Our family conversation returns on Sunday 

We would like to invite your participation in the family conversation this Sunday, and for your reflection and prayers on the questions included below in preparation for that significant time. Family Conversations involve us gathering in circles of about ten people to express our thoughts and feelings about significant aspects of our life together at Grace.

The focus of this family conversation will be what we regard as most important about Grace, what is most valued about who we are as a church. The reason for this focus is that we must first recognize what we value in order to grow into our identity and calling. To put it another way, we cannot know who we are or what we should do without first knowing what longings, loves, and values animate us. We must do this foundational work before we do other important work in this interim season, such as forming a search committee to bring in a new pastor well suited to who we are as a church.

This family conversation is part of a larger process. In a church assessment completed last June by N.L. Moore and Associates, the consultant helped us to see clearly that Grace was in genuine identity crisis. These family conversations are a crucial part of a process that will help the leadership of the church articulate the values and identity of the church in a way that is recognizable and compelling to the membership of Grace. What is heard in these family conversations will be communicated to leadership, and will give needed insight for upcoming conversations about the values and identity of Grace.

With all that said, your presence and voice in these conversations is significant to us. (That is true even if you have been at the church only a little while). We want to invite your partnership and participation in the work set before us in this season of transition, so that we can grow through this season with love and grace into a new time of fruitfulness.

So we would like for you to spend some time in prayer and reflection about these questions that we will be considering together on Sunday:

1. In one word or phrase, what is most important to you about being part of Grace?

2. What ministries at Grace do you feel most connected to? What values do you see reflected there? (A value is a quality so important to us that it guides what we do, how we do it, and how we feel about it).

3. What values are so fundamental to who Grace is that you would not want to see them change? Why do you see them as so important?  

4. How do we need to change as a church to reflect Christ more fully, and why do you think that change is important? How do you suppose that change could come about?

5. What do you hope the Grace community will be like a year from now that might be different from where we are now?