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BEING COMMUNITY
Showing posts with label Meeting Notes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meeting Notes. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Monday, February 25, 2008
Assets of Grace Church
“God has given us everything we need to do what God wants us to do in this place and in this time.”
The world operates on an assumption of lack: “You don’t have enough to do that!”
The reign of God assumes abundance: “Look at all you have.”
We have discovered we have all these assets; now, the question is, what does God want us to do with them?
Adequate bathrooms and changing tables
Rest rooms nearby
Adjacent to Union Park and Bike Path
Proximity to library
Downtown location – close to the action
Lawn – for picnics, weddings
Certified kitchen
Telephones
Children’s Spirituality Center
Memorial Room – for 75 people – has own kitchen
Undercroft – occupancy for how many? At least 100
Fun space
Room for a sawdust dance floor 1 time per month
Intimate chapel for 40
Main worship space for 300
Front pews facing each other
Possibilities endless, especially if all the furniture is moveable
Stained glass windows – winsome
Choir loft behind altar, for 20
Sanctuary – altar table moveable
Room for a stage
Hosting recitals – with new grand piano, increase use for recitals
Needs access ramp
Stations of the cross – cool
Tells a story
Made by “women of Grace”, including women from other churches
Healing prayer every Sunday
Priest – good sermons
Creative thinking
Large corps of liturgical ministers
Congregation takes active role in worship
No class distinctions, no social hierarchy (= “our diversity”)
Relationships
2 AA groups
Families and Childrens Agency
Girls Scouts
Manic/Depressive group
Literacy Volunteers
Temple of Deliverance
Haitian Baptists
Close to funeral home
Beach service (new)
Nursery on ground level, close to worship space
Sophisticated, state of the art organ
New furnace
Lots of rooms – at least eight downstairs, in addition to undercroft & choir room, plus three more upstairs, in addition to two offices.
We own two houses on the grounds
Big choir room – room for 100, with decent piano, and much music
Off street parking for 54 cars
Lawn close to parking – picnics
Single access/egress – can control
Can be secured
Well marked
Ploughed in snow
“Block party” lot
Handicap parking
History/longevity – 118 years
Possibilities for:
Picnic tables and water cooler outside
Bicycle racks
Adopt-a-park
Art show
Business sponsor a fountain
Jessie Ball DuPont Fund
$900,000 in the bank
Ourselves – sixty of us for sure
The world operates on an assumption of lack: “You don’t have enough to do that!”
The reign of God assumes abundance: “Look at all you have.”
We have discovered we have all these assets; now, the question is, what does God want us to do with them?
Adequate bathrooms and changing tables
Rest rooms nearby
Adjacent to Union Park and Bike Path
Proximity to library
Downtown location – close to the action
Lawn – for picnics, weddings
Certified kitchen
Telephones
Children’s Spirituality Center
Memorial Room – for 75 people – has own kitchen
Undercroft – occupancy for how many? At least 100
Fun space
Room for a sawdust dance floor 1 time per month
Intimate chapel for 40
Main worship space for 300
Front pews facing each other
Possibilities endless, especially if all the furniture is moveable
Stained glass windows – winsome
Choir loft behind altar, for 20
Sanctuary – altar table moveable
Room for a stage
Hosting recitals – with new grand piano, increase use for recitals
Needs access ramp
Stations of the cross – cool
Tells a story
Made by “women of Grace”, including women from other churches
Healing prayer every Sunday
Priest – good sermons
Creative thinking
Large corps of liturgical ministers
Congregation takes active role in worship
No class distinctions, no social hierarchy (= “our diversity”)
Relationships
2 AA groups
Families and Childrens Agency
Girls Scouts
Manic/Depressive group
Literacy Volunteers
Temple of Deliverance
Haitian Baptists
Close to funeral home
Beach service (new)
Nursery on ground level, close to worship space
Sophisticated, state of the art organ
New furnace
Lots of rooms – at least eight downstairs, in addition to undercroft & choir room, plus three more upstairs, in addition to two offices.
