New Member Ministry Commission Report

January 28, 2007

I was asked to present material from a class that five members of the New Member Ministry attended - "New Member Ministry". The training was organized by the Diocese and was conducted in three full-day classes spread throughout the year with "homework" in between each class. Alice Mann, an Episcopal priest and consultant for the Alban Institute was brought in to conduct the training.

Since we are limited to a reasonable amount of time at the annual meeting, I will talk briefly about each of the five steps of New Member Ministry that were presented in the training.

  1. Invite: A congregation should be intentional about who they invite to join their community. For example, will a man who insists on singing loudly, but off key, be accepted by your community; or how about a middle-aged woman who may not dress to your standards. More importantly, would you invite young families if you don't have a strong religious education program. A church needs to invite those who can take advantage of current programs, or make a decision to create new programs to attract a new group.

  2. Greet: Once you've invited people, you need to have a strong greeting program. At St. Paul's the New Member Ministry Commission (NMMC) made this their first large project. We recruited 60 new Greeters and Sally McGucken, as Chair. She and George Kittredge created a terrific new training program for the greeters, which was very successful. It is important that Greeters know where the Child Care Center is, after all.

    This fall, we added the Visitors Table with the red visitors bags. We have been giving from one to four bags per week, on average. While these are not large numbers, they do add up over time.

  3. Orient: Orienting people is critical for newcomers to know where to go, who to ask and how to get involved. For example, an announcement might say: "Newcomers can meet the Rector after Eucharist in the Narthex". For someone new to the Episcopal faith they might have no idea where to go, who to meet or where to meet. Our question is: are we providing the right information to newcomers so that they can find a place in our community.

    This fall, we started a new program "First Sunday" designed as a place that anyone with questions could come to ask them. Kitty McDowell, Susan Jones and Nancy Grear are available the first Sunday of each month in the East Room to answer as many questions as a good Episcopalian could/should answer.

  4. Incorporate: How do we engage new people in our community? How do you help them discover the gifts that they love to use? How do you make it easy for them to contact Parish Life, or Music, or Religious Education if they are interested?
  5. Send: As Jesus sent his disciples off to do their ministry, how do we send our newcomers off to live out their life with Christ - either at St. Paul's or any of our other options or in some new direction?

There are many discussions here in terms of what opportunities we want to, or can provide to newcomers as well as long-term members. We need to be intentional about each of these areas, but also the linkages among them. We will be planning a Parish Council meeting to continue this conversation and document what we are already doing, so that we can see what possible new programs might be needed.

This is exciting work that will allow us to enhance the lives of those coming to St. Paul's and also enhance the life of St. Paul's as we add new members to our community.

Nancy Grear