Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Resurrection
2007 Parish Leadership Conference
March 24, 2007
Thinking Outside of the Box and
Inside the Cross
Proceedings & Reports
Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Resurrection
2007 Parish Leadership Conference
March 24, 2007
Thinking Outside of the Box and
Inside the Cross
Proceedings & Reports
Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 2
Executive Summary.......................................................................................................................... 3
Background.......................................................................................................................................... 3
Conclusions.......................................................................................................................................... 3
Feedback............................................................................................................................................... 3
Conference Materials........................................................................................................................... 4
Letters.................................................................................................................................................. 4
Reference Materials................................................................................................................................ 4
Proceedings........................................................................................................................................ 5
Welcoming Remarks.............................................................................................................................. 5
Father Emmanuel Gratsias...................................................................................................................... 5
Jim Gabriel........................................................................................................................................... 7
Team Building Exercise....................................................................................................................... 11
Purpose.............................................................................................................................................. 11
Wrap-up............................................................................................................................................. 11
Introduction of Committees................................................................................................................. 13
Break-out Sessions.............................................................................................................................. 16
Youth Commission................................................................................................................................ 16
Strategic Planning................................................................................................................................ 17
Membership Development....................................................................................................................... 18
Facilities............................................................................................................................................. 19
Wrap-up............................................................................................................................................... 19
Prayer Service..................................................................................................................................... 20
Follow-ups........................................................................................................................................ 21
Survey................................................................................................................................................. 23
Summary of Data................................................................................................................................. 23
Individual Comments........................................................................................................................... 23
Acknowledgements....................................................................................................................... 25
Appendix A – Correspondence...................................................................................................... 26
Invitation............................................................................................................................................ 26
Agenda................................................................................................................................................ 27
Appendix B - Reference Materials............................................................................................ 28
Appendix C – Team Building Exercise........................................................................................ 31
Appendix D – Survey Results........................................................................................................ 34
This document is intended to serve two purposes:
o To provide a recap for conference attendees, who will most likely be particularly interested in the follow-up items
o To provide an overview for those who were unable to attend.
As a result, some of the information in these proceedings may not be of direct interest to every reader. The Executive Summary is intended to provide an overview that will be useful to all. The reader should then choose the sections and Appendixes that are of interest based on his/her role.
The Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Resurrection held its first Parish Leadership Conference on Saturday, March 24, 2007. The goal of this conference was to bring leaders from the community together for a day to set priorities and objectives for the remainder of the year, as well as to discuss aspects of how to work more effectively. An invitation was sent out initially to all members of the Parish Council, Parish Council committees (both standing comities and currently active ad-hoc committees), Past Presidents and Philoptochos Board members. A general invitation to the community was sent out subsequently.
Twenty-seven members of the community attended the conference as participants, and five GOYA members provided administrative assistance.
At a high level, the conclusions were quite simple. Virtually all of the breakout sessions converged on three themes:
o Expand our membership
o Expend our leadership
o Improve communications
A review of the Proceedings that follow, with particular emphasis on the Breakout Sessions and wrap-up, will provide significant detail.
An on-line poll was conducted following the Conference. All Participants were asked to answer a set of questions about the day. At a high level, the results indicated a very successful conference:
o 92% of responses indicated a Productive or Extremely Productive Day
o 100% indicated that they had a chance to participate
o 83% indicated that the level of participation was high
Appendix A contains correspondence sent prior to the conference and/or distributed during the conference. These may help to provide some additional insight into the objectives and format of the day.
Appendix B of this document contains two articles that were provided to attendees for background reading.
Father Manny began by leading us in a prayer service, which included the Gospel Lesson from Matthew about the Parable of the Talents.
The Lord said this parable: "A man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them; and he made five talents more. So also, he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, 'Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.' His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.' And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, 'Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.' His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.' He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' But his master answered him, 'You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
Following the service, Father Emmanuel addressed the group, referring to the Gospel Lesson. The text, as transcribed below, is taken from the conference video. Please bear in mind that grammar, punctuation, etc. as displayed below are not from an original written document but from the transcriber’s interpretation of Fr. Emmanuel’s address.