We own two houses on the grounds
Big choir room – room for 100, with decent piano, and much music
Off street parking for 54 cars
Lawn close to parking – picnics
Single access/egress – can control
Can be secured
Well marked
Ploughed in snow
“Block party” lot
Handicap parking
History/longevity – 118 years
Possibilities for:
Picnic tables and water cooler outside
Bicycle racks
Adopt-a-park
Art show
Business sponsor a fountain
Jessie Ball DuPont Fund
$900,000 in the bank
Ourselves – sixty of us for sure
Dreams And Visions From The Vestry Retreat
When the Vestry met in retreat on February 9, 2008, to envision the future of Grace Church five years from now, here, in narrative form, are the things we dreamed.
Grace Church will be a center within Norwalk and the surrounding locale for spiritual exploration, spiritual growth, spiritual transformation and spiritual redemption. We will be continually seeking ways to have the Gospel refine our worship and ministries to be of service to all regardless of where they may find themselves in their spiritual journeys with Christ. We will be reaching out beyond the confines of our sameness, our pains, our wants and needs to join in communion with those not like us who seek the kingdom of heaven.
We will use our building and grounds to host services that are relevant and beneficial to the community at large.
We will partner with the diocese to make our building totally self-sustaining, no longer funded from the operating budget. We will find ways to use the church building to realize revenue to offset the building operating and maintenance costs, without jeopardizing our not for profit status. We will have a staff person who recruits rentals, manages the traffic of rentals and other building uses in accord with our Gospel objectives, who is here for all major events and who knows the ins and outs of the heating, the crazy alarm boxes, the leaking downstairs and all our other building quirks, and who works in conjunction with a vibrant, energetic property committee committed to the Gospel imperatives in our vision.
We will continually search ourselves for assets we have that are not being put to use – Grace Church’s assets, and our own personal skills and talents. We will be realistic about what is not there and pray for those things to be supplied by a God who gives us everything we need right now to do what God wants us to be doing now, in this time and this place.
Our nave will be transformed to be able to be used for a multiplicity of purposes – from meals to blood drives to music schools’ recital hall. That means movable furniture.
In five years there will be three services on Sundays, one of them at 7:00 p.m. in the evangelical style of worship. They will serve more than 300 persons among them. We will have an active Sunday School of 50 or more children, with 25 teachers serving on rotation, engaging in stimulating, creative education under the direction of a full time Coordinator of Christian Education. There will be a strong component of stewardship in the children’s formation, year round, focusing on time and talent as well as treasure, exploring outreach and the community.
We will house a separate organization, which we found, a Center for Religious Inquiry, or a Center for Spiritual Inquiry, as an entry point for those who do not want a church but who do want to engage the deep spiritual and doctrinal questions of their lives. There will be late evening programs, beginning at 7:30 p.m. for young, single, working people who want a place to explore their deep questions about life and to encounter the Almighty.
We will also become a cultural center, housing an art gallery, hosting concerts, maybe even housing a small museum. We will host a flower show every year.
We will become a place for story hour every week, in the late afternoon, partnering with the library to make it known. It could be for children but doesn’t have to be exclusively for children. Storytellers tell stories to adults as well, and we would like to have plays read in this place. Puppet shows, and magic shows where the children become the magicians are part of this dream.
We would like to become the Welcome Wagon center of Norwalk.
We have the ability to house a home for gay youth who are homeless, with a housemother to look after them.
We envision all of you taking turns in rotation to be volunteer hosts and hostesses, day and night, so the building can be open and unlocked round the clock to those who need a place to pray, or just a place to rest. We envision people coming here into this room to eat their lunch while the organ is being played, or others in the congregation or the community give free noontime concerts. We intend that we should strengthen our partnerships with Families and Children’s Agency, and Covenant to Care for Children to spend time getting to know the hurts and hopes of their clients and structuring safe ways in which we and they can get to know one another face to face.
We know we have all we need to meet their needs, but we will not forget that the Jessie Ball DuPont fund, while it is not intended to do all our work for us, is there as well to supplement what we are able to do with community based initiatives that allow people to have fun as well as feel useful.
We envision the area in front of the front doors and the tower doors becoming a plaza with picnic tables and benches, and bicycle racks and potted plants that soften the fortress like appearance and don’t just make us look inviting but are inviting.
