- By -
- Around Town
Print 
The spate of New Years Resolutions appearing in cartoons, articles and columns when it is time to turn the calendar page from December of one year over to January of the next always cover a wide range of subjects. One that is sure to be in the top ten, however, is weight loss! On the other hand, when a congregation is asked about its resolutions, or goals, for the upcoming year, growth and expansion is more likely to be discussed than is getting smaller.
All Saints has already made important changes: they worship in their Fellowship Hall because the sanctuary is no longer big enough. Since January 8, they’ve celebrated Mass at 8:30 am and 11 am with religious school and coffee time between services.
A successful fund raising campaign will enable All Saints to move its services into a new building with a 400-seat capacity by the next time New Years Resolutions are written. The existing church building, on the corner of State Route 34B and Myers Road, will remain standing and “have other uses”, according to Lippert.
A previous years’ Resolution to study a problem and find a solution presented many challenges during 2005 to The Lansing United Methodist Church, 32 Brickyard Road.
Having found itself in a similar bursting-at-the-seams situation as All-Saints, it established a team to conduct a year long “Strategic Planning Process”. Writing in the January 2006 issue of The LUMC Sunbeam, Pastor Bill Gottschalk-Fielding and The Lay Leadership Team explained how this church had chosen to cope with its continued growth, having spent the last year evaluating its growing pains and possible solutions, long-term and immediate.
Acknowledging that “sanctuary overcrowding is an immediate challenge we have to address now”, LUMC has opted to re-arrange its worship schedule and plans to implement the new schedule after Easter services. At that time, First Service will be at 8:30 am, followed by 9:30 Sunday School, Coffee and Conversation at 10:30 am and a Second Service at 11 am.
To further address the overcrowding, in 2006 the Strategic Planning Team will obtain estimates for physical expansion. It is anticipated that fund raising, creating architectural plans and actual construction will follow in the near future.
LUMC is now conducting a “Spiritual Gifts Inventory to “link a member’s gifts with a particular ministry.” The inventory contains 200 “statements” that the entire congregation is invited to respond by rating the statements on a scale between 1 and 7, with 7 “always describing me” through 1 defining “never describes me”.
One member of the Lay Team was overheard advising a respondent, “Don’t think about your answer. Just write down the first thing that comes to mind”.
But after carefully reading all 200 of the Spiritual Gifts Inventory statements provided The Lansing Star Online, the first thing that came to my mind was that there’s plenty of material in here for the making of the next set of New Years Resolutions!
----
v2i3