It
[ed: the talents in the Gospel lesson] represents the gift that God gives us.
In whatever form and what we do with it. I often use the analogy or example
– if I give you a box – a beautiful gift box wrapped in a nice
ribbon and if I spend $10,000 on that gift and I give you this gift and you
never unwrap it, it absolutely has no value to you whatsoever. I’ve got to use
the gift. I have to open I up and I have to use the gift so that it will have
value. If it’s a typical material gift it will probably be wearing out after
5, 10, 15 years and end up in a flea market. If it’s a spiritual gift, a gift
of God, of faith hope and love - St. Paul said the spiritual gifts are Faith
Hope and Love – we can have faith we can have hope we can have love
because that’s a divine attribute that works within us, If I unwrap the box and
it’s a spiritual gift and I use them and really work at them, guess what? They
become better. If you show Faith, you become more faithful. If you show hope,
you become more hopeful. If you show love you become more loving. Spiritual
gifts don’t wear out as you use them. They become better. They become very,
very valuable indeed.
So we have been given certain capabilities and gifts. And we think of ourselves as the leadership of the parish. That is exactly right to do that. To think of ourselves in one form or another Well, we’ve been given a gift and we need to be like the ones in the Gospel Lesson that use the gifts and made it grow. We can’t turn around and say “He gave this to me but I’m not going to make an effort. I’m going to bury it in the ground and not make an effort. I’m not going to unwrap this gift and use it. Well the moment we do that. We’re like the one that had the one talent and buried it and the Lord said Forget It (in one form or another). We’ve got to be like one with 5 and take those gifts and say, “Whatever the Lord has given me that I can use in the mission of the church, I’ve got to use. I’m obligated.” The Scripture says we’re obligated to use our talents, our capabilities, our spiritual gifts in the service of the church, either here or in whatever way we’re going to do it.
That’s
why we’re here today. And somebody might say, “Oh, another committee, another
organizational function type of thing.” Let me tell you something (and you’ll
read about some of this in the Easter letter that’s getting finished today).
The first church, the primitive church in Jerusalem, had tables – they
were serving to take care of the widows and the orphans. And the apostles
themselves, the twelve, were sitting there making sure that the poor of
Jerusalem, because they were responding to the word of Christ: and that’s what
they were doing; they were putting food on the tables. And you can read about
this in the Acts of the Apostles, right in the early chapters. And it says,
“the apostles started saying we don’t have time to go out there and preach; we’re
supposed to be spreading the word of God. And we’re right now taking care of
the tables. And in one form or another they said “We need a committee.” Yes
– church started out with committees. The committee (they didn’t call it
a committee; that’s our word) but what they did – they chose seven
servers – the Greek word for that kind of service is Diakonia – the
one who serves is Diakos - the deacons, and that’s where we got it.
The first of the seven was Steven, who later on turned out to be the first martyr. And they were ordained. They had their [ed: unknown word] on. Like they were concentrated into the service of the church. And they served the widows and orphans. Because, oh, there were complaints. Because this set of orphans was getting more food than the other widows and orphans. They had that kind of complaint. See, there was a conflict. And they’re sitting here, the twelve apostles, saying, “What are we doing? We’re supposed to be out there preaching, not serving, not settling this table problem.” And they had to organize. And that's where we get the Order of Deacons from. They serve. Did you ever notice, when a deacon’s here, he serves the bishop; he serves everyone. That’s where it started. The church right away realized that sometimes we have to come up with committees. We have to respond in an organizational manner.