We envision strengthening and enhancing our relationship with the Haitian Baptist and Temple of Deliverance congregations, in conjunction with Families and Children’s and Covenant to Care for Children to provide a coming of age program and annual ceremony for youth in this community, especially boys, but some girls as well, who tend to look to gangs to fill this gap in our society.
Easter, Christmas and Mother’s Day are “must-attend” services, even for non-churched people. We envision having up to seven more of these kind of community services.
We host one of the Haitian Baptist churches of Norwalk here. But did you know there are Haitian Anglicans here who need connections with Episcopal Churches? Right now, Elena, the deacon at St. Paul’s on the Green is the liaison for their needs. And there is a huge Latino population that falls between the desire for a Roman Catholic expression and a Pentecostal one. Right now there is only one Episcopalian option for them, Iglesia Bettania, housed at Christ Church. We desire to partner with St. Paul’s and Christ Church to embody the best of the founding of Grace and Christ churches as offspring, in one way or another, of St. Paul’s, uniting us while retaining our individual expressions.
We want children on these grounds all the time. We envision year-round short Bible schools, in the park across the street, or in the church in cold or inclement weather, a Good Friday camp for children as a three hour event, the realization of one person’s dream in the near future for short term music camps for young children.
We are committed to pouring our life and our resources into this community for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In five years we will be a congregation energized and motivated because we find that we are truly needed and useful at whatever age. And in five years, everyone in Norwalk will know that there is one Grace Episcopal Church in Norwalk, and to what denomination we belong.
God has given us all we need to do what God wants us to do in this place and time. Our building, our grounds, our off street parking, a strong, committed vestry, vibrant worship, location, dreams, and a people who make no hierarchical distinction between class or socioeconomic condition.
This is a huge vision. And it can come true. None of it is outside our grasp even in a shorter time than five years. Some of these things are in the works right now. Now, more welcoming and inviting parking lot signs, and a ramp for handicap access to the altar and choir area are being looked into and seriously planned. And today, to help us come closer together, we have retired from service the back three pews on both sides, until the day when we need them again.
Grace Church will be a center within Norwalk and the surrounding locale for spiritual exploration, spiritual growth, spiritual transformation and spiritual redemption. We will be continually seeking ways to have the Gospel refine our worship and ministries to be of service to all regardless of where they may find themselves in their spiritual journeys with Christ. We will be reaching out beyond the confines of our sameness, our pains, our wants and needs to join in communion with those not like us who seek the kingdom of heaven.
We will use our building and grounds to host services that are relevant and beneficial to the community at large.
We will partner with the diocese to make our building totally self-sustaining, no longer funded from the operating budget. We will find ways to use the church building to realize revenue to offset the building operating and maintenance costs, without jeopardizing our not for profit status. We will have a staff person who recruits rentals, manages the traffic of rentals and other building uses in accord with our Gospel objectives, who is here for all major events and who knows the ins and outs of the heating, the crazy alarm boxes, the leaking downstairs and all our other building quirks, and who works in conjunction with a vibrant, energetic property committee committed to the Gospel imperatives in our vision.
We will continually search ourselves for assets we have that are not being put to use – Grace Church’s assets, and our own personal skills and talents. We will be realistic about what is not there and pray for those things to be supplied by a God who gives us everything we need right now to do what God wants us to be doing now, in this time and this place.
Our nave will be transformed to be able to be used for a multiplicity of purposes – from meals to blood drives to music schools’ recital hall. That means movable furniture.
In five years there will be three services on Sundays, one of them at 7:00 p.m. in the evangelical style of worship. They will serve more than 300 persons among them. We will have an active Sunday School of 50 or more children, with 25 teachers serving on rotation, engaging in stimulating, creative education under the direction of a full time Coordinator of Christian Education. There will be a strong component of stewardship in the children’s formation, year round, focusing on time and talent as well as treasure, exploring outreach and the community.
We will house a separate organization, which we found, a Center for Religious Inquiry, or a Center for Spiritual Inquiry, as an entry point for those who do not want a church but who do want to engage the deep spiritual and doctrinal questions of their lives. There will be late evening programs, beginning at 7:30 p.m. for young, single, working people who want a place to explore their deep questions about life and to encounter the Almighty.
We will also become a cultural center, housing an art gallery, hosting concerts, maybe even housing a small museum. We will host a flower show every year.
