Congregational Communication Meeting

November 6, 2005

Skyland Community Church

Moderator Larry Cooke called the meeting to order at 12:00 noon.

He introduced the meeting by discussing its purpose and reviewing the results of the October 23, 2005 meeting. The overall objective of these two meetings is to clarify who we are, what we want to be as a church, and to help us plan better.

There were approximately 28 people present for the meeting.

The first stage of the meeting involved the members breaking up in to 4 small groups of 5-7 people to discuss the following question: What specific actions do we want to take to achieve what we want our church to be or do? The groups were reminded that the items developed in the last meeting about what we want our church to be or do included:

1. Spiritual haven and religious freedom

2. Community outreach and vital programming

3. Financial stability and growth

4. Functional facility

The ideas that the groups developed were clustered in the following ways:

Nurturance

• Create a conflict resolution group for conflicts within the congregation.

• Have some more formal education on such topics as the history of Christianity, the history of the UCC, the history of the Bible, or run movies with a UCC historical theme, like “Amistad‿.

• Develop our own spiritual haven through classes, prayer groups/chains, and storytelling about our faith journeys.

Public Relations

• Create an outreach calendar with items such as the Crop Walk, when people prepare lunch once per month, when food is sorted at Second Harvest, etc., with contact information, so that people in the church and community know how to become involved in these activities. The calendar could be both printed and posted on the web site.

• Add information to the sign on Soquel-San Jose Road and in front of the church with our website address and worship times. Also look into adding another sign on Soquel-San Jose Road facing in the other direction.

• Write regular articles for “Mountain Community News‿.

Interfaith Outreach

• As a continuation of the “God is Still Speaking‿ initiative, invite speakers and members of various faith traditions to speak about their traditions at the church, moving toward more inclusive language and action.

• Consider being a part of, or initiating, an interfaith study group.

• Collaborate with other community churches and civic organizations on hosting community discussions about issues. This might lead to the development of a comprehensive food pantry, a community conflict resolution program, and conversations about the future of the community.

Day-to-Day Operations

• Educate the church about how the operations of the church are done, with a recognition that, at this point, the work of the church is not equitably shared and many efforts are not acknowledged. The leadership of the church would define what needs to be done and who will do it at the beginning of each year.

Next, meeting participants were asked to self-select into one of the groups listed above (with the exception of Day-to-Day Operations), to discuss how to prioritize action items within each group. The groups developed the following action priorities:

Nurturance

1. Formal Education and Spiritual Practice

2. Conflict Resolution Team

Public Relations

1. Create an outreach calendar

2. Work on new signage

3. Determine topics of interest to the entire community for “Mountain Community News‿

Interfaith Outreach

1. Collaboration and local outreach to civic, community, and religious groups

2. Interfaith interaction with services, coffee hour, study groups, and field trips

Then, representatives of each of the groups met together to come to a consensus about what the overall priority of all of these actions should be. The group came to consensus about the following priorities:

1. Spiritual Practice and Education

2. Outreach Calendar

3. Day-to-Day Operations

4. Collaboration with Local Groups

5. Interfaith Interaction

6. Education about Conflict Resolution Options

7. New Signs and Regular Articles in “Mountain Community News‿

There was then some discussion about how to implement these actions. Suggestions were made to give the notes of this meeting to the Church Council and to have a summary available to give out to people in church. In addition, any new committee members that are recruited should be made aware of these items, while making it clear that participation is welcome from everyone. The Church Council might wish to consider revising the current committee structure to better implement some of these ideas. The group felt that it was important to assign each item to a committee now for review and discussion and that it would be important to review progress on these items at the Annual Meeting in January.

The assignments for implementing these actions were as follows:

1. Spiritual Practice and Education – Religious Education and Deacons

2. Outreach Calendar -- Missions

3. Day-to-Day Operations – Vice-Moderator

4. Collaboration with Local Groups – Church Council, with consultation of Leslie Meehan

8. Interfaith Interaction -- Stephen

9. Education about Conflict Resolution Options – Del Mahrle and Mary Ellen McTamany

10. New Signs and Regular Articles in “Mountain Community News‿ – Church Council

Before the meeting ended, it was noted that missing from this meeting were parents of young children, youth, and most of the parents of youth. The group discussed the need to have childcare available for the Annual Meeting and to make a special effort to reach out to youth to encourage their participation.

The group gave a hearty thank you to Larry Cooke for organizing the meeting and Larry thanked the committee members who helped, Eileen Altman, T’Shala Olivieri, Jan Swayne, and Pam Nates.

The meeting adjourned with prayer at 3:00.

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