A Report from the Field - Another One - Short!

Joelle Lyons Everett JLEShelton at aol.com
Fri Jun 14 22:21:48 PDT 2002


Jim--

A number of years ago, our church celebrated its centennial by writing a
vision statement for its second century.  A group of forty or so gathered on
a Saturday, for prayer, some guided meditation for visualizing the future,
and a collaborative writing exercise.   The meeting was open to whoever
wanted to come, and some effort was made to see that people were there from
the wide variety of church programs and committees.

The surprise in the visioning was that there was a strong, collective wish to
expand service to the community, and this desire to be of service both
re-energized the congregation and expanded programs serving the community.
The vision statement was written by the whole group in a couple of hours,
trying to voice the visions of the individuals present.  Several times in the
next few years, someone suggested a new statement, but the one written
collectively had a lot of staying power.

This was not Open Space, but the meeting did serve a similar purpose of
encouraging people to speak up for their passions--and many individuals and
committees took responsibility for realizing the vision.

I wish you well in finding a way to help the congregation discover their
passion and energy (and if there it none, well, that is an important thing to
know!)

Joelle Everett

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