We will become a place for story hour every week, in the late afternoon, partnering with the library to make it known. It could be for children but doesn’t have to be exclusively for children. Storytellers tell stories to adults as well, and we would like to have plays read in this place. Puppet shows, and magic shows where the children become the magicians are part of this dream.
We would like to become the Welcome Wagon center of Norwalk.
We have the ability to house a home for gay youth who are homeless, with a housemother to look after them.
We envision all of you taking turns in rotation to be volunteer hosts and hostesses, day and night, so the building can be open and unlocked round the clock to those who need a place to pray, or just a place to rest. We envision people coming here into this room to eat their lunch while the organ is being played, or others in the congregation or the community give free noontime concerts. We intend that we should strengthen our partnerships with Families and Children’s Agency, and Covenant to Care for Children to spend time getting to know the hurts and hopes of their clients and structuring safe ways in which we and they can get to know one another face to face.
We know we have all we need to meet their needs, but we will not forget that the Jessie Ball DuPont fund, while it is not intended to do all our work for us, is there as well to supplement what we are able to do with community based initiatives that allow people to have fun as well as feel useful.
We envision the area in front of the front doors and the tower doors becoming a plaza with picnic tables and benches, and bicycle racks and potted plants that soften the fortress like appearance and don’t just make us look inviting but are inviting.
We envision strengthening and enhancing our relationship with the Haitian Baptist and Temple of Deliverance congregations, in conjunction with Families and Children’s and Covenant to Care for Children to provide a coming of age program and annual ceremony for youth in this community, especially boys, but some girls as well, who tend to look to gangs to fill this gap in our society.
Easter, Christmas and Mother’s Day are “must-attend” services, even for non-churched people. We envision having up to seven more of these kind of community services.
We host one of the Haitian Baptist churches of Norwalk here. But did you know there are Haitian Anglicans here who need connections with Episcopal Churches? Right now, Elena, the deacon at St. Paul’s on the Green is the liaison for their needs. And there is a huge Latino population that falls between the desire for a Roman Catholic expression and a Pentecostal one. Right now there is only one Episcopalian option for them, Iglesia Bettania, housed at Christ Church. We desire to partner with St. Paul’s and Christ Church to embody the best of the founding of Grace and Christ churches as offspring, in one way or another, of St. Paul’s, uniting us while retaining our individual expressions.
We want children on these grounds all the time. We envision year-round short Bible schools, in the park across the street, or in the church in cold or inclement weather, a Good Friday camp for children as a three hour event, the realization of one person’s dream in the near future for short term music camps for young children.
We are committed to pouring our life and our resources into this community for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In five years we will be a congregation energized and motivated because we find that we are truly needed and useful at whatever age. And in five years, everyone in Norwalk will know that there is one Grace Episcopal Church in Norwalk, and to what denomination we belong.
God has given us all we need to do what God wants us to do in this place and time. Our building, our grounds, our off street parking, a strong, committed vestry, vibrant worship, location, dreams, and a people who make no hierarchical distinction between class or socioeconomic condition.
This is a huge vision. And it can come true. None of it is outside our grasp even in a shorter time than five years. Some of these things are in the works right now. Now, more welcoming and inviting parking lot signs, and a ramp for handicap access to the altar and choir area are being looked into and seriously planned. And today, to help us come closer together, we have retired from service the back three pews on both sides, until the day when we need them again.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Meeting With Bishop Curry
Meeting with Bp. Curry and Canon Marge Roccoberton
And Executive Committee John Sutton, Senior Warden, Stilson Daniel, Treasurer, Barbara Bancroft, Clerk and Lois Keen, Priest in Charge
Demographics of Norwalk are changing
Norwalk becoming a place for single people
On the rail line
Less expensive than some places in Fairfield County
Strategy:
Be in conversation with the developers of West Norwalk
Be in conversation with residents
Be in conversation with businesses – primarily legal offices nearby
Our use of our buildings
$8,000 to $9,000 per month
underutilized
make our buildings pay for themselves
Strategies:
How can the diocese help?
