| Award gives church energy, renewed focus
By Michael Wacht
JACKSONVILLE — St. Paul United Methodist
Church here has spent the last four years refocusing itself on
evangelism and making disciples for Jesus Christ. This year, church
members received recognition for their efforts when St. Paul was
awarded the Welcoming Congregation recognition by United Methodist
Communications’ Igniting Ministry office.
“We have been…trying to wake up to
evangelism and get back on track for a few years,” Gayle Reid said.
“Igniting Ministry has helped us focus and is making it exciting
again to get back on track.”
Reid is the church’s coordinator of lay
ministries and a long-time member.
St. Paul is one of four Florida Conference and
33 United Methodist churches to receive this national recognition.
Deann Bogle, a project associate with the
Igniting Ministry office, said the Welcoming Congregation designation
is part of the Igniting Ministry Planning Kit and is one of many ways
churches can measure and improve their welcoming skills.
Reid said St. Paul began in the 1960s and was
among the fastest growing congregations in the Florida Conference at
one time. “Then we plateaued, unfortunately,” she said. “A lot
of people moved away…and we forgot about that evangelism thing for a
while.”
In 1998 the church adopted a new vision and
mission statement and started focusing more energy and attention on
attracting new people to the church.
When the Florida Conference held its Igniting
Ministry training events last year, Reid and church member Mary
Crossman attended.
“Mary got all excited,” Reid said. “They
did an excellent job with the training. It was inspirational.”
The two brought the training material back to
their church and in the process of reviewing it found the Welcoming
Congregations checklist. “Mary said, ‘You know what? I think we’d
qualify for this,’ ” Reid said.
St. Paul received 438 points for its efforts at
being a visitor-friendly congregation. Only 100 points are needed to
qualify for the recognition.
Reid said church members were already doing many
things on the checklist as part of its emphasis on evangelism. They
were distributing welcome packets to visitors and had published a
church brochure.
“We were sending newsletters to visitors,”
she said. “That was 10 points, but that was easy. Once they sign in
and mark that they’re visitors, you have their address and send them
a newsletter. A lot of the things on the list are easily done.”
Although Reid and Crossman had started the
Igniting Ministry “Welcoming 101” training, they didn’t feel
they had gotten far enough with it to count it for 2001, but are
working to make it part of their re-qualification this year.
Reid said the qualification checklist gave them
some new ideas they were able to put in place. They now give tours of
the church facilities to visitors. The church started a New Friends
class, which is a four-week Sunday morning class for repeat visitors
and new members.
“We do it three or four times a year…to help
them to get integrated into life at St. Paul,” Reid said. “We’re
still working on our visitor center. We started it, but we don’t
like the way it’s working. People aren’t using it, and we don’t
know what’s wrong.”
The church is now also working to add a
discipleship aspect to its evangelism, Reid said. A committee is
working on tools to help members and visitors assess their own
discipleship and where they are in their spiritual journey.
“That’s also a big part of the Igniting
Ministry emphasis,” she said. “It’s not just evangelism…and
getting people through the door…but discipleship.”
|