The Apostolic council of 51 AD: major issues facing the church about how to deliver the message and to whom and who was eligible to receive it. We’d better have a major conference. Whatever apostles were around and were able to be there – and they settled that problem. We’re here today – don’t think of this as “Oh, another committee or some other I’ve got to do something or this type of thing” This is a very spiritual act. What we’re doing today is really using the capabilities that God gave us and we’re just training ourselves and learning, and I hope this is the first of many of these, because when other people hear how well we did this, and that we all walked out with a little extra idea, a plus, that it will work more and more. So let me tell you something. Think of this as sacred ministry. I’m not here for a committee meeting. They never thought when they appointed the deacons to take care of the widows and the orphans and make sure that everybody got their Fair Share – they never thought of it just separate from their mission, or the ministry of the church. They considered that an important part of the ministry of the church. That’s why right from the beginning they were feeding the widows and orphans. So we, here today, have to think of it. This isn’t just another committee meeting. No. What we are here for is a very sacred and holy ministry and God is telling me with this Gospel lesson is that if I have a gift that I can use in the ministry of the church I need to do it. So, God Bless Us All, you, me and all of us. I’m hoping to pick up ideas. I’m sure I will. And here’s Jim Gabriel – God Bless You for organizing this.
The following text was the draft prepared by Parish Council President Jim Gabriel. It may vary slightly from his actual remarks.
Welcome to our first Annual Parish Leadership Conference. It is truly invigorating and exciting to see everybody assembled here this morning.
In fact, this is a very exciting day for numerous
reasons. To name a few:
I’m excited to see how many members of this parish are ready to invest a day of their time for the good of the community. If we consider the nucleus of our parish leadership assembled here today, along with a few others who wanted to be here today but were not able to attend, we can all be both excited and proud to be a member of this family.
However, as most people here know, we always need more volunteers, and I’m excited because I think that today will help us build up our base of active parishioners.
It’s exciting because we don’t often get a chance to spend a full day with one another (7 hour bus rides to GOYA ski trips don’t count). If we get nothing out of today other than getting to know one another better, it will have been worthwhile for us personally and for our ability to work together going forward.
It’s exciting because I think that we can come out of today with a solid list of priorities and objectives for this year. With such a list, we can (a) further the progress of our community, (b) be better prepared to communicate our plans to the rest of the community and (back to my previous point) get our fellow parishioners excited and thereby involved.
It’s exciting because it’s something new for us. (I had to get this one in because I won’t be able to use it again next year)
Well, that sounds like enough excitement for one day. I’ll move on now.
Why are we all here? Why do we need this day? What do we hope to accomplish?
We have been spending the last 10+ years preparing to move to our new home. It was an amazing period of time full of very hard work by very many people. Every time we drove past the corner of Route 107 and 25A we could not help but to feel very excited about what lay ahead.
Then we moved in. Beautiful day – lots of emotions – tears, smiles, hugs – an amazing day. It been almost two years now, but I suspect that every one of us still cannot help but to remember that day with wonder, and to continue to marvel at the beauty of our home. (By the way, If you haven’t looked up at our dome at night and seen the light reflecting through the windows, you must do so.)
So here we are. We have so much to be thankful for, and so much to look forward to. However, I also suspect that we don’t have nearly as strong an idea of “what’s next” as we did when we were watching the building rise.
So, what is next? Well, I imagine we all agree that as a fundamental goal, we want to expand our ministry. That’s why we moved here, right? Because we couldn’t do everything that we wanted do in 34 Cedar Swamp Road.
But that’s a broad statement. How do we give ourselves more tangible goals? What ministries? With what short term objectives? With what more specific longer term goals? What is the best structure to let us get there?
I know – I’m asking a lot of questions. Don’t worry – I’ll also try to supply some answers. But more importantly, we’re here today to help answer some of those questions too. We need this day, because if we don’t answer those questions, we won’t be able to move forward.
So, allow me to spend a little bit of time on
structure. How do we need to structure ourselves to be most effective?
Understanding this is a key prerequisite to understanding our task for today.
Let’s start with the Parish Council. It’s the governing body of the church according to our by-laws, not to mention the fact that virtually every committee within the parish is either a standing or ad-hoc committee of the Parish Council, so it seems as good as place as any to start. The Council, 15 parishioners plus Father Manny, meets once a month and the Executive Board, five Parish Council officers, meets once a month. Great structure for an advisory board – not much good for a working group. Issues require follow-up and turnaround in much shorter intervals than that. Maybe we could get away with this when we were a small parish, but it began to stretch us thin even for the last few years in Glen Cove. So traditionally, with a few exceptions, the Parish Council has served as both an advisory committee and a group of working committees. Still not very effective. 15 people cannot do the work of the entire parish.
