Our Vision Retreat Sunday was an amazing and fruitful day! Pastor Rebecca Dolch preached the sermon "Planting a Small Seed" to prepare us for the work ahead, to review what the Chapel has stood for in the last hundred years, and to define our core values for the years ahead together.
After a short worship service, we reviewed findings and preliminary recommendations by the Parsonage Visioning Team (view report here) (view information sheet here), in conjunction with the structural health and needs of the sanctuary building. The congregation asked questions about both buildings, our budget and financial health.
Turnout for this watershed time together was most rewarding. Most families stayed for the pot luck lunch together, and representatives from each family continued during the visioning exercises afterwards.
Elizabeth Mount prepared excellent posters and gave a presentation about the history, endeavors and missions at Forest Home Chapel in the last decades. These posters will remain up in the Fellowship Hall, in case you would like to enjoy and learn from them further.
At Rebecca's request for testimony, many stood to express their experience of blessings from the past, as well as core values for the present, hopes and priorities for the future. We wrote our most important thoughts for each on sticky-notes. "Good organizers" categorized the notes into core areas of focus, including Faith, Community, Service, and Who We Are. Questions and discussions followed as the group worked to understand each other. The day concluded with a group benediction.
In her Sunday, April 29 sermon, Rebecca voiced two core values that emerged from the exercises:
"We want to be a congregation, an atmosphere, where people can experience a sense of acceptance and belonging."
"We are a Christian congregation, but one that honors and supports people who are from other religions, or who are seeking a spiritual connection, or people who may think of themselves as skeptics and agnostics but want to come for the inspiration and community. This attitude would be radical in some Christian circles."
In recent days, many have expressed joy and satisfaction with the retreat experience. New viewpoints were heard, and new ideas were considered by many. A new and joyful unity was a predominant feeling afterwards, a clear will of the Chapel body.
Questions and notes from both sessions have been carefully kept, and will be used to help make decisions about where the Chapel should head in the future. If you are interested in helping to discern implementation, please consider attending church council meetings. Next meeting is Thursday, May 17, 7:00 - 8:30 p.m. in the Chapel meeting room. Go to Operations/Reports to see previous meeting minutes. No major decisions will be made without consensus of the whole body of Forest Home Chapel's congregation.
