December 29, 2023
New Year’s Resolutions
Some people have a practice of making goals for the new year, and then resolve to accomplish them. The people who study such things have determined that most people lose momentum to their resolve by mid-February and very few see their plan through to the end of the year.
On December 16 our Council and Staff gathered for a retreat to assess where we are as a church and what we might accomplish between now and the semi-annual meeting in June, when some of our council members will conclude their final term. These are not quite “new year’s resolutions” but instead an attempt to set targets for our work in the first half of the coming year. These are three we chose to focus upon.
By our semi-annual meeting in June:
1. We will have developed a plan for intra-congregational care together with welcoming and assimilating newcomers. This is not a new goal. It came up at our first staff council retreat. But that was out of concerns that coming out of the pandemic people might get lost and drift away. That has not been a problem, however. The problem is we do not have a plan to receive and integrate all of the visitors we are getting into our church. What we hope we have when we are done is a plan that will be part “welcome wagon” and part deacon board.
2. We will begin a ministry inventory and consider the human and capital resources they require. We are a midsized church with tremendous potential. We need to constantly evaluate and “right size” our ministries, so we don’t stretch ourselves too thin. We also need to assess how effective, or even needed, our current ministries are when making our priorities.
3. We will explore ways to get new people into our church building. We have had a steady stream of visitors coming to First Covenant Church for over a year now. But it is a small percentage of the people who walk or ride by our church. How can we better utilize our church space to be a good neighbor to those around us and be more hospitable to them? Once we come up with some ideas, they need to be considered closely with the above inventory.
We developed more hopes and dreams for the next six months and beyond, but these three are our priorities. I, along with our staff and council, look forward to sharing our results with you in six months.
But for now I want to celebrate all we have accomplished this past year, including having a fine candidate to be our next full-time Associate Pastor, with a focus on ministries to our families, youth, and children. There is no shortage of evidence of God’s grace in our church this past year, and this should give us hope for the new year. I pray you all can say this personally as well, even though there have been—and remain—challenges you are facing. Might we be resolved that our faithfulness reflects God’s faithfulness to us in the year ahead, whatever may come.
With confidence in Christ,
~ Pastor Todd