RIC Survey and Q & A on RIC Discernment

Thanks again to the team for their contribution to the discussion together with the questions and answers on RIC discernment.

When asked about the moments in the discernment process that touched people deeply Bishop Dave's Bible study was brought up as one of the powerful moments. Another was the RIC team truly being involved in congregational discernment rather than trying to take the congregation through a process where RIC designation was inevitable.

This was the first congregational group where we talked about wanting 80% approval from the congregation for Creator to become RIC. There was worry about the high bar the RIC team will be recommending and a concern about what would happen if Creator fails to become an RIC congregation. The RIC team may want to talk about what will need to happen to make sure the congregation will not feel acrimony between members after the results are known.

Another question that came up was where the RIC statement would be published or displayed. There is a concern about how visible it should be.

We went over the upcoming themes for the months until the January vote. For the most part the participants felt comfortable with future plans. There was a suggestion to play the tape Mary made of Pastor Christian's amazing talk, that kicked off our discernment, for an upcoming RIC Sunday. Pastor Christian's comfort with playing that tape would have to be considered. Another potential topic for our Thursday meeting.

We may want to talk about a need for RIC logo pins. Two members expressed a desire to show support by wearing them.

We received our first completed paper surveys after the activity and many more were distributed, so our invitation to fill out a survey made a difference.

We will have more to discuss at our next meeting. If anyone who was there has additional feedback on what happened at our gathering, feel free to comment on this post.

Sunday's RIC Activity - Survey Q/A and a continued discernment discussion

Hopefully you have all seen the letter about the survey that was mailed out and Toni's email link.

We did not find speakers from other congregations to talk about their experiences being RIC this Sunday, so tomorrow's topic changed.

We will answer any questions about the survey (perhaps have people fill out surveys). We will also discuss our discernment process from now until January. The goal is to discover what other participants, besides our team, want to see happen in Creator's process that we may not have included yet.

As of today, there are17 survey responses.

76.5% or 13 participants want Creator to become an RIC congregation.

88.2% or 15 participants would vote for the sample Affirmation statement.

Not the results I expected to date.

See you tomorrow,

Gary

September Meeting Minutes

Hello RIC Team,

If you have trouble opening the Word attachment on the email I sent, let me know (new version of Word now on my PC).

Sorry for the duplication. This email will be generated as I write the meeting minutes as a blog entry.

- Gary

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The September 4th team meeting was productive. There is now a draft Affirmation of Welcome and questions for the survey.

* We decided to keep the Affirmation of Welcome short and to write up a detailed rationale statement to include points that would make the current statement too long. Please feel free to provide feedback on the survery and / or the statement of welcome.

* The survey will be mailed to the congregation and will reference a Survey Monkey link on the web. Members can either turn in the survey or fill it out on line.

* Survey Monkey allows for a free, basic survey with 100 responses or less. We decided we will work with the basic functions and upgrade to professional if the survey response warrants.

* For our September event we talked about having representatives from RIC congregations come in to talk about changes in their congregation since becoming RIC. We want to ask what was planned and accomplished after becoming RIC as well. I emailed PDX RIC Core Team members and LCNA representatives and have not heard back yet.

* For October we are planning to focus on Other Explicit Welcomes. We are planning a moderated talk that focuses on members stories around welcome.

* We want to write up an RIC Q/A that will be a direct result of the survey, addressing questions and concerns brought up in the feedback. * Gretchen brought up finding people who would be willing to write a paragraph for the congregation that explains their thoughts on RIC.

* We decided that RIC needs to pass with an 80% yes vote by the congregation in January or Creator will not become an RIC congregation.