Listening to God Update
Shortly after Pastor Kathleen joined us as our Interim Designated Pastor, she helped us to start looking at where we are headed and what is God calling us to do.
In last year’s Annual Report, Pastor Kathleen laid out our plan for Listening to God so that we could really figure out where our congregation was headed. We followed the outline that she had set forth. Since that time, we have gathered together multiple times; Diven to Enliven was held on March17th, 2024, on Transformational Sunday, where we sat at small tables to focus on the task at hand. Some of the things we deemed important were the “Gloria Factor” that family roots run deep in our history, that we have leadership in our congregation that really leads, and, we have many bonds and connections that help us to use our talents and treasures to build upon helping our community.
During this time together, we realized that our next action step would be to create a small group of people who would be willing to steer some confidential and meaningful conversations with others in our congregation and then a small sampling of others in the community. We realized that when we listen deeply to each, heart to heart, that we are listening to Gods heart.
The members of this newly created group gathered to think about what our conversations would look like. We asked questions like:
We decided we should schedule another Listening to God meeting with the whole congregation as well as some of the community members we had conversations with. Just by coincidence, we scheduled this gathering on the following Transformational Sunday, March 2, 2025.
Of course, as with many of our gatherings, we eat. Many hands contributed to the feast and we all then focused with an activity to get us back in the frame of mind to do some important work. We encouraged all attendees to get up, walk around the room to review, in detail, all the post its created from our conversations during this process. Just as those of us on this committee found, most attendees found the same eye-opening realization of how we are all connected and what is important to us. We encouraged people to add any additional thoughts or the highlight notes that resonated with them. We then tried to digest some of the day by thinking about What do we hear God saying to us as we seek to chart our future.
There have been so many times we all thought we needed to figure out how to keep a Children’s Program going when we do not currently have younger children attending service. We thought that was the only way to grow our congregation. What we finally realized is that dedicating ourselves to the well-being of our current congregation, supporting each other, really listening to each other is where our focus should be as this is our strength. Family roots still run deep in our congregation and we will continue to use our treasures and talents to build up our community and each other. Our congregation is getting older but we are getting bigger. We have had many “new member” Sundays increasing our congregation.
We will share this procedure when we secure a new Pastor and see where this takes us. Nothing is off limits for us because we care deeply for each other and we worship a life-giving God who desires the flourishing of all lives, loving one another as neighbors is central to our identity. We will continue to grow and thrive as we continue to listen to each other stores and share in the good and the not so good.
Respectfully submitted,
Maureen Flores, Listening to God Committee Member
Shortly after Pastor Kathleen joined us as our Interim Designated Pastor, she helped us to start looking at where we are headed and what is God calling us to do.
In last year’s Annual Report, Pastor Kathleen laid out our plan for Listening to God so that we could really figure out where our congregation was headed. We followed the outline that she had set forth. Since that time, we have gathered together multiple times; Diven to Enliven was held on March17th, 2024, on Transformational Sunday, where we sat at small tables to focus on the task at hand. Some of the things we deemed important were the “Gloria Factor” that family roots run deep in our history, that we have leadership in our congregation that really leads, and, we have many bonds and connections that help us to use our talents and treasures to build upon helping our community.
During this time together, we realized that our next action step would be to create a small group of people who would be willing to steer some confidential and meaningful conversations with others in our congregation and then a small sampling of others in the community. We realized that when we listen deeply to each, heart to heart, that we are listening to Gods heart.
The members of this newly created group gathered to think about what our conversations would look like. We asked questions like:
- What does your best life look like?
- What pressure are you or your loved ones experiencing?
- What keeps you up at night?
- What are your deepest hopes?
- What energizes you?
We decided we should schedule another Listening to God meeting with the whole congregation as well as some of the community members we had conversations with. Just by coincidence, we scheduled this gathering on the following Transformational Sunday, March 2, 2025.
Of course, as with many of our gatherings, we eat. Many hands contributed to the feast and we all then focused with an activity to get us back in the frame of mind to do some important work. We encouraged all attendees to get up, walk around the room to review, in detail, all the post its created from our conversations during this process. Just as those of us on this committee found, most attendees found the same eye-opening realization of how we are all connected and what is important to us. We encouraged people to add any additional thoughts or the highlight notes that resonated with them. We then tried to digest some of the day by thinking about What do we hear God saying to us as we seek to chart our future.
There have been so many times we all thought we needed to figure out how to keep a Children’s Program going when we do not currently have younger children attending service. We thought that was the only way to grow our congregation. What we finally realized is that dedicating ourselves to the well-being of our current congregation, supporting each other, really listening to each other is where our focus should be as this is our strength. Family roots still run deep in our congregation and we will continue to use our treasures and talents to build up our community and each other. Our congregation is getting older but we are getting bigger. We have had many “new member” Sundays increasing our congregation.
We will share this procedure when we secure a new Pastor and see where this takes us. Nothing is off limits for us because we care deeply for each other and we worship a life-giving God who desires the flourishing of all lives, loving one another as neighbors is central to our identity. We will continue to grow and thrive as we continue to listen to each other stores and share in the good and the not so good.
Respectfully submitted,
Maureen Flores, Listening to God Committee Member