Hospitality Team Dialogue

Greetings Friends...

I would like to use this space to dialogue about the progress we have made with respect to hospitality. Please take time to reflect and post a comment or two about our hospitality Team experiences over the past few months... what has worked, what hasn't? What can we improve? Where do we from here, etc.??

Comments

[Chris Eden]

Strengths - New pastors seem poised to crank Evangelism up a notch or two. Team has had a nice break from the flurry of meetings in 2006.

Weaknesses - Scheduling of hospitality people didn't always work (it seemed to me). Some weekends covered, some not. Name tags are being worn, but I've heard there is some confusion about them - particularly about when they should be worn.

Opportunities - Christopher is developing new adult studies and seems driven to do well. Nooma group is underway and doing well, and a perfect seeker class for young adult segment. Perhaps this can be worked together in Fall. New pastors can add some new direction and additional outside experience to really get Evangelism going.

[Dion Lefler]

During my four-months in Topeka covering the Legislature, I got kind of de-looped. But since I've been back, it seems to me from the services I've attended that confusion/dislocation due to the double-pastor switch and the combining of the 8:30 and 9:30 worship services has had a very negative impact on our attendance. I think we need to take a real hard look at:
1) Whether our current services are meeting the needs of the diverse groups within the congregation that they were designed for.
and
2) Coming up with a strategy to let our members know that it's time to come back.

[Donna Goltry]

We are ramping up the Hospitality Team for Spirit Alive. I sent a spreadsheet to the folks that had helped or indicated would help on it. Several have responded.

About those nametags, I think it is a problem when people wear them all the time and that they should be used only when acting in the capacity of the Hospitality Team. Is this the opinion of others? If so, we probably need to make sure that each one on the Hospitality Team also has a regular nametag. I would suggest this be discussed at our next mtg. or on blog

[Eric]

I appreciate all that the team has done at EHUMC. You all have worked very hard and done great works for God.

I'd like to, perhaps, throw out a challenge that as the team comes back together, that the team look at evangelism outside of our walls. If we as members of EHUMC are to fufill the commission christ gave to us, to tell the story of the impact that Jesus Christ has had in the world and more particularliy in our lives, we must look at our actions outside of the the walls of EHUMC.

Evangalism is, perhaps, more about telling the reason for the joy we have in our hearts, than is is about name tags, classes and greeters. I do not mean to diminish in any way the importance of name tags, classes, greeters and the great strides that have been made in those areas (we become a welcoming congregation through those efforts). What I want to suggest is that evangalism is about becoming a invitational congregation, not just a welcoming one.

The goal of the invitation is that persons get to know God and accept a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Christ has tasked each of us to invite others, all others, into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. As an evangelism team we need to plan for, pray about and implement strategies that will move our congregation to share their relationship with Jesus Christ in such a way that others desire to have what God offers.