Many people joined us last Sabbath afternoon in-person or via Zoom for a church "Vision" meeting. A number of different ideas were presented to start the process off and a follow-up meeting date was decided on (Nov 7, 1:00pm).
Here are Pastor David's notes from the meeting:
Suggestions made during meeting and from zoom chat:
Nativity
Missing members
Reconnection ministry is a missing member ministry – 5 people have volunteered so far for this. 300 missing members we need to reconnect with.
Community survey was done a few years back.
Covid-19 has moved us to upgrade our AV ministry for media ministry.
What can people do who can’t physically participate because of Covid-19:
Nativity – prep
Youth – pray for them
Making phone calls: touch base with those wanting Bible studies, etc.
Use phone for Intergenerational ministry: connecting seniors with younger ages
Pathfinders collected food around Thanksgiving & would go out to those less fortunate.
Collect cans during Covid & bring people food since some don’t want to go out.
Dorcas – helped us to see people groups with needs.
How do we get the word of Christ to people? What can we do to spiritually feed people in our community?
Synergy: within 10 miles of this church we have Carmichael Church, SAA, Maranatha, Adventist Health, Gracepoint, Orangevale, Granite Bay, NCC. Everyone of these is doing their own things. What about tying in to what other people are doing. How do we work together?
Our sign out by road. Put something simple and catchy: ie – need prayer. Stop by. A member said they can be here and just pray/read scripture with someone. They will make this their commitment, ie – be here Monday morning at 8am.
Use our Marquee – put “Bible studies here”.
Have a small space so people can continue fellowshipping after church on Sabbath afternoon.
Digital signage: external displays and cases that protects them. Can put up any message we want by the minute if we want; can play a video if we want.
Roseville has signage restrictions. If interested, invest in what was just said and do it properly with all the permits.
Social media & advertising on it: can do very targeted advertising on facebook for example. Put together a comprehensive social media plan and using it in multiple ways.
Designated drivers to bring people to church.
Reaching out to Sierra College, American River with prayer walk: call other churches: ask them to join us.
Prayer hotline. Outline Bible studies.
Facebook – lot of people who are not from our congregation are watching (30-40 people who are not from our church). Have someone reply to messages on our feed, preferably live, and then follow up with anyone who needs it.
Health, and vegetarian classes are needed for better health during this covid scare.
Ministry of Healing, p. 143, Christ’s Method alone: meet people’s needs before bringing gospel.
Every year choose a theme/focus/mission & revolve everything around that theme.
Local rules & regulations didn’t allow us to have electronic sign when they were updating the sign last time.
We have a health and wellness type of ministry; nurse chaplains reaching community with different programs; something on heath or food.
People want to know about us. People don’t know much about us. Something specific about our local church, not necessarily the SDA church at large. Flyer to pass out from our church. Our church can have a literature ministry.
How do we make this property a destination for people to want to come here. We have a lot of property: two large piece of land that is empty – is there something we can do with that that will make people want to come here: ie – dog park (partner with city), community garden, BLC sits vacant most of the week, etc. What can we do with the resources that we currently have – have other people run it and we supply the land/space.
Our current resources: property, classrooms. People are working remotely: if anyone wants to bring their office work – we have rooms, can put partitions, retired people can come, we have a kitchen [need to follow Covid restrictions]. When working at home: motivation decreases, working alone is difficult, etc. Announce to community to use part of our facility. Make sure we have some type of security. Local libraries are closed. People are very isolated.
Health message is the right arm of the third angel’s message: cooking school. Had one in January and it went well.
Meet people where they’re at. Go to them, don’t wait for them to come to us. Show them Christ in us through actions and words. Cooking, yard work, resume help, etc. What is our skill set and how can we help our community: we started working on that, but don’t think anything came of that. What happened to the needs we discovered in the community through the community surveys? We need people to follow-up on these needs. Team up with other churches. What are people’s current needs now during Covid? Community yard sale – would be low liability in comparison to a dog park.
How are we connected? What are the ministries we have? What are we doing as a church to see member’s skill sets to connect them with current and future ministries? Make sure everyone has something they can be involved in.
Adventist Health acquired organization called “Blue Zones.” 2022 They want to make community of Roseville into a Blue Zone. They want to tie in our local church into this plan. We will be a vital part of that.
This church is known as the friendly church. Sometimes we do things but don’t follow through. Pick up trash or do something to bring people here, not just what we do in church Sabbath morning. Have people over for Sabbath lunch. Have different people with different talents work together with their varied gifts to make this happen.
Church culture has changed over the years. When we’re more connected to one another as a church that’s when our church grows. A lot of that has slowed significantly over the last couple of years. We need to get to know one another again. Cooking schools (would be fun to includes kids in that).
“Low hanging fruit” - those attending who haven’t yet accepted Christ (young people & adults) and/or are attending but are not Adventists, family members who are non-Christian and/or non-Adventist and are not attending, and missing members. Focus on leading them to Christ or helping them take the next step in their relationship with Christ.
We can only give what we have and the most important thing is Christ. We must each make a commitment/recommitment to spend time with God daily at the beginning of our day. This includes at the core: prayer and Bibles study.
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