Lakeside Visioning 2022
In coming months, Lakeside will go through a discernment and strategic planning process using tools from “Elemental Churches.” This process will help us answer important questions like how to staff for our mission goals, how to be faithful stewards of our many resources, and how best to worship together in this season.
WHO?
A cohort of Lakeside leaders was elected by session to lead us through this process. We are so grateful that each of these church members answered the call!
Your Elemental Churches cohort:
- Clay Deye
- Tim Dingler
- Karen Ginn
- Peggy Golden
- Chris Miller
- Susan Oakley
- Allison Sherman
- Andrea Weickgennant
- Louisa W. Umphres, pastoral staff
Keep this team in your prayers!
WHAT?
The Elemental Churches process involves four phases.
Phase 1: Congregational Health Assessment.
This is the most involved phase. Lakeside’s cohort will complete a comprehensive assessment focusing on organizational integrity (systems/ processes/governance), passion (level of commitment and engagement), servanthood (outward focus), and imagination (creativity and change capacity).
Phase 2: Mission and Vision Clarification.
We will review our church’s already existing vision and mission statements and identify core theological values and guiding priorities. Our current vision and mission statements are: “The love of Christ compels us to worship, learn and serve as a Christ-centered community inviting all to share a relationship with God”; and our 2020 vision: “Feeding body and soul: engaging friends and strangers, growing deep and wide in Christ.”
Phase 3: Defining Focus.
We will analyze our surrounding community with an eye toward a focused area of impact. The Presbytery’s Center for Learning will provide some of the data needed to assist us, including information on what other churches are doing and what has worked for them.
Phase 4: Planning.
Having renewed Lakeside’s missions and defined our focus, our cohort will team up with session to develop action plans. These plans will be tied to realistic resource allocations and will also address, as needed, obstacles to success identified in the context of the congregational health assessment. The planning phase will also include consideration of current programs and strategies that may need to be realigned or eliminated to free up resources.
Phase 5: Implementation and Review.
Our whole congregation will work together to implement plans and assess the success of any initiatives, noting barriers and attempting to overcome these in revised iterations of those plans. The implementation phase will include interaction with our Presbytery’s Center for Learning to help track progress, celebrate/report on success, and share learnings with other congregations.
These phases will all encompass communication to the Session, leadership and congregation to enroll them and create additional ideas.
WHEN?
January-March: Phase One
Spring: Phases Two and Three
Summer: Phase Four
Summer and Fall 2022: Bring hopes to the congregation and start implementing new plans!
HOW?
We are grateful to have access to the Elemental Churches resources via a grant from the Lilly Foundation to the Presbytery of Cincinnati. These resources include the tools for church inventory, leader assessments, visioning, improving first impressions, and strategic planning as well as six months of coaching from Dave Workman. Here’s a peak at how the whole process will unfold: https://www.elementalchurches.com/pathway.
We are so thankful to have this opportunity!
