Read the Final Report of the Listening Process Steering Committee:  What did you tell us?
Posted: March 26, 2007

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Previous Listening Process Updates...

Listening Process Update

By Dr. Stephen Austin,
Communications Facilitator for the Board of Directors
February, 2007

We are excited to relay our first of several updates on the Conference-wide Listening Process. The Listening Process Steering Committee met with the Board of Directors and Conference executive staff on Feb. 2, and reported the following.

The listening sessions on January 6 & 20 were well-attended and quite successful.  A total of 33 gatherings were attended by over 450 people, representing 183 churches across the state.  Over 2000 pages of information were collected, and have been read through by the Steering Committee once – a first of several “siftings” of all the information solicited which will take place, as it was unanimously agreed that a multi-staged approach to gleaning and analyzing the information was vital to maintain the integrity of the process and to assure that the interpretation of the data is comprehensive.

The Committee will continue to read and analyze the input from these sessions over the next month, while continuing to receive feedback from online data collection.  Before finalizing statements and reports on the actual content of the information, however, several things must take place:

1. Collection of online data must be completed.
2. More study of the input must be made, and identification of common threads and themes distinguished.
3. Consensus must be drawn by the Steering Committee as to the conclusions and points of priority that were expressed.  These will then be compiled and presented to the Board at its mid-March meeting, when it will continue its work on creating an initial plan of action.

The Board of Directors will present the final compilation of findings at the Annual Meeting in June, along with its initial proposal for moving forward.

On behalf of the Board, Conference staff and the Steering Committee, we are most grateful to all those who participated in the Listening Sessions in January.  Your input was valuable, insightful, and vital to our moving successfully into the future as a Conference in the United Church of Christ.  Thank you so much!

Listening Sessions Scheduled

November 29, 2006

I write with Advent anticipation and the promise of new life that fills this season with hope.

As you may have heard, we are entering into an exciting process within our Conference. Our Work in Progress is an initiative designed to ensure that our congregations have the resources and support that will enable us to move into a period of deep growth and spiritual vitality.

Your help – including your ideas and dreams – are essential to make this effort succeed.

This is an invitation for you and a few leaders from your church to help shape our collective future as the United Church of Christ here in Massachusetts. Every church in the Conference is being asked to send a team of 3-5 lay and ordained leaders to one of the listening sessions listed below.

We are distributing this invitation to Pastors and Moderators via both email and snail mail. We ask you to do the following:

a) Please collaborate with each other in selecting a specific session you will attend. (See the list of sessions)

b) We hope that each church’s team will include at least the Pastor(s), Moderator, and one person who is a relatively new member of your congregation. Please recruit others as appropriate so you can send a team of 3-5 people.

c) Help us in our planning by registering. Please have one person send an email to us at listening@macucc.org and include the name of your church, the session (date, time, location) you plan to attend, and the names of those who will be coming from your congregation. Please let us know as soon as you’ve decided, and if possible, no later than December 19, 2006.

d) Please reflect on the following three questions.

Key Questions

The purpose of the restructuring process is to better align the Conference resources to nurture local church vitality and the covenant among the churches. Conference resources include: Conference Financial Resources; Deployment of Conference Staff; Use of Volunteer Time (Board; Committees; Commissions); Conference land/buildings.

Increasing church vitality lies at the core of this restructuring process. Over the past five years, Conference leaders have identified five areas in which church vitality can be measured: Worship Attendance; Mission Outreach; Faith Formation (of children, youth and adults); Stewardship; Our connection to the wider UCC.

QUESTION 1:
Based on the five areas of vitality mentioned at left, where do you want your church to be in five years? Please be concrete and use measurable objectives if possible.

QUESTION 2:
How can Conference resources (at left) be deployed to help your congregation get from where your congregation is now to where you expect to be in five years?

QUESTION 3:
Keeping in mind the four resources of the Conference mentioned at left, how has the conference blessed your ministry in the past?

The Listening Steering Committee will analyze feedback from these sessions and will present their findings and recommendations to the Board of Directors in March 2007. These will be used by the Board of Directors, along with other research and input, to develop a restructuring plan that will be brought to the Annual Meeting either in June or September 2007.

Please click on the links above, right, to read background information about the listening process and to sign up to receive email updates. We look forward to seeing you in January.

For the Listening Steering Committee,

Jim Antal, Minister & President

The Listening Steering Committee includes: Paul Adkins, Liz Aguilar, Jim Antal, Candi Ashenden, Cindy Worthington-Berry, Sylvia Ferrell-Jones, John Hudson (chair), Hooks Johnston, Bette McClure, Terry Martinson, Peter Meek, Mike Penn-Strah, Carol Yelverton, Peter Wells, Jonathan Wright-Gray.