The Visioning Workshop was well attended by 34 members and adherents of the congregation of First Presbyterian Church, Penetanguishene. Rev. Dr. Malnick stressed that there were two areas that “Visioning” helps to identify. These are:
Who we are (and who our neighbours are)
Who we are called to be (what we can offer our church and community).
Rev. Malnick used examples from several congregations to which she has been associated over the years to illustrate that knowledge of our strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities are key to understanding our role as a congregation.
Those in attendance recognized our strengths to include: a wonderful music program; welcoming attitude; fellowship; willingness to learn (preaching & bible study); our “traditional” worship style/comfort zone; and our anticipation/excitement in outreach – serving God.
Our weaknesses or challenges were seen as: finances; an aging congregation with a dwindling resource of volunteers; our ability to continue to provide pastoral care and outreach; communication; programming; making better use of our facility all week long; visibility in the community (marketing); and more specifically how to emphasize respect in the sanctuary pre service – the challenge of fellowship vs preparing for the Sunday worship.
The Visioning experience is a spiritual process with God, working through each of us. As God has provided us each with various gifts, He allows us to take this experience and grow it with intentionality and transition, with an outcome of serving Him. We must recognize that many approaches of the past are no longer applicable, and this has been exemplified by the worldwide COVID pandemic. However, there are new opportunities that await our exploration. When asked who our neighbours are, the answer was a long list of possibilities, and numerous opportunities to love and serve God’s people. I think we surprised ourselves.
FOLLOW-UP … a recommendation to enable a visioning committee within our congregation was put forward.
Submitted by Mary Sheriff, Workshop Secretary)
Feb. 6, 2023 Session approved the recommendation to form a visioning committee. We would invite each of our ministry groups to be represented and hope we will have a group of 12-15. Please consider joining this important mission of sharing ideas in developing strategies and goals to excitedly move forward in our journey of faith
Interested in serving on such a committee? Speak to Clerk of Session, Shirley Spearn, email address spearns@sympatico.ca 705 549-8516
