A Call to Conversation (Questionnaire Below)

“God’s call both precedes and outlasts all our buildings.”
-Paul Nixon (paraphrased)

The First Baptist Church Facilities Improvement Team (FIT) is asking for your participation in “A Call to Conversation” about where our facilities and mission meet.  In true Baptist fashion, we believe that Holy Spirit speaks through the voices of God’s people.  With that as our guiding principle, the FIT has designed a process whereby the church can join in a dialogue about what we all see as God’s purpose for us together in this place.

Frederick Buechner famously said, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”  We’d like to answer a similar question for First Baptist Church:

Where is the intersection between our deep gladness as a church and the world’s needs, including here in our neighborhood?

We’d like our Call to Conversation to be informed by a particular set of values.  The first of these is the church’s mission & vision statements, adopted in January 2008:

Mission:
Our Mission is to love and worship God, to love and serve others, and to share the good news of Jesus Christ.

Vision:
Our Vision is to be a church in which every member is engaged in ministry that impacts the neighborhood, the city, the nation, and the world.

Consultants and others who work with churches often organize the work of the church around these four callings:

Worship (Corporate Worship)
Bearing Witness (Serving Beyond Ourselves, Justice, Evangelism)
Faith Formation (Christian Education, Discipleship)
Caring for the Church Community (Pastoral Care, Fellowship, etc.)

As you think and pray over these four callings, please write/type for us your thoughts about the following questions.  We appreciate you taking some time to think about and pray over your answers.  We’re seeking your input by hearing YOUR stories and the stories of those you know in each of these areas.  The text box has no limitation on how much you want to write.  If you’re writing on paper, add all the pages you want. Brevity is not necessarily a virtue in this process.  We want to hear the depth and breadth of your stories.  Please be as specific and/or as visionary as you like.

The FIT will receive your responses through November 25, 2018.

The FIT will collect your stories and use them to determine our collective values and dreams and how they can inform us as we move forward in ministry.  We’ll be looking for similar themes, stories, etc. that we will then compile and share with the church without attribution.

After the compilation of stories is shared with the church, we plan to hold a set of “Town Hall” meetings for everyone to have the opportunity to respond to these results.  Through your continuing responses, we hope to focus and clarify the voice of the church about the future to which God is calling us together.

After the “Town Hall” meetings, the Facilities Improvement Team will then prepare a written report and recommendation that is based on the input received and share it with the church for the congregation’s response. 

Here is our proposed timeline: 

November 4              Questionnaire process begins online and on paper.
November 25            The FIT will begin compiling the questionnaire responses.
December 2              Town Hall Number 1 (after worship)
December 8              Town Hall Number 2 (Saturday morning)
January 13 & 27       Backup Dates for additional Town Hall meetings if needed
May 5                        FIT Proposal shared with congregation (Annual Meeting) 

We ask for your heartfelt prayers for this vital process at a crucial moment in the life of our church.  May God speak through the voices of God’s people and may we have the faith to follow into God’s new future.

In God’s Service,

The Facilities Improvement Team

Charlie Fuller (chair), Rod Coates, Kate Campbell, Sarah Hodges-Austin, Wil McBeath, Didier Ahimera, Dennis Lambert, Jac Whatley, Kathy Whatley, Bill Newell, Chelsea Clarke, Ken Ellison, Cindy Fuller, Julie Pennington-Russell, Alyssa Aldape

Questionnaire

FIT Town Hall RSVP

The Facilities Improvement Team invites you to participate in one of our two scheduled “Town Hall” meetings.  In these meetings we will respond as a church to your input via our questionnaire process.  We hope everyone will participate through your prayers as well as your presence!  Please sign up for either Sunday, December 2 after worship (potluck) or Saturday, December 8 from 10am - 12noon.  Both of these meetings will be in Fellowship Hall.

See you there!