The St. Mark’s Spanish Ministry and the Transition Team hosted a very successful potluck on Sunday, January 12 at noon. We enjoyed great fellowship, amazing food and engaged in a challenging discussion about St. Marks. The Transition Team shared the summary pages from the Congregational Vitality Survey that 77 members completed last October.
Here is a recap of the information that we shared: There are nine areas that impact a congregation’s health and vitality, but they are not all equally important. Vital, sustainable congregations must be built up from the bottom along two tracks. The bottom blocks form the foundation of our congregation. The two tracks are described below.
Mission Track: Establishing God’s active presence and discerning a clear mission sets the tone for a congregation’s culture and attitudes about themselves and their neighbors. Those attitudes lead to programs/activities in the community and the congregation.
Leadership Track: Build capacity and create energy for mission by developing skills in lay and rostered leaders and strengthening relationships throughout the congregation. This leads to improved resource management and ideally, improved resources. Weak relationships and/or low trust can keep congregations from moving forward in mission.
How does St. Marks stack up?
Strength in the foundational blocks is important to both vitality and sustainability. Often congregations in decline find that their foundation’s blocks are weak. Weak foundations threaten long-term sustainability. Here is the link to our Congregational Vitality Survey results:
St. Mark’s Church Survey Results
St. Mark’s Church Vitality Barcharts
Conclusions and Next Step:
When it comes to the results of the Vitality Survey, the Transition Team believes the St Mark’s congregation should be proud of how far we have come. Two years ago the same survey would have been completely negative, but at this point the survey results should not come as a surprise to us. The survey shows what we all know–there is a lot of work to be done. We are a resurrected church; we resurrected from the sad experience we had two years ago.
Now, we all need to focus on the same goal: What can I do to help St. Mark’s be the church that God has called us to be . . . for the community of Chula Vista and the Greater Church?
Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
2 Timothy 1:7 For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.