Grow Community
One of the challenges of being a parish with almost 1,000 members living all over the metro area is getting to know each other. Our children and youth don’t attend the same schools. We don’t shop in the same stores. The hour or two we see each other on Sunday is filled with worship and programming leaving little time for socializing. Yes, there are many who count other parishioners as good friends, but by and large knowing others and being known can be difficult.
Our database, Realm, has the capacity to include information which would help us connect people to ministries and each other. But outside of a few ministries which use Realm consistently, we underutilize this important tool.
What information would be most helpful for us to include in the database? During the Rector’s Forum this past Sunday, I invited participants to brainstorm the questions they would ask their fellow parishioners if they were tasked with collecting information for Realm. They were predictably productive, coming up with 100 questions! Of course, there were popular repeats from each table group: What is (or was) your career? What are your hobbies? What are your skills and gifts?
Each table group also offered at least one or two questions seeking a deeper understanding of who we are as members of St. Paul’s. What theological education do you have? Are you a do-er, a planner, a helper? Do you work better alone or in a group? What do you perceive as your spiritual gifts? What would you like to do at St. Paul’s but no one has ever asked you to do it? What kind of leadership experience do you have?
There were also more profoundly personal questions. Not the sort easily included in a database but the kind of questions which speak to the human yearning to know others and to be known by others. Are you lonely? What needs do you have that the parish might be able to answer? What is unique about yourself that no one knows? What activities spiritually feed you? What do you do for fun? How do you want to be identified? What do you feel most committed to? What keeps you up at night? What are your biggest fears? What are your greatest concerns?
The follow-up question from this exercise is a practical one: What do we do with all of these questions? One step will be to decide which questions will best solicit the information for our database that will equip us to invite people into ministry and connect parishioners with similar interests.
The deeper questions require a different response, some combination of programmed and unprogrammed opportunities which encourage us to share with each other while providing the norms and boundaries which make us feel safe enough to be vulnerable. All of this needs to be done in a way that is inviting without being imposing. We want as many people as possible to participate while respecting the boundaries of those who are not yet ready to do so.
In the meantime, we could try something simple to strengthen our connections as a community. Find someone you don’t know and introduce yourself. “Hi, my name is John. I don’t think we’ve met.” Then see where the conversation goes. In such small ways, Christian community begins to grow.