Connecting in Christ, looking to future
03-10-2009By Kaylea Hutson
Special to the Arkansas United Methodist
Five years ago, Carl Palmer, pastor of Elm Springs United Methodist Church, received a simple request — for his church to join Connected In Christ, the leadership development program of the Arkansas Conference.
The concepts surrounding CIC were not new; Palmer had used some of the techniques in past ministry positions. However, this time, he said, CIC provided him with tools needed to form a team of visionary volunteers, ranging in skills, ages and backgrounds.
Those individuals, along with other leaders in the church, established a vision plan for the church, which came to fruition over the course of the past five and a half years.
The initial team
As the leadership of Elm Springs UMC began to explore being a part of CIC, Palmer said he approached forming the Vision Team like the adage used by countless brides.
“We wanted something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,” he explained. “We wanted someone who had experience, who had seen different things throughout the years.
“We also wanted someone who was ‘borrowed’ or had gained experience at other churches. By someone blue, we wanted someone who was a deep thinker, using the Birkman method,” he said.
During the three-session CIC team training, participants undergo a 298-question personality assessment, known as the Birkman Method, which analyzes the individual’s productive behaviors, underlying needs, stress behaviors, career interests and organizational focus and ranks those areas into one of four color groups: red, yellow, blue and green.
The analysis provides individuals with information on how to best use their strengths and growing edges when working in a team setting.
The Birkman testing served as a crucial resource, Palmer continued, because it helped the Elm Springs Vision Team learn how to function not as individuals but as a united team.
Additionally training, including the Total Impact: “Connected In Christ” and “Transformational Ministry Planning” sessions, empowered the team to imagine big dreams for the church and its potential ministries, he said.
“We had a great passion, and a great desire [for growth], but we lacked vision and direction,” Palmer said. “CIC helped us match the passion with vision and direction.”
Palmer said the first Vision Team consisted of two reds, and one each, green, yellow and blue. The mixture of styles and personalities helped provide balance to the meetings and planning sessions.
A foundation for the future
In the first year, the Vision Team met each Sunday prior to the weekly Sunday school and worship services. After a few initial meetings, the team decided to conduct a congregational survey in order to find out the congregation’s attitudes concerning growth and its outlook towards the future.
The survey also contained demographic-related questions to help the leadership team develop a “picture” of the congregation — including information about average household income, style of music listened to, and distance people drove to attend services at Elm Springs.
Palmer said the team was surprised to learn that a majority of the congregation had a “regional” reach, with less than 2 percent of the congregation living within 6 miles of the facility. A growing number of members traveled more than 10 miles to attend services.
The survey also indicated that a majority of those surveyed expected the church to double in size — in both worship and Sunday school — within the next five years.
“They were forward looking and had an attitude for growth,” Palmer said.
The right people, the right time
After several meetings, the Vision Team began to discuss the potential for forming a second worship service.
“Experts say you need to have six to nine months to form a new worship service,” Palmer said. “The CIC team wanted to start it on Easter Sunday — and we were five to six weeks out.”
Palmer said the team wanted to put aside what the experts thought, and instead grow a second service because they believed God would bless the service, and the average weekly attendance on Sunday was nearing 100.
To prepare for the service, the Vision Team told members of the plan to start a new service. They also printed 200 postcards advertising it, and encouraged regular attendees and members to invite up to four non-churched friends to the service.
The team set a goal of having a minimum of 30 people at the service if it were to continue after Easter Sunday. Thirty-six people attended the service.
“It was our first real goal,” Palmer said. “It showed us, ‘Hey, we can do this.’”
Envisioning the future
After the Easter service, the team began to turn their other dreams into goals. To help them achieve their plans, they developed benchmarks to reach their objectives.
Because one of the initial dreams included placing an emphasis on children and youth, one of the first goals included hiring a part-time director of Christian education once the average weekly attendance reached 125.
When the attendance reached an average of 150 each week, the team recommended forming a Building Committee.
Palmer said the team expected it to take up to three years to meet those first three goals. Instead, attendance grew and the team was ready to advocate the formation of the building team within 15 months.
Building a new facility
In October 2005, Vision Team members came together and began to sketch what a new facility might look like.
Palmer said the concepts, some drawn on the back of napkins, contained many similarities — a tangible unity in designs. Things progressed and the team hired an architect to develop the plans.
A year later, in November 2006, the congregation held the ground breaking for the new building.
On Easter Sunday 2008, approximately four years after the congregation established the second worship service, they moved into their new building.
Palmer said the CIC training helped the team establish a focus, which has transformed the ministries of the church to fit within a set of strategic areas: reaching, teaching, sharing, caring and worship.
“Slowly we have orientated every group within the church to fit within one or more of these areas,” Palmer explained. “We really haven’t said ‘no’ to anything, but it’s caused every group to re-examine their purpose and re-connect with the goals of the church.”
Looking ahead
Palmer said the congregation is once again re-evaluating its dreams and goals for the future.
“In 2003, when we established this plan, we anticipated it taking seven to 10 years,” he explained. “We accomplished everything in five years.
“We’re ahead of the curve, but we ran so fast, so far, that we left some long-term visioning [behind]. We need to step back and assess our future.”
Palmer said this might include forming a new Vision Team that will reflect the demographics of the new congregation, along with establishing new dreams and benchmarks for future growth and ministries.
“A lot of churches know the first step, but they don’t know how to take the next step,” Palmer said. “CIC provided the tools [to create] manageable, obtainable, step-by-step goals, with benchmarks and action points for the future.”
[Kaylea Hutson is the communications assistant at Siloam Springs UMC and a freelance writer for The Herald Leader in Siloam Springs.]
