As your interim, my job is, above all, to listen, observe, and reflect what I’m noticing and hearing. From the time I first met you through now, I've felt that you have all the ingredients you need to make a good and fruitful call to your next rector.
And before that, there is a story to be told about what some of the results of this assessment tool, which most of you participated in, mean, and to hear from your leaders about what has been happening since then.
Last week, at our initial Adult Forum at 9am, we revisited the Holy Cow! Consulting and Strategic Vision processes, and where that has landed lately in the form of the Strategic Target Groups. I took a few minutes to frame why congregations sometimes find themselves in a situation where someone brings in an outside consulting group, and what these assessments and strategy tools can do to help a congregation “move the needle.”
Just over a year ago, we shared the assessment and recommendations from our Holy Cow! Consulting was shared with you through the Window. It included the full Congregational Assessment Tool (CAT) survey results. You may review those here, except for the free-form comments, which were summarized by topic to preserve confidentiality. The committee recommended and shared an interpretation tool called OwlSight Guide, which they commended for using when reading the results.
The committee then reflected on those results and put together a Summary for the congregation in a special edition of the Window. The links all take you to those items shared last year.
To begin, I sensed it would be important for us to talk about the natural “Life Cycle of Organizations.” That means any organization, committee, ministry, congregation, etc.
We talked about the reality that when a congregation is forming and growing, that is most likely the quadrant in the Holy Cow! Assessment of High Energy, High Enthusiasm. But at some point, all organizations experience a stagnation; some turn the corner into declining, etc. At any point, there is always an opportunity to return to the Formation section by asking ourselves: Who are we? What is our unique purpose? And who is our neighbor? When we spend time exploring our responses to these questions, we find a path back into growth and health (aka vitality).
But to do that, we have to be willing to engage with the “C” word…which, in a Paraclete culture like Trinity, can sometimes be difficult. Not impossible, if you tend to a particular change process.
Key: C is for Change, D is for Dissatisfaction, V is for Vision, F is for tangible first steps, and R is for resistance to the change.
The leadership listened to the congregation through that CAT data and heard that, “In the chaos quadrant, Trinity may find that people are aligned behind different projects, ministries, staff members, or ideas. While this may generate excitement or energy, this work is often “siloed” or isolated, indicating that while there is energy it is not shared among the different groups, and it is not clearly aligned behind a common mission and vision." Hence, the Vision150 Strategic Vision process was born to move us from the “Chaos” quadrant into the “Transformation” quadrant. The survey helped them assess the level of Dissatisfaction; the Vision 150 committee helped distill a vision and recommend tangible first steps to help us move the needle forward.
And then the Strategic Target Groups were born! For this first year, we are focusing on Welcome, Adapting & Attracting Families, Clarity of Identity, and Building Trust & Managing Conflict. These are no small tasks, my friends, and I was instantly impressed that so many folks signed up to help refine and achieve the goals set forth.
And now, your Vestry is moving into a phase of discernment that requires tremendous focus and energy to do the work I have been charged to help us achieve as we prepare the way for calling a new Rector.
So, we are asking folks to lean into these STGs and our co-chairs of the Strategic Vision process to process ideas and keep the focus on these four areas for this first year. In or around February (or as soon as possible after the new Rector is called), it will be time to check in again and see whether that needle has moved. I sense that it will have. I sense that Trinity is ready to move into a bright new chapter of its future and aligned on a common Vision.
You are invited to join us in the coming weeks as we take a deeper look into each of the four Strategic Target Groups during the Forum hour. We encourage you to come, participate, ask questions, and witness the gathered community being knit back together into a reality with High Energy AND High Satisfaction.
And to that end, I hope you will always remember exactly how beloved you are and how very much your voice matters. From the smallest among us to the ones most vulnerable to feeling disconnected. I continue to give thanks for each of you and what you bring to this party!
See you in church!
* The Life Cycle and Change Models are both elements of the College for Congregational Development, created by The Diocese of Olympia and attributed to the model’s creators, as required by 17 USC § 106A.