Please don’t take my comments to suggest that the work of the parish is limited to the Council. We have long standing committees, such as the Youth Committee and the Greek School Board & PTA that have been doing a ton of work for many years. We have the Philoptochos, an independent Organization that has been doing the same. But we need to extend that model. To make it the norm, not the exception
This year, we already have a few examples of ad-hoc committees that have done wonders: The now-famous basement committee was driven to accomplish something and did they ever. Stella, Cliff, Nickie and Tony have set a standard that I hope the rest of us can match. Now we have the chair committee. Nickie Demos, Mike Kranyak, Anne Vandoros, Irene Alatzas and Constance Denslow are working hard to provide the Parish Council with a recommendation by next month for seats to replace our beautiful antique priceless folding chairs. (But don’t worry, for those of you who’ve grown attached to our current chairs, we’ll make them available for purchase.)
But we must do three things (maybe more):
We must extend the committee model to supply the same effective concept to many other areas: We’ve begun with the Facilities Committee, but we can’t stop there. We have Membership Development, Strategic Planning, Finance, Information & Outreach, just to name a few.
We need to set clear objectives for our committees and for our parish as a whole. Every one of our committees has an idea of what it’s goal is – but do we have specific objectives for this year? For the next two years? As critical as I believe this to be, I’m not going to dwell on it now, because we have about 4 hours of our agenda devoted just to this area. Alex will kick it of at 10:30 and I don’t want to steal his thunder. However, I want to make two quick points: (1) Today’s breakout sessions are not meant to be committee meetings – please allow your facilitators to set the agenda for these sessions. (a) The effort we are undertaking today applies to every committee of the church. If we tried to focus on every committee today, we’d be here through Palm Sunday. We’ve picked four that we think will generate the most interest. That does not mean the ones we’ve omitted are any less importand. I encourage, in fact I urge, the chair of every other committee to follow our example and do the same type of exercise for his/her committee in the near future.
Finally, we must improve communications between the
committees and the council. I’m going to dwell on this for a few minutes
because it’s important, and because it’s not directly addressed by today’s
agenda. Our organizations and committees today do not always know what each
other are doing. At times that can lead to duplication of work. At other
times, it can lead to things falling through the cracks. It can also lead to misunderstandings
which can develop into mistrust. I’m glad to say that worst case is the
exception and not the rule around here, but I’m sure we can all think of one or
two examples. If we do not improve our communications we will not work
effectively. But even more importantly, if we do not improve our
communications, we are likely to suffer as individuals. We are all parts of
one common body. How would we do in day to day life if our arms, legs, mouths,
heart and lungs were working totally independently? (Is there a doctor in the
house?) Furthermore, if we do succeed in our goal of expanding the work done
by committees, communication will become even more important.
I am confident that if we are successful in these three tasks: Extending the model, improving communication, and setting priorities and objectives, we can accomplish great things. On top of that, I think in the past we have invited non-Parish Council members onto committees, but we’ve then had 1 or 2 meetings and provided no motivation and no means for these folks to dig in their heels and get involved. So if we are really able to make our committees work, I firmly believe that it will provide motivation for others to get involved. As I said earlier, there are exceptions, but we need to make today’s exception into tomorrow’s norm.
So, why is this day exciting? Because if we accomplish these goals, I think we can jump start 2007 and beyond.
It may require some thinking outside the box. I’d like to ask everyone to be creative. During our breakout sessions, don’t be afraid to suggest anything – we’re all here to listen and brainstorm. I suspect only two people in this room will recognize the lyric “I ain’t often right but I have never been wrong.” Bear that in mind when you’re in these sessions. Nothing anyone says is “wrong” today. Any if someone knocks down your crazy suggestion, don’t take it personally. Don’t take anything personally. We’re all here to move forward together. Let’s start with the following as a given: We are all here because we love our church and we love our community. We are all here because each and every one of us wants to help. Let’s bear that in mind too as we enter into potentially lively debates.
