5/4 Scheduled at 6pm, HS/YA Pizza & Input; 7pm Climate Justice video for all! (Wed)

6:00 - Pizza & HS/Young Adult input about Creator's strengths and weaknesses (to help find the right pastor)
7:00 - Families invited to join; Jason Fileta from Micah Challenge will introduce & show a new Climate Justice film (25 min) & share about the growing Christian movement toward addressing climate change.

4/26 Team Meeting

Agenda

• Devotion
• Housekeeping
• Survey Results and Small Group Participation 
• Check in on individual work besides Small Group Meetings (additional One-to-ones)
• Small Group Learning
• MSP Responsibility Needs
• May Presentation Decisions
• Overall Transition Decisions
• Scheduling Next Meeting

Pastor Michele began with a Lectio Divina devotion from Luke 9:1-17.

We briefly discussed the meeting at church on Sunday following service.  Most everyone spoke and it was a good forum for sharing individual thoughts.  The small group meeting at Hartung's on the previous Thursday was a good opportunity for one to ones.  Between the two gatherings, there were 31 people from the congregation.  The third small group is scheduled for 5/5 at Hartung's again.  Only two have signed up for it so far.

We proceeded to go through the MSP topics and determined who would be willing to be the lead for the various headings.

Demographics/ethnicity:  Jan

Trends in the community:  Gary has some of that put together.  We will discuss as a group.

Ministry site characteristics:  Shirley will coordinate, but we will do it as a group after the surveys are compiled.

Purpose/giftedness/mission:  group

References:  council; we will give them our suggestions.

Leadership needs:  council

Top 5 ministry tasks:  Meghan, survey

Gifts for ministry:  Diane

Mutual expectations:  council + transition team

Compensation/benefits/professional expenses:  council.

Commentary:  Meghan

We decided that a weekly announcement at church is a good idea; just a little update of meetings and the process.  Also, a note in the bulletin as well as something in the monthly newsletter will be submitted.  Diane will make the announcement on May 1st.

Our wish is to engage the congregation in as many ways as we can, not the least of which is their prayerful participation.  We are hoping that as they follow our progress, they can pray for specific needs as we move through our process.

We look forward to when our team can meet with everyone present. 

4/14 Team Meeting

Agenda -

·  Devotional - Team & Pastor Michelle - Unbinding the Gospel
·  Guest - Susan Kintner Presentation Q and A
·  Select Transition Team chairperson
·  Finalize Congregational Survey
·  Assigning MSP Responsibility
·  Congregational Education
          Focus On MSP – Suggestions and Concerns will not translate to MSP
          Congregational Education of Trends and Comparisons to Other Churches

·  Finalize Scheduling & Invitation on Small Group Meetings 4/21 – Toni’s,  4/24 – Creator, 5/05 – Toni’s
·  Assigning Small Group Meeting Planner(s)
·  One-to-one Updates
          Formal requests for One-to-ones
          Sessions Transition Team should initiate

·  Team Photo and Write Ups
·  Meeting Frequency Decision and Scheduling Next Meeting(s)

____________________________________

Present: Jan Mallory, Diane Mattox, Meghan Kelly, Rob Haase, Shirley Peterson, Gary Schulstad, Pastor Michelle Manicke,

Guests:  Amy Haase, Reverend. Susan Kintner Assistant to the Bishop, Oregon Synod

Pastor Michelle opened with a Lectio Divina devotional reading from 1 Kings 3:5-15.Solomon's Prayer for Wisdom.  We also answered two questions, "If God was offering to give you a gift of your choice, what would it be?"  and "What do you think of Solomon's choice?" In the passage Solomon asked for an understanding mind to govern and to be able to discern good from evil. " An understanding mind" can also be translated as "a listening heart" and we discussed how that applied to our transition work

Rev. Susan gave a presentation and a Q and A.  She advised the congregation should not rush the transition work.  The congregation needs to be comfortable with who we are without Pastor Dayle's leadership.  We want to foster congregational curiosity about who we are as a people  and how to honor our heritage.

She talked about moving our perspective from the dance floor (our nuts and bolts work) to the balcony (overall assessment of the congregation and process) and to identify any anxieties we can address that the congregation may have.

She talked about understanding Creator's core values.  She offered Music and Creativity and a Strong Public Leadership Style she has seen at Creator's core in the past as we reflected on past Creator pastors.

She answered questions abut the MSP which have been recorded to address our future MSP responses as they come up. 