Be aware of those uses that do not accord with our non profit status
Avoid paid activities that result in taxation
Make sure our uses are in alignment with diocesan goals
Align revenue use of space with the goals of our mission,
but primarily align revenue use of space with the values of the Gospel
Talk with agencies in West Norwalk about primary needs for use of our buildings
May be desirable to run suggested uses past the diocese
Past use that came from talking with community about need
Mustard Seed, which became Artworks – need for after school programming
Put together by rector and a small group of committed parishioners
Very few parishioners had involvement day to day
Transportation is a major problem for school age children in Norwalk
Program eventually moved to a school, which made sense.
Parish no longer identified with the program – no longer seen as “a Grace Church project
Parishioners stopped being involved – the program died
Strategy – increase congregation awareness that Grace ministry does not happen only on Grace property.
All activities of Grace parishioners are Grace activities/ministries
Stilson: Vision and goals to be Big Daring Risky Must be known Must succeed
Music program described – community wide use of building for music related uses
Recitals, concerts, lessons, chorus(es)
Strategy: Connect with the Cathedral in Hartford – ie their concert series
Test community need for same
Be aware of competition? Competition is good – keeps us sharp
There are financial implications in the development of mission
We will need to use savings
Jessie Ball DuPont Fund grants for targeted, sustainable uses
Diocesan assistance:
Networking resources
Others in the diocese may have a track record of success in areas we desire
Strong recommendation: Knock on the doors of the offices in the church’s neighborhood
Ask, “How can we be of service?”
Ask, “How might you want to make use of our building?”
Regarding the parking lot signs, which we are in the process of changing:
How about “This is a good place for turning around!” on one side,
And/or “Jesus thanks you for turning around!”
Theologically sound signage!
Regarding goals to be met before calling Lois Keen as Rector
Financial sustainability
Active in mission
Yes, if July 19, 2009 comes, the end of Lois’s contract, Grace can renew
provided there is financial support for same
And Executive Committee John Sutton, Senior Warden, Stilson Daniel, Treasurer, Barbara Bancroft, Clerk and Lois Keen, Priest in Charge
Demographics of Norwalk are changing
Norwalk becoming a place for single people
On the rail line
Less expensive than some places in Fairfield County
Strategy:
Be in conversation with the developers of West Norwalk
Be in conversation with residents
Be in conversation with businesses – primarily legal offices nearby
Our use of our buildings
$8,000 to $9,000 per month
underutilized
make our buildings pay for themselves
Strategies:
How can the diocese help?
Be aware of those uses that do not accord with our non profit status
Avoid paid activities that result in taxation
Make sure our uses are in alignment with diocesan goals
Align revenue use of space with the goals of our mission,
but primarily align revenue use of space with the values of the Gospel
Talk with agencies in West Norwalk about primary needs for use of our buildings
May be desirable to run suggested uses past the diocese
Past use that came from talking with community about need
Mustard Seed, which became Artworks – need for after school programming
Put together by rector and a small group of committed parishioners
Very few parishioners had involvement day to day
Transportation is a major problem for school age children in Norwalk
Program eventually moved to a school, which made sense.
Parish no longer identified with the program – no longer seen as “a Grace Church project
Parishioners stopped being involved – the program died
Strategy – increase congregation awareness that Grace ministry does not happen only on Grace property.
All activities of Grace parishioners are Grace activities/ministries
Stilson: Vision and goals to be Big Daring Risky Must be known Must succeed
Music program described – community wide use of building for music related uses
Recitals, concerts, lessons, chorus(es)
Strategy: Connect with the Cathedral in Hartford – ie their concert series
Test community need for same
Be aware of competition? Competition is good – keeps us sharp
There are financial implications in the development of mission
We will need to use savings
Jessie Ball DuPont Fund grants for targeted, sustainable uses
Diocesan assistance:
Networking resources
Others in the diocese may have a track record of success in areas we desire
Strong recommendation: Knock on the doors of the offices in the church’s neighborhood
Ask, “How can we be of service?”
Ask, “How might you want to make use of our building?”
Regarding the parking lot signs, which we are in the process of changing:
How about “This is a good place for turning around!” on one side,
And/or “Jesus thanks you for turning around!”
Theologically sound signage!
Regarding goals to be met before calling Lois Keen as Rector
Financial sustainability
Active in mission
Yes, if July 19, 2009 comes, the end of Lois’s contract, Grace can renew
provided there is financial support for same
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