Thank you all again for being part of this day.
All conference participants
participated in a team building exercise. The purpose of the exercise was to
highlight the importance of communication and teamwork. It was based on the
Toxic Waste exercise used at corporate and school events (e.g. http://wilderdom.com/games/descriptions/ToxicWaste.html).
The exercise was modified to relate directly to our parish and was dubbed
“Toxic Loukoumades.” At a high level, the structure was a follows:
o The team was given a task: Using ropes and bungee cords, team members had to manipulate two buckets that were placed in the center of a circle with a diameter of approximately 15 feet.
o One bucket, full of plastic balls, had to be emptied into the other, which was empty.
o Three teams were used to perform this exercise:
o The “Parish Council” team was given a complete description of the problem and charged with formulating a plan and giving it to the team of “Committee Heads”
o
The “Committee Head” team had to relate the instructions to
the “Committee Members” who were given minimal information. This team was also
expected to communicate issues and questions back to the “Parish Council”
o The “Committee Members” were blindfolded and given instructions and guidance by the “Committee Heads”
o Due to the number of participants, two separate groups performed the exercise, each consisting of the three teams listed above.
It was a most interesting hour. For about the first 20 minutes, both the Committee Heads and Committee Members teams sat waiting for instructions. The Parish Council teams, reading the instructions, questioned the sanity of the conference organizers. The GOYA members assisting with Conference administration looked on with glee. Eventually, Committee Head team members, having received their instructions, started coming downstairs to inspect the “Toxic Loukoumades sites” and provided feedback to the Parish Council members. After another 10-15 minutes, they began to provide instructions to their blindfolded Committee Members team members.
Once the actual attempts at manipulating the balls and
buckets got underway, communication seemed to break down entirely. Everyone
had his/her own idea and expressed it. (In one case, one of the blindfolded
team members began to give instructions to those who could see.) The ideas
ranged from slinging bungee cords over pipes to changing the diameter of the
Toxic Circle by pushing the rope towards the buckets. Group A claimed success
first. Group B eventually did the same, but only after knocking over the
bucket of loukoumades and contaminating the entire Fellowship Hall.
So what lessons were learned?
o Communication between Parish Council and Committees is not clear.
§ It is not well organized
§ It is rarely bi-directional
o Individuals and groups alike often assume that all others have the same information they do, which is rarely the case. This can exacerbate the communication difficulties.
o Those people doing the actual work in real parish activities don’t always receive enough information and definitely feel as though they are blind.
Introduction
of CommitteesAlex Ipiotis, chair of the Facilities Committee, introduced the concept and objectives of the Parish Council committee structure. He read the following comments, not necessarily verbatim, They may vary slightly from his actual remarks:
Review of Current By-laws section on Standing Committees:
Some exist; some don’t and maybe never have.
Provide examples of successful committees
§ Festival
§ Fund raising for the new church
§ Construction committee
§ youth commission
§ Greek school
§ The basement committee (This one is interesting because it is an ad-hoc committee)
§ Facilities management
§ Additional committees
§ Chair selection (another ad-hoc committee)
§ By-Laws Maintenance
§ Capital Fundraising
§ Finance
§ Information and outreach
§ Membership development
§ Strategic planning
§ Worship and Parish life
Imagine trying to get the work of these committees accomplished within the timeframe of a council meeting or meeting the challenges presented to these groups without their own infrastructure and hierarchy. We currently have about 3 committee’s that report vertically into PC meetings. We must have more, so more gets done, more efficiently while empowering the committees and allowing PC to simply review the committees decisions
Assume that each committee has 4
people and meets for 2 hours per month. This is a fairly reasonable commitment.
If you do the math, it comes to 1632 man hours. It’s equivalent to a full time
person for an entire year. And much more powerful. In this model, you represent
20% of all parish families on a committee and this does not include Sunday
school or Philoptochos. Committees are bodies that are empowered to think,
create, resolve and act.
