| Florida Conference leads in welcoming recognition
By Michael Wacht
JACKSONVILLE — Four Florida Conference
congregations have been awarded the “Welcoming Congregation”
designation by the Igniting Ministry office of United Methodist
Communications (UMCom). Nationwide, 33 churches have received the
designation, and only the Virginia Annual Conference has matched
Florida’s mark.
Deann Bogle, a project associate with UMCom’s
Igniting Ministry office who heads the Welcoming effort, said several
new churches apply for the status each week.
Bogle said the designation is part of the
Igniting Ministry Planning Kit and one of many ways churches can
measure and improve their welcoming skills. “Any church can apply
for this,” she said. “It’s very doable, and it’s a nice thing
to do…to teach people to be nice to the community and reach out
beyond themselves.”
First United Methodist churches of Cape Coral
and Okeechobee and the Jacksonville District’s Avondale and St. Paul
United Methodist churches have received the designation.
To apply for the award, a church first needs to
have the Welcoming Congregation worksheet, which can be found in
appendix C:1 of the Planning Kit or can be downloaded from http://www.ignitingministry.org.
The worksheet lists 38 things a church can do to
be welcoming. Each item is assigned a point value. “You work through
the worksheet with the congregation, and once you’ve achieved 100
points or more, you have the district superintendent sign off on it
and send it in,” Bogle said.
Point values range from a minimum of one point
for each visitor who receives a tour of the church’s facilities or
joins a small group to a maximum of 50 for exceeding the previous year’s
total newcomers by 10 percent or more. Churches receive 25 points for
implementing and using available Igniting Ministry materials, such as
the Planning Kit and ToolKit 1_2_3, and appointing a welcoming
coordinator or team.
The worksheet also includes an “other”
category for churches that are doing things not listed. Bogle said a
church in Tennessee has a regular community dinner during which they
honor people or groups that make the community a better place. The
women in another church make stoles for the ushers that say “Welcome.”
Qualifying churches receive a wooden plaque
designating them a Welcoming Congregation and listing the year of the
award. Churches are also tagged as Welcoming Congregations in Igniting
Ministry’s Find-a-Church database. People who see the Igniting
Ministry ads and visit the Web site http://www.unitedmethodist.org
can search the database by ZIP code for the nearest church. Visitors
will see an icon next to a church’s name “so they’ll know
instantly that it’s a friendly church,” Bogle said.
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