By Pastor Devlyn Brooks
Late this summer, in an effort to continue to push our Faith Lutheran revitalization initiative forward, our Church Council vowed to set three ambitious goals it wants to achieve in 2025.
True to their word, after several weeks of reflection, the Council at its September meeting agreed on the following three goals for this church year:
Goal 1: Invite new members to join our Music and Worship Committee and invite the newly expanded committee to imagine a new vitality for our worship services, including the important future of music as a foundation to our worship. Additionally, the Council will be asking this newly expanded Music and Worship Committee to take on the vital project of investing in our audio and visual upgrades around the church.
Goal 2: Create a newly imagined adult education program, utilizing digital technology and other means to be creative.
Goal 3: Utilize our church on average three times per week to portray that we are more than just Sunday morning worships, in addition to engaging in ministry outside of our physical walls on average once per month to serve our neighbors.
In recognition of the fact that we only have so much bandwidth as a congregation, the council agreed to tackle one goal at a time so that we could systematically focus our attention on one achievement at a time.
And we all agreed that the first goal to tackle this year is the exciting project to update our audio and visual capabilities around our church, as well as invite new members to the Music and Worship Committee.
Some context to help explain how we arrived here …
Over a couple of months this summer, Faith Forward Committee member Bob Stein researched a wide range of digital upgrades at our church that would include a new and upgraded video camera to allow us to broadcast our services, as well as special events, again; improvements to our microphones and sound system; and providing more video capabilities downstairs in our fellowship hall for events such as funerals, among other things.
Bob brought his research and a proposal to the Council at the September meeting, and the Council agreed it was time to get serious about this project that has been bumping along for years.
The Council and I felt that this audio and visual project fits well into the mission of the Music and Worship Committee, and so it was melded into the Council’s goal to invite the committee to become more active in developing a new approach to the creation of our worship services, with a more intentional focus on music and digital worship arts.
So, all that being said, the Council asked Lisa Miller and myself to host an organizing meeting for those interested in participating in a newly revamped Music and Worship Committee that will take on the role of bringing back a final audio and visual upgrade proposal to the Council, will meet monthly to help be more intentional about each Sunday’s worship service and to imagine what the future of our music program will be.
We’ve set that meeting for after service on Sunday, XX XXX. The current Music and Worship Committee members will certainly be invited, as they have faithfully served our church for years. But this new effort will be big and expansive and will require the assistance of more committed volunteers who want to help make our music, worship and audio/visual ministries soul-filling.
We are working very diligently in many areas of our church ministries to continue to keep our church vital. So we need to spread out the work. As the old saying goes, many hands make for light work!
If you have an interest in this new concept of what the Music and Worship Committee can be, and what upgraded audio and visual tools can do to improve our worship, please come for the meeting! We need vested members for this effort to pay off! And we’re looking for some talented and committed folks to step to help own this effort.
Thank you for prayerfully considering being a part of the newly reimagined Music and Worship Committee, Faith Family. … And remember, if this initiative really isn’t in your wheelhouse, please reach out to the council or me, because there are plenty of other ministries you could serve! Thank you!
More on the Council’s other two goals in upcoming newsletters!
Blessings to you this October, Faith Family! ... See you in church!
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