Contrast this 1632 man hours with the roughly 500 man-hours that the current Parish Council schedule provides.
We are no longer the 100 family church on Cedar Swamp Road. We are the 300 family Church on Cedar Swamp road.
To be successful and meet the needs of our Parishioners and community, we must take a different approach.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
The committee structure is designed to involve Parish council members, veteran parishioners, new members to the church, the young and old.
My own experiences are typical of what we realize with an expanded model of our existing committees. I was asked to chair the facilities committee about 16 months ago. This is clearly not my expertise. Father suggested I meet with a group of parishioners to beginning planning a long-term strategy for maintenance and upkeep. The group included George Lambrakos, Peter Nicholas, Theo Vazanellis and me. All of them were very knowledgeable and in different areas. We meet once a week to determine priorities, needs, strategy and a budget. Theo and I have continued to meet on a regular basis. We have as needed meetings with the construction committee and report to Parish Council as requested.
Our church is filled with talented and capable people. By nature, Greeks are entrepreneurs, doers and creators. We also tend to be very busy. Committees cannot be successful without talented and motivated people. The best people must have a chance to serve in their areas of expertise.
The utilization of these committees will enable us to manage the grout of our Parish, involve parishioners with a broad range of talents and develop the future leaders of our Church community.
The next two hours will be used to delve into the work of a couple existing committees. These break outs will be moderated by someone other than the committee chairperson. This will be an opportunity for to understand the work of the committees and brainstorm new ideas and vision for the future of these groups.
We hope you will participate in the breakouts, and if you are not currently on a committee, please consider serving on one we need your expertise and effort.
Each of the four breakout sessions operated somewhat independently, so the published results vary in format.
The following priorities were highlighted:
1. 
Youth
worship
a. Stop-and-go Liturgy - when appropriate of perhaps on a Saturday, Father breaks down the liturgy in a more age appropriate fashion.
b. In Sunday school, teachers prepare age appropriate lessons demonstrating the liturgy, students should be occasionally brought to church so the liturgy lesson in the classroom is brought to life as the students witness the liturgy in church.
2. Schedule in the fall a youth orientation program for all parents, youth advisors, and a liaison from other church groups (i.e. council and Philoptochos)
a. Introduction of the advisors
b. Contact information for each group
c. Each advisor gives an outline the their activities for the year
This should be done on a Sunday in the church
3. Begin a YAL program - try to keep the 18-35 year olds interested in church activities.
a. Begin with having a GOYA (graduates) reunion - make it social and fun
b. Have them elect their own officers and agendas
c. Slowly begin to involve the group with the church
d. E-mail the weekly bulleting to graduated GOYA members that are in college. Keep them apprised of the church happenings so when they come home on vacation they feel comfortable to attend church.
4. Begin a Junior Choir
5. Better communications - set up a list server for youth only
6. Every Youth organization should have written guidelines so if anyone is sick, or retires, the incoming advisor has some working knowledge as to how the organization works.
The attendees of the breakout session for the Strategic
Planning Committee began by identifying strengths and weaknesses of the parish:
Strengths:
§ Our church & facilities
§ Our people
§ Our attitude – open lack of reproach
§ Our leadership – Fr. Manny
Weaknesses:
§ We need to educate our parish regarding their responsibilities to the church.
§ We need to build a cooperative – change the 80/20 model to one that is more balanced. This starts at the top, with
§ Development of a long-term financial plan
§ Create activities to bring people together
§ Strengthen our people
§ Develop events throughout the year
From this, they laid out a set of Strategic Objectives for the committee:
§ To ensure the long-term economic stability of the church.
§ Maximize the membership participation in all aspects of Parish Life
§ Develop programs of excellence to preserve the energy and maintain the loyalty and commitment of our members.
§ Assess & Improve our communications
§ Identify weakness and issues and develop solutions
Based on the above discussions, they proposed the following Mission Statement for the committee:
To Act as an advisory group made up of Past Presidents and others that identifies the long-term needs of the Parish, develops recommendations regarding these issues, and presents them to the Parish Council.
