Evangelism Committee Meeting – 07/19/12

Present were: Fr. John Kline, Fr. Garrin Dickinson, Kay Wynn, Malcolm Catter, Phil Masquelette and Jon Browne.

Fr. Kline began the meeting by reading the words to Hymn 501. Then Malcolm read Peter 2: 4-5, 9. This was followed by opening prayer.

We reviewed the minutes from the last meeting. Game nights are now happening.  Deacon West is hoping to get the young adults in the parish together and has scheduled a planning meeting with those interested.

Fr. Kline asked Jon about the possibility of having Dr. John Tolson address a large portion of the Parish, perhaps this fall. Jon replied that he didn’t believe that possible given the difficulty of assuring sufficient attendance. Discussion followed. Malcolm suggested starting smaller, with perhaps four dinner speakers a year, focused on one or more themes. Fr. Kline mentioned the theme of “formation,” by which he meant: “Now that we are Christians, what do we do next?”  Fr. Garrin agreed to have one such dinner before Advent. Details are to be worked out.

Fr. Garrin observed that the Evangelism Committee should “morph” from a focus on brainstorming to a focus on follow-up. The problem here is getting one or more members to “take charge” of a task.

Jon asked for a sense of how widely read the Trumpet and Parish website are. This question arose from a discussion of the efficacy of Parish communication. We should encourage parishioners to keep current. In this regard, Fr. Garrin should catch up with posting his sermons. Deacon West has put helpful worship notes in the Pew Bulletin.  Fr. Kline noted that we need someone to take charge of Parish communications, not the printing, but pulling material together.

We then discussed discovering what has brought in our newcomers who have been with us some months. The thought is to ask questions such as : “What brought you here/” and “ What keeps you here?” Fr. Kline has a list of 26 names. We agreed that committee members will interview these individuals starting this fall. Assignments will be discussed next meeting. Kay Wynn distributed a draft of questions we could use. Fr. Garrin is especially interested in what attracts these newcomers. He knows what we are doing wrong. What are we doing right?

Fr. Garrin then discussed the fall program he has planned. There will be a Game Night the last Friday of every month from ~7:00 to 9.00 PM.  He described this as a Parish “Hang Out” time. The Friday night after Labor Bay, the movie “Courageous” will be screened. Other viewing opportunities will be made available. This will be followed by an eight week discussion program during Sunday Adult Sunday School. Workbooks drawn from the movie will be available.

There will be no August meeting.  Next meeting will be September 29.

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