St. Peter’s United Church of ChristFocus Groups: Envisioning St. Peter’s Future Goal: Listen to the congregation about church values, identity, and impact with the goal of applying what we hear to future discernment and visioning around church growth, staffing, and budgeting

Facilitated by: Daniel Meyers, Staff Support Team LeadSeth Kreigh, Generosity Team LeadJill Olinger, Generosity Team

What this report is and what it is not:To the best of our ability, we tried to capture the major themes we heard across the four focus groups related to the three major themes. The report is not comprehensive in that there were several ideas and comments shared that may not be specifically represented here. Furthermore, the report is not providing an analysis or a set of recommendations. These themes represent what we heard. We look to Governance Council to determine the best way to share a version of this report with the congregation as well as to determine what the next steps are. We hope the voices represented in this report and the major themes that arise from them will inform the leadership and the congregation on how to proceed as a church seeking to live into its values, have an impact beyond our walls, and live into the realities and challenges we face.

Summary of Primary Observations-The focus groups accomplished the goal of getting input from a representative group of the congregation over 4 sessions-There is shared values related to welcoming, people, community, hospitality, social justice-There are differing views on the top priorities for SPUCC.-Other major themes of discussion include: involvement and care, communication and education, trust and transparency-Important additional ideas were shared that may not have constituted an overall theme, but were summarized in the report as well

Basic Structure of the Focus Groups:We conducted four focus groups on 9/15, 9/22, 10/2, and 10/13 for roughly 60 minutes each. Although each conversation had its unique content in some form, the primary arch of all four conversations was driven by three key areas:

-St. Peter’s identity and values-St. Peter’s impact beyond our walls in the community and world-How do we reconcile St. Peter’s identity and our goals for impact with the reality of our resources (including financial as well as time and membership commitments)

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Who showed up and the implicationsJill Olinger created the following tables related to the demographics of our focus group participants:

Based on this preliminary analysis, we concluded that we had an adequate representation of the congregation in several respects. There are roughly equal voices from those who have been at St. Peter’s less that 5 years (only knowing Lori as Senior Pastor), 6-15 years (only knowing St. Peters with 2 pastors), and 15+ years (knowing St. Peters with a solo pastor model). There is adequate gender representation. There is adequate presence from non-elected leadership, which is important since elected leaders can share their views in other settings. The involvement table shows that the overwhelming majority of those who participated are very active in the life of St. Peters. The selected examples of active involvement are not comprehensive, but give a snapshot of who is in the room. The two areas where we may not have adequate representation are members who are fairly inactive as well as youth.

However, based on the numbers, it was determined by Daniel, Seth, and Jill that if there are gaps in representation, the best approach at this point would be to invite particular individuals for one-on-one conversations rather than running further focus groups at this time.

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Word Cloud of major themes related to Part I: Identity - What is at the heart of St. Peter’s UCC? Who are we as a church?

Major Themes of Conversations OverallThese themes arose in the commentary of many of the focus groups, though none of these themes were universal or agreed upon by everyone within or across focus groups. They capture a particular kind of idea that came up in several versions over the course of the four sessions:

Identity and Values-There is overwhelming consistency on what the major values of the church are: welcoming, hospitality, social justice, inclusive, open-minded.

*This is a huge asset that a majority of the church has a similar experience of what is most important for the identity of the church.

-The word “don’t” shows up in the word cloud above, indicating part of what is valued is what we “don’t do” just as much as what we do do, related to past church experience for many members.

Different Perspectives on St. Peters’ Priorities-An overarching theme is the question of priorities. What is most important for the church to prioritize in its staffing model, in its care for the staff and building, in its care for the membership, in its impact beyond the walls in the community? This is not known or agreed upon. A strategic visioning approach along with more regular membership communication may be needed to gather the church into a shared understanding of the priorities.

-There is a dichotomy of views about the way to view “the church.” Some see the top priority as relating to the corporal aspects of the church: the building, the staff, paying fairly, running a professional organization. Others see the spiritual aspects of the church as top priority: spiritual wellbeing of the

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community, pastoral care, liturgy, etc. In both cases, those on one side would let the other side struggle more if time/resources are limited. Naturally, it is our observation that the church is necessarily both of these things but people in the community don’t all agree on what to prioritize first in seasons of limits.

-There are some in the congregation who are interested in putting greater emphasis on the external focus in the community, having more impact externally. This effort may draw more people in, which may have an impact on the internal challenges related to resources.

