Second Meeting

Happy Sabbath! Last night we had our second meeting. The conclusion that everyone came to was that Sunnyside needed to focus on 3 areas: Community Service, Small Groups, & Families. Bud will be taking those areas back to the church board as our recommendation. Details on how each of those items would play out were discussed, but our job was to help provide the direction...

Dianne Dickerson is currently collecting and analyzing data from a church survey that was conducted.  The report she comes back with will help us to focus our community service mission.  Many small groups are in existence, but not everyone is aware of them all.  We have asked that a list of current groups be put together (no need to reinvent the wheel!), and to invite those groups to have a "booth" at our Open House in May to re-introduce/introduce those groups.

The last category is something to minister to families (traditional or single parents). Several ideas were tossed around, but I think the overall conclusion was how can Sunnyside minister to these parents so that they can benefit spiritually & emotionally from their church family. For example, maybe its a Debt Free class like Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey or Crown Financial Ministries; maybe its providing ORGANIZED child care (not babysitting) during the church service or for other activities so that these parents - such as myself - would be able to participate.

The list could go on forever and ever in each of these areas. My personal feeling that I shared w/ Bud was that Sunnyside has already been doing many things correctly, but that added structure, planning, and direction in these areas will really help us to use our full potential as a congregation & to get the other 92% of folks plugged in outside of the church service.

Our group did not set a date to meet again - although it will probably be right before the Open House. I've touched on barely a few of the specific ideas that were talked about. Everyone came to the meeting with well thought out comments, and really care about our church family.

Yesterday was a beautiful sun-filled day...try to enjoy the rain the best you can today because in a few months when its 100+ day after day we'll be thinking back on this time and wishing for a little cool-down! :)

Deanna