team that was commissioned, specifically, for this Step in the process. This Step and their work now complete, I want to thank them for their work as we begin the next Step in the process.

As we move forward from VisionPath, the name you will now be hearing is Ministry Mapping. This is the name for Step Two in the planning process. Working with our Facilitator, Rev. Billy Brath, in the last days of January I began work on Ministry Mapping: work that will include developing a mission statement and congregational values and mapping the work the congregation is doing today. Now that we have the Vision Statement, I have some homework:

  • Answering the question what Immanuel Lutheran Church & School needs to be doing to make the Vision Statement a reality?
  • Defining some of the Values of Immanuel Lutheran Church & School

All of this is in preparation for Rev. Brath’s next visit to Immanuel on February 6, when he will meet with me and the staff members currently involved in the daily operations of the church and school.

As there are no events or activities involving the entire congregation for a few weeks, updates on the work going on will be given on Sunday mornings, in Council and Voters’ meetings and in this space. Stay tuned! And thank you for your interest in and enthusiasm for moving forward Immanuel’s mission and ministry!

Pastor VanOsdol

VisionPath for Immanuel


“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.â€
(Jeremiah 29:11)

What a blessing to have so many of you invest in Immanuel by lending your voices to the conversation about our future at the Voters’ Assembly on June 24! The decision made in that conversation is to partner with Lutheran Church Extension Fund (LCEF) in embarking on VisionPath: a facilitated process to discover God’s vision for Immanuel’s ministries.

VisionPath is an approximately 10-week process, which for us will begin this August and conclude in October. Some highlights include:

  • The formation of a Leadership Team to work with me and our Facilitator (Rev. Billy Brath) to engage the entire congregation in the process
  • Participation in a Congregational Survey, to give every Immanuel member a voice in the process
  • Attendance at the Vision Event, where Pastor Brath will lead us in the processing of questions and the voicing of ideas
  • The production of a Vision Statement, summarizing our shared vision of the mission and ministry of the congregation

Converting the dreams of VisionPath into realities will require more time and effort. As VisionPath draws to a conclusion, we will come again as a congregation in the September Voters’ Assembly to consider the next steps (what LCEF calls Ministry Mapping & Messaging) and whether to continue with them.

This month, much of the groundwork for VisionPath will be laid behind the scenes. When our Summer break has ended, we will be rested and ready to embark on the journey of VisionPath. Here we go!

The peace of the Lord be with you always.

Pastor VanOsdol

What’s Next for Immanuel?


Sisters & Brothers in Christ:

In my Pentecost Sunday Sermon, I surveyed many of the recent blessings we have enjoyed at Immanuel Lutheran Church & School:

  • Immanuel Lutheran School continues to thrive and will begin its 25th year of service to the congregation and community in the Fall of this year. ï‚·
  • We have celebrated many Baptisms, New Members and Confirmands in recent weeks. ï‚·
  • All the while, the Quilters keep quilting and the Braille Workers keep working and the Bible Studiers keep studying and the Family Fun Night crew is helping forge family connections.

There are other signs of life and growth:

  • Sunday morning attendance is blossoming: from an average of 72 people per Sunday in 2013, to 77 in 2014, 89 in 2015, 101 in 2016, 113 last year, and over 130 so far in 2018. ï‚·
  • Your giving has been very generous: Not only did we pay off and burn the remaining mortgage last year, but we are now contributing to a monthly budget line item called Future Expansion and at the end of the year will also deposit any budgetary surplus into that fund. ï‚·
  • Our recent Youth Movement is creating a need to have more Busy Bags available and think about expanding again the Family Section in the back of the Sanctuary. (On a recent Sunday, a visiting family with several young children sat in the front row because that was the only space available for a family their size. As it turns out, they were visiting from a local LCMS church and were OK with being in the spotlight up front.)

I also mentioned on Pentecost Sunday that things have been so busy lately that I completely overlooked the opportunity to highlight the 30th Anniversary of Immanuel becoming a member congregation of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (we were welcomed into the LCMS on April 29, 1988).

I could go on. I won’t. These are just some of the blessings God has been sending our way lately. And this abundance of blessings is leading your congregational leadership to ask good questions about our future.

What needs do we now have? In what ways do the changes in our church neighborhood affect us? What do we see Immanuel’s future mission and ministry looking like in terms of:

  • Spiritual growth? ï‚·
  • Immanuel Lutheran School? ï‚·
  • Facilities? ï‚·
  • Staffing? ï‚·
  • Care for our members? ï‚·
  • Stewardship? ï‚·
  • Outreach and service to the Five Forks community?

In May, your Church Council welcomed Rev. Billy Brath, a consultant with Lutheran Church Extension Fund (LCEF), who gave a presentation about Ministry Clarity. Ministry Clarity is a planning process offered by LCEF to help congregations like ours develop a plan for congregational ministry today and into the future.

After the presentation, the Council moved to recommend to the June Voters’ Assembly that Immanuel utilize this process to help guide our future and come together as faithful stewards to live out our purpose in God’s Kingdom in this place. If adopted, this planning process would begin in the Fall of this year.

Please save the date of June 24 and plan to attend that Sunday’s Voters’ meeting to hear about this process and lend your voice to the conversation about Immanuel’s future!

The peace of the Lord be with you always.

Pastor VanOsdol