Christ Church members: 

You are invited to a conversation

Sunday, May 18 after the 10:30 service

Over the past several weeks, our Capital Campaign team has been meeting in preparation for what we were initially sure was a fairly straightforward fundraising effort: a three-year drive to raise funds to repay our furnace loan and accomplish a few other needed projects around the church.

As our conversation has evolved, we've discovered that what we are hoping to accomplish is much more than that. It all started when we were brainstorming a theme for our campaign. We found ourselves coalescing around "A Fresh Start for Christ Church." But then we began realizing that such a "Fresh Start" is about a lot more than what we were initially discussing.

Paul Seward, for instance, spoke of his recent experience at the Lay Leadership Institute, where there was an emphasis on reorganizing around mission as opposed to being focused on deficits or property challenges or other such concerns. We also became aware of a need to dovetail our efforts with those of the follow-up group that's been working on the goals that arose out of our Bishop's Committee retreat in February. That group has been discussing ways to "repurpose" our space to make it flexible for use by community ministries.

What we finally decided was this: We need to talk as a community about all this - draw the whole congregation into a conversation about what we've been discussing and bring the full congregation on board with what seems to be emerging. We need to reflect on "what really matters" and not just the "nuts and bolts" of raising money for a laundry list of needs.

The team sees this not as a one-shot conversation, but the start of a process of prayerful discernment. Accordingly, our meeting after the liturgy on Sunday, May 18 is:

• Not meant to be deliberative in nature (i.e., not focused on "making a decision")
• Not meant to be a "nuts and bolts" discussion of campaign feasibility, etc.
• But a real conversation on who we are, what we're about, why we're here, and where we're going.

We're not doing this to "sell" anything, but to listen to one another and provide an opportunity to hear where we are now "without playing our old tapes" (Chuck's quote, meaning, roughly, without turning it into "just another gripe session" on our shortcomings, etc.)