The Membership Development committee session set out to define high priority objectives for the year. Early in the discussion, those present acknowledged that Membership Development usually focuses almost exclusively on Fair Share. It was quickly agreed that rather than start with Fair Share as the sole discussion point, the group would instead focus on how best to grow the membership, recognizing that Fair Share could only grow if the parish grows.
Numerous ideas were discussed, and the following six were chosen as the most important:
§ A standing Welcoming Committee should be established. Rather than rotate greeters every week, a consistent group (that could rotate within itself, but over a relatively short interval) would take more responsibility and be better focused.
§ The committee should establish standard follow-up procedures for information received from prospective new members. Currently, visitors who fill out cards at the pangari have their names sent to the office. They then receive a Fair Share packet and go onto our mailing list, but we need to develop an approach that provides more of a personal touch.
§ We should look into the installation of a glass-enclosed directory board to include both photographs and contact information. This was in response to the sentiment that visitors and prospective members don’t have a good sense of who to contact about what. We want the leadership to appear more accessible.
§ Leadership must reach out to new members. While this point may be directly inferred from the previous two, it is worth stating on its own. If we do not try to include new members in our activities, we can’t count on them contacting us.
§ Include new members on committees was seen as one means of including them. It will also help folks to meet one another and to develop future parish leaders.
§ It was pointed out that we should plan more social get-togethers. We have dropped groups and events that were successful in our earlier days, such as the Mr. & Mrs. Club and our New Year’s party. While there may be a good reason why these specific items came to an end, something should exist in their place.
The facilities committee discussed a wide range of issues related to both the maintenance and utilization of our parish facilities. Committee chair, Alex Ipiotis, noted early that he has requested a mechanism to allow parishioners to submit facilities-related requests on-line, and that Jim Gabriel is working on installing a package to perform this function.
The committee ended up prioritizing the following items / issues:
§ Seal the Church floor – to be buffed twice per year
§ Develop a routing to maintain the upkeep of the facilities
§ Create a list of year long maintenance items and ensure they are all in the budget
§ Youth Commission projects need to know who are in authority for each area: i.e. who should be approached for questions related to the facility
§ Communication needs to improve
§ Put the master parish schedule onto the website for check and book dates
§ Status of C.O. – a letter is ready to be sent to the village. This will be done immediately following the festival.
Wrap-upDuring the wrap-up session, members of each break-out session presented their findings to the entire group.
The most common themes were:
1. Improve numerous aspects of communication
a. Between leadership and parishioners
b. Between Parish Council and committees
c. This can be aided with tools (such as Youth Listserver discussed in Youth Breakout) but also requires a conscious effort by members of leadership on an ongoing basis.
2. Focus on our Youth
a. Provide ministries for additional age groups, notably GOYAL
b. 
Expand
religious education
c. Improve communication flows between existing groups
3. Expand the leadership group to include more people.
It; is worth nothing that this last point was reflected in the post-conference survey, when the need to have more people participate in the conference was perhaps the one recommendation that was nearly unanimous.
The conference concluded with a Prayer
Service in the church. A portion of the Akathist Hymn was read, with Father
Emmanuel leading the service and all others present reading divided into two
groups that alternated reading the responses. Father Emmanuel also provided a
lesson on the background of the icon of the Virgin Mary that was in the church.
The following list itemizes specific follow-up items were discussed at the conference. It is expected that other items may surface in the course of executing these tasks. The first item, not specifically discussed at the conference, was added as a direct result of this.