-The congregation sees a lot of value in having two pastors and would generally support the idea of finding a way to remove the administrative work the pastors are doing from their plates so the pastors can focus more on religious leadership. It is unclear if there would be resources to support this goal.

-The church is trying to do too much without a clear focus. There are passion projects and larger projects that take up a lot of energy and time. In some cases, the church is not funding these missions and so the volunteers have to pay for the supplies or needs out of their own giving. In some cases, only those driving these ministries know about them or are working on them, leaving the church in a fractured situation where a variety of ministries are occurring without a clear focus or direction or community follow-through. There would be a benefit to building consensus around particular key ministries and simultaneously leaving room for a limited number of “passion projects” on an annual basis.

Involvement and Care-There is burnout. People are tired of showing up for many things. It is difficult to get volunteers to keep all the different goals moving forward, both in church leadership as well is in mission events.

-A great deal of discussion occurred about pastor involvement. For those who discussed pastoral care in times of need, 100% shared great appreciation for the care offered in those moments to individuals and their families. However, there was concern about pastor involvement in programming or ministries, particularly in instances where pastors used to be more involved in a ministry and have stepped back.

Communication and Education-A desire for more communication is strong. We heard in several ways a wish for there to be more space and more time to discuss the important matters of the church. In its most specific form, this comment was made in the suggestion of doing quarterly “annual” meetings on a Sunday where only one service is offered and doing a lunch after that service so that people can stay as a whole community and the timing is not limited between 2 services.

-Additional concerns about communication were raised regarding the current methods: the Epistle and the Bulletin are not the only ways to share about opportunities, events, and information. There are several who think an announcement time during the service would be productive as there are different types of learners and people process information differently: visually, audibly, reading on their own, etc. Written communication is relied on too heavily.

-Related to communication, the theme of wanting greater transparency in decision-making was present. Wanting the leadership to consult the membership for large decisions and function with a majority (democratic) process of greater transparency and consensus.

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-A need for education. Different than a need for more communication, this point highlights the idea that many people do not know the polity and structure of the church. This contributes to the frenetic unfocused practice of various ministries. Further, many do not understand what the job of the pastor is, what the two different pastors do in their different roles, and what the goals are for the two distinct pastor job descriptions. Education on what our pastors do, how they view their different roles, and why this model is the right set up for St. Peter’s would be helpful.

Trust and Transparency-There may be a lack of trust within the community in sharing particular comments. In several instances the request was made for anonymous or further feedback than the forum of the focus group. Further, there is a larger theme of how the idea of welcome may not be lived out in practice as everyone envisions, including comments related to cliques, lack of transparency, and mistrust.

-There was concern about how the Annual Meeting in June was conducted, both in terms of the content shared in the meeting about our budget and resources but also in the method of the communication. Generally, people shared that they want to hear more about this process and the reality of the challenges.

Additional items that were not themes but important on their own:Some ideas were raised only once or twice and may not constitute a larger theme, but we wanted to highlight so they did not get lost:-can we work on developing greater racial diversity?-the property of St. Peter’s is an asset that perhaps could open creative doors for financial stability if we considered options of leasing or selling a portion of the land.-Some feel there has been a de-prioritization on the focus of spiritual care. There is a feeling by some that they are not growing spiritually as they would like and are placing that expectation for growth on the pastors.-Primarily in the first focus group, there was some discussion about the 2-pastor model. An important question that pertains to several themes is if a full-time office administrator and a full time pastor would serve the goals of the church. This idea was floated in a couple instances and captures the divide between the question of whether the church is a corporal entity or a spiritual entity. (Of course it is both.) Administrative work is not always understood as part of the ministry.-The music of St. Peter’s is a flashpoint issues, some love it and some wish it would change drastically. While not of the top relevance for these focus groups, it is clearly a community concern. -The global church (and religion in general) is in a transitional moment right now as institutions struggle and organized religion is perceived differently. We must put our local concerns and questions in a larger context of wider uncertainty about how The Church should and could relate to our changing society. -Every non-profit organization struggles to live fully into their vision and mission; would we consider fees for the services we provide like youth events, service events, etc.?-While the majority of the focus group participants gravitated around the need for more focus and doing less things at higher quality, there was a concern about narrowing the mission so much that members couldn’t see themselves in the church anymore and leaving because “their” passion is no longer represented in the church. (Having room for limited individual passion projects may address this in part)

Submitted respectfully by Daniel Meyers, Staff Support Team Lead With input and guidance from Seth Kreigh and Jill Olinger from the Generosity Team

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