Vision 2007

November 12^th will be our third Community Gathering / Forum Sunday.  Please make every effort to join us not only for worship that day, but food, fellowship and creative conversation!  Following the 10:30 celebration of the Eucharist we will gather in the Community Room for a pot-luck lunch before reconvening in the church proper (nave) for our Vision Forum regarding the Eucharist.

As we have pointed out, these sessions are not meant as “building strategy” sessions and certainly not a time to make “shopping lists.”  Rather, these are occasions to look at critical areas of our particular faith tradition from a historical perspective to modern applications, as well as to begin exploring what we wish our buildings, furnishings, program ministry and community life to convey around key concepts of our identity, such as: Baptism, Eucharist, music and hospitality.

As the conversation begins with the buildings, there is a realization that there is a much bigger picture to consider:  Who and what St. John’s is all about.  From there we can answer what we need our buildings to do, what programs serve us well and what we need to become the Church God needs.  Yes, the conversation includes ideas for the buildings, as well as “everything we are about.”  As it was pointed out recently, this has to do with the very future of St. John’s.  This said, there’s something more that is needed:  Y O U!  The Community Gathering / Forum Sundays are meant to just that – the community – and so we are all needed.  Please come, share, learn, imagine and let’s create the vision together.

Where We Are to Date

We have already explored the historical and modern significance of gathering spaces and Baptism.  In November we will explore the Eucharist and in December the focus will be music.  In addition to the Community Gathering / Forum Sundays, the Vision Team has met three other times to process and further develop the conversation from the Sunday forums and identify areas to bring into phase II in the spring.  Here what the process looks like from here:

            ●  November 12            Community Gathering / Forum: Eucharist

            ●  December 10            Community Gathering / Forum: Music

            ●  January 28, 2007       Annual Meeting and Preliminary Report

            ●  February 11              Community Gathering / Advisory Session I:  Symbols

            ●  March 11                  Community Gathering / Advisory Session II:  Visioning Together

            ●  April 29                    Community Gathering / Advisory Session III:  Vision & Planning

            ●  May                                     Development of the Vision

            ●  June 10                     Community Gathering (Parish Picnic) and Vision Celebration