Pastor Michelle identified three current congregational focuses; transition work, stewardship and promoting teams (and team structure).

Team meetings will be currently scheduled as needed with the day of the week rotated to address the need of those who cannot meet on Thursdays. 

Actions:

1. Gary will be Transitional Team chairperson.
2. Agreement for Draft Survey to be distributed   See if paper copies are desired.  Posting would be to Facebook and This Week at Creator and in the bulletin (Gary will send link to Toni and Pastor Michelle).
3. The Small Group Meetings on 4/21, 4/24 and 5/05 will have a basic agenda
   Answer questions about the process
   Allow opportunities for One-to-ones to answer questions about Creator
        What drew you to Creator?
        What keeps you at Creator?
        What dreams do you have for Creator?
   Gary will lead the first team meeting at Toni's on Thursday.  We will adjust Transiton Team attendance based on how many sign up for each small group.

To Do List:

• Put a paper copy of the MSP in a binder and make it available to the congregation
• Insure one or two tables and chairs are available outside the Fellowship Hall to allow for people to fill out surveys.
• Team photos, brief introductions and contact information posted on Bulletin Board  

Considerations:

• If instant information gathering would be helpful, consider using Crowd Survey
• If Creator seriously considers faith based community organizing Terry Moe would be a contact
• If additional Congregational Survey were to be considered we may want to check Pastor Michael's availability between upcoming Synod Assembly and time off he will be taking. 

Personal Response to the 4/10 Blessing of the Transition Team During Worship

Sometimes sanctuary names not only the place where we worship.  The word also encapsulates the essence of refuge and rest.  This is possible because of a trust in the engagement and regard that is shared by everyone gathered together.  To borrow the language of the St. Teresa poem that we heard at Easter; each of us can feel the embrace of God through Christ who now has no body on earth but ours.

There are other times that cockpit might be a more appropriate word to describe how this building on Sunnyside can feel, at least for me.  This is the place where we are thrust into new spaces and new understandings; moved by the word, music or sacrament. Worship at these times takes us to our next point of arrival, the places where we most want or need to go.  These are individual points of arrival and a miracle is that each of us is moved to our individual futures by the same worship.

Blaise Pascal once wrote "Finally, let us recognize that there are two kinds of people on can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him and those who seek God with all their heart because they do not know Him".  I would add two things I have learned to this quote.   One is that this can be true within one person as well.  The other is, despite how contradictory this may seem on the surface, these differences must be brought together as one.

Today's Gospel - John 21:1-19 and The Blessing of the Transition Team brought the differences together.  The Gospel was about Jesus and the Miraculous Catch of Fish and when Jesus Reinstates Peter.

Pastor Michelle told the story in her sermon this way:

Peter appears to be uncertain of his purpose after his denial of Jesus.  He, with other disciples, try to go back to fishing, unsure what they can or should do next.  They try unsuccessfully to go back to their old way of being.

After being guided by his wisdom to the miraculous catch they recognize Jesus.  He invites them to breakfast to be fed.  Jesus "reinstates" Peter by asking him "Do you love me?" in three different ways, reminiscent of the denials right down to the questions and answers being given in front of a charcoal fire (which now is contributing to how they are fed).

After Peter affirms his love three times Jesus says to him, "Follow me".  We know Peter will serve God with all his heart because of what he learns here again.

After the Sermon and before The Prayers of the People - The Blessing of the Transition Team vividly, personally moved what I usually see as an "either / or" question to a "both / and"answer.  The answer to the question "Should worship be a refuge or a revelation?"  is yes.  Did I experience a profound embrace of the congregation that I'm rooted in and gives me refuge from the world in the Blessing?  Yes.  Was there also a strong sense of suddenly stepping out of an old way of being and into a future God is preparing for Creator?  Yes.

This was centered movement and not stasis.  The Blessing passed to the team the congregation's trust and permission.  With that the team gained a needed affirmation for laying the foundation.  Moving forward the team can help take Creator to the place the congregation wants to go.

At the heart of this blessing my trust and permission also passed to the team and to the congregation. There was a confidence, not necessarily that this work would be easy or everyone would be in agreement as we discern, but that we were bound together on the right journey for this transition.

4/3 Town Hall - Follow Up Work

Feedback from the Town Hall:  Congregation appreciated the fact that the work has started.
Congregation wants copies of the MSP available.  A couple of printed MSPs are now in the church office.

