Off My Chest
My comments on failing to reach a quorum for the congregational meeting:
We needed 230 members; we got 180 at Friday night's meeting, thus keeping us from electing officers and adopting the budget. The irony hits me that one of the reasons cited for not attending is that attenders cannot have a real impact on changing decisions. Nonattenders certainly can make an impact. By not attending, they stripped attenders of any power. The attenders could not vote. By not attending nonattenders have kept worthy men and women from being elected to serve the church. And by not attending, they have forced yet another congregational meeting on the Sunday before Christmas, certainly leaving in doubt if we will have a quorum then as well.
I know that many could not attend because of illness, being out of town, etc. There are valid reasons for many not being able to come. But I also know that many more did not show up because of being disinterested. It is human nature. If I do not perceive an activity to be interesting enough for me, I typically will not attend.
We will consider ways to address the problem of attendance - change times, provide food, make the meetings more entertaining, advertise better. And all the comments posted on this site have been helpful in thinking through what to do. Clearly, we need to make changes. Still, it is discouraging to realize that one's church is no different from the secular population when it comes to carrying out one's duty to vote and support the government of the church. Unless we go through greater measures to make voting more convenient, even the minimal number of voters will not show up.
We needed 230 members; we got 180 at Friday night's meeting, thus keeping us from electing officers and adopting the budget. The irony hits me that one of the reasons cited for not attending is that attenders cannot have a real impact on changing decisions. Nonattenders certainly can make an impact. By not attending, they stripped attenders of any power. The attenders could not vote. By not attending nonattenders have kept worthy men and women from being elected to serve the church. And by not attending, they have forced yet another congregational meeting on the Sunday before Christmas, certainly leaving in doubt if we will have a quorum then as well.
I know that many could not attend because of illness, being out of town, etc. There are valid reasons for many not being able to come. But I also know that many more did not show up because of being disinterested. It is human nature. If I do not perceive an activity to be interesting enough for me, I typically will not attend.
We will consider ways to address the problem of attendance - change times, provide food, make the meetings more entertaining, advertise better. And all the comments posted on this site have been helpful in thinking through what to do. Clearly, we need to make changes. Still, it is discouraging to realize that one's church is no different from the secular population when it comes to carrying out one's duty to vote and support the government of the church. Unless we go through greater measures to make voting more convenient, even the minimal number of voters will not show up.
posted by M Clark at 12/05/2005 10:16:00 AM
7 Comments:
I'm not sure that food, making it more entertaining should be the incentive to bring people out to the meetings - it's our duty. Sure do those things to enhance fellowship before or after. However, I think that we need to be more forcefully reminded of our obligations as members.
It was still a productive meeting in that much discussion was held. One person remarked to me that they thought it was better, in a way because there was no rush to get all the voting in.
In terms of entertaining - I wouldn't worry about that.
But in terms of food - I think this an important concern. Most people have no real opportunity to eat before coming. I think putting back a dinner instead of a dessert would be a service to people who would like to come. (Not an inducement - but really a service to them.) Particularly this would be helpful to families have enough to get done to get to the church without worring about dinner.
I still go back to the idea that we are the body of Christ & are organically united to him as a profound reason for participating -- not just out of duty. In a very real sense, all together, we were Jesus on Friday night as we had our meeting.
Marion-
This has nothing to do with attendance, but perhaps at the next meeting - although it is planned to be brief - you should give a brief plug for this blog site.
I have found this site to be invaluable, and it is very apparent that you put a great deal of effort into keeping people informed on a daily basis. And while all of your readers - myself included - should be telling others about it, this would be a great way to get the word out to hundreds at a time.
I think that especially in a large, urban church (with many members living a fair distance away) in this day and age, the internet is a great way to increase participation in the life of the church and to help individual members feel more in touch with the whole congregation.
Though one person would not have made a difference. I attempted to attend Church on Friday in order to assist with childcare. I drove around for no less than 45 minutes trying to find parking. All of the usual lots were full or had increased there price to the Friday evening rate of $18-25 dollars. For future meetings it would be helpful if we could park as permitted on Sundays.
Since we're rethinking meeting format and times and since the question fo childcare was raised, a number of us (more members than ever, I should think) have young children and a meeting that doesn't begin until 7:30pm interferes with our children's bedtime routines. Even if we had been able to attend Friday night, one of us would have come alone.
The garage at 17th and south Street is always $5 when you get your ticket stamped at Tenth.
I think it is presumptuous to say that all those nonattenders without illness or travel reasons were disinterested.
There may be a real issue here with this feeling that members have no impact on the decisions of the church. The meeting last year regarding our Executive Minister is an acute example- where a meeting was held that seemed to require no actual input from the congregation.
Is it not odd to us that our usual attendance at congregational meetings is around 10% our membership?
Should we really be pointing fingers and assuming that over twelve hundred people had the same reason for not showing or should we try to find out from those twelve hundred people their reasons?
It's my impression that there is a small group of people who are actually involved at Tenth- who really do what church is supposed to be about- they're part of ministries, go to Sunday school, prayer meetings, and congregational meetings, and then there is the larger 'membership' at Tenth, made up of all the people who attend worship on Sundays.
Maybe we should find out who all those people really are.
Post a Comment
<< Home