Every ten years, my church undergoes a strategic planning process to ensure that the congregation continues to meet the needs of members and the greater community.
My church has over 2,000 members, so I felt very honored to be nominated as one of the twelve lay members of the Vision Team.
We met for over a year gathering information on the demographics of the geographic area, engagement by church members, interviewing over 200 people in open-invitation focus groups, and distilling answers from over 700 survey respondents.
In December, we shared our research findings and provided recommendations for improvement. The congregation unanimously voted to approve our long-term strategic plan and the implementation phase has begun.
Here is the document with our findings and recommendations.
http://hydeparkumc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Vision-Town-Hall-Gathering-Handout-Adapt.pdf