Survey Work This Week

• Can we finalize survey by the end of the week?   Diane volunteered to do survey work.
  Have you had a chance to review the MSP?  There are five responses so far to the draft survey, 

To funalize:

1. Review the MSP for additions / changes to the survey
2. Analyze results: Sign in to www.surverymonkey.com - Username: CreatorMinistry Password: blessings
3. Click into the Ministry Site Profile Information Gathering and click on the Analyze Results tab.  
4. Use both of the above and any ideas you have to submit comments and suggestions for any changes to be made on the survey.

• .Are paper copies needed?  If so, who will be in charge?

Scheduling Cottage Meetings

• Can we schedule them this week?  Diane volunteered to help schedule and plan the Cottage Meetings.   April 21 and 28, which are Thursday evenings work for Toni and their house can accommodate up to 15.
• How do we want to extend the invitation?

Preparing Questions on the MSP and Synod involvement for Transition Team meeting with Susan next Thursday

• Go over the MSP for questions to Susan.

Sign up for what you would like to work on.  Suggestions:

• One-to-ones
• Survey Work
• MSP Additional Write Up
• Cottage Meeting scheduling and planning
• Demographic information

3/31 Team Meeting - Dates and Action Items

Hopefully, the entire team has received the invitation to be an author on this Transition Team blog.  If not, please contact me.

Last night's meeting was appreciated.  It was not only productive but meaningful (as always with Creator members).  I appreciated what was shared about Holy Week services.  

On the productive side, the team agreed on a plan to follow council's proposed timeline and work towards presenting the Ministry Site Profile to the congregation at the May Congregational Meeting.

There was a concern that we not rush the process so the team also agreed if there are reasons why we can't make the date we would come up with a new timeline to present to council.

Here are some decisions on important dates and milestones:

• Team will appear before congregation to insure people know the work is going on and know who to go to:

               4/3   -  After Worship Town Hall - Transition Team Introduction
               4/10 -  At Worship - Blessing and Recognition

• Coordinating with Synod - Questions came up about how best to communicate to the Synod our openness to special candidacy considerations (for example if we might be open to a potential for a ministry couple or that we insure no ethnic consideration would preclude a potential candidate

               4/14 -  Worship Team Meeting with Susan Kintner to present our questions.

April will mostly be our information-gathering month from the congregation.  This will include a survey, Cottage Meetings and One-to-ones.  We recognize it will be hard to have all members attending meetings so we agreed we can plan, work and make decisions through the Transition Team blog and email.   I will work on insuring this team can post to the blog    

• Survey - The team felt it was important to get the survey into the hands of the congregation as quickly as possible.  We want to insure the survey is distributed through social media (a link on Facebook through the Creator Group page).  We also talked about a paper copies and floated the idea of having a Survey Sunday where many laptops and PCs are made available at the church for people to fill out the survey on online via wireless connections.
• Cottage Meetings - Currently the plan is for two "Cottage" Meetings   One at Toni's and one at church.  Both need to be planned and scheduled.  Anyone want to be responsible for the planning and scheduling?
• One-to-ones - The plan is for some One-to-ones to be planned in the Cottage Meetings and to schedule others individually. If you know people who desire a One-to-one let the team know or conduct one yourself.  One-to-ones are for relationship building

May will be focused on filling out the Ministry Site Profile with what we have gathered from the congregation and council.

• We already have the Congregational Vitality survey as another source of information
• We need to collect demographic data.  Does anyone feel they would like to be responsible for filling in the demographic data?
• Remember: If there is information that would be directly pertinent to the Ministry Site Profile that we gather from any One-to-ones, our team is responsible for how it is reflected.
• There will be parts of the MSP the council will help us fill out.
• There will likely be a standalone write-up about Creator we will submit as part of the MSP

               5/15 - Presentation to Council of Transition Team's proposed MSP
               5/22 - Presentation at the May Congregational Meeting

Currently On The Team's Plate:

• We need to finalize the draft survey.  

1. Review the MSP for potential questions to Susan and additions / changes to the survey
2. Sign in to www.surverymonkey.com - Username: CreatorMinistry Password: blessings
3. Click into the Ministry Site Profile Information Gathering and click on the Analyze Results tab.
4. Use both of the above to submit comments and suggestions for any changes to be made..  It would be great if the survey was ready to be published by next Friday.

• Decide what you work you would like to help with or be responsible for -

1. One-to-ones
2. Survey Work
3. MSP Additional Write Up
4. Cottage Meeting scheduling and planning
5. Demographic information
6. Other