For any items where there is no Responsible Party listed, it is the responsibility of the Executive Committee to identify such a person.
|
Short Description |
Long Description |
Responsible |
Due Date |
Notes |
|
Track progress made against objectives |
Introduce a widely-accessible mechanism for tracking progress on these and other issues that arise. |
J. Gabriel |
30-Apr |
This will likely utilize whatever package is used for the Facilities Committee request tracking (as mentioned in the Facilities Committee write-up). |
|
PC / Committee Communication |
News does not always flow properly between Parish Council and the various committees. A recommendation will be made on how to communicate most effectively. This will, at the minimum, be published guidelines, but may also include formalized procedures related to Parish Council and/or Executive Committee meetings. |
Executive Committee |
15-Apr |
This will be an agenda item at the next meeting of the Executive Committee. |
|
Youth Listserver |
In order to improve communication between Youth Groups, we will create a specific Listserver for the Youth Groups. This will enable e-mails to be sent to members of all youth groups, without flooding each family with duplicates. if they have children in multiple groups. |
J. Gabriel |
31-Mar |
Setup completed on 27-Mar. Guidelines and Instructions will be published by 31-Mar |
|
Youth on-line community |
Participants suggested an on-line community (something like “myspace”) for our Youth. It was agreed that this was a good concept, but we want to ensure that the community can be secured. |
J. Gabriel |
30-Apr |
|
|
Strategic Planning Structure |
The Strategic Planning Committee recommended that they exist as an autonomous body that does not formally report into the Parish Council. This requires further discussion as the Parish Council had previously approved a standing committee on Strategic Planning and, as per Uniform Parish Regulations, all standing committees report into the PC. |
Parish Council & Past Presidents |
Not specified |
This discussion suggests that the by-law definition of standing committees be reviewed to clarify how they are created, terms of chairpersons, reporting structure, etc. |
|
Junior Choir |
Organize a Junior Choir. This includes, at a minimum, identifying a director, coordinating with Sunday School and with Church Choir. |
TBD |
Fall 2007 |
The specific date was not discussed, but the target date is intended to have us prepared by the next school year. |
|
Youth Orientation |
Schedule a fall youth orientation program for all parents, youth advisors, and liaisons from other church groups |
TBD |
Fall 2007 |
More details in the Youth Commission Breakout Section. |
|
Identify YAL Coordinator |
The parish has made attempts in the past to begin a YAL group. In order to do so successfully, we must identify a coordinator, who can then work with the Youth Commission and National YAL to kick off an effective program. |
Fr. Emmanuel, Vivian Casil, Jim Gabriel |
June 2007 |
|
Complete results are attached in Appendix C. Highlights of the results follow here:
§ 57% considered the day Productive
§ (An additional) 36% considered the day Extremely Productive
§ 100% felt they had an opportunity to participate
§ 79% thought that the level of participation was high
§ 79% would have preferred greater attendance
The most highly rated sessions were:
§ Youth Commission Breakout Session
§ Prayer Service
§ Membership Development Breakout Session
§ Welcoming Remarks
The Team Building Exercise was voted Most Enjoyable.
All constructive comments were included, both those with praise and those with criticism or recommendations.
(Some of these comments came directly from the survey while others were received by e-mail following the conference.)
§ I thought it was a great start.
§ Have a speaker from another parish which has held a similar conference to give an uplifting message as to its meaning and positive things which evolved as a result.
§ All active committees should be represented to field questions, with each sharing their strong points and success and noting areas that need improvement with additional funding or outside help.
§ The atmosphere was comfortable so that many people really opened up.
§ I think there should be a definite plan developed to implement some of the ideas, particularly as concerns the membership area. All in all, it was more productive than I had anticipated. Thanks!
§ We had a great conference on Saturday - very enlightening and meaningful.
§ It showed how poorly we share information.
§ This took too long to accomplish the goal… next year's exercise should be shorter and faster to bring the understanding to its participants.
§ High level of enthusiasm and participation.
§ Many good ideas and goals evolved from this session
§ People on this committee came away feeling that should set a date to begin regular meetings. Perfect.
§ A lot of what was discussed is already in place. Need to get an idea with some zing to attract new people
§ High level of enthusiasm and participation.
§ Many good ideas and goals evolved from this session
§ Too few attendees at this point. People were tired and anxious to leave. Maybe next year's conference should be shorter and have an incentive to keep the people until the end
This conference would not have been possible without significant input and effort from a large number of people. Special thanks to:
Event Planning
o
Nickie Demos
o Alex Ipiotos
o Parish Council Executive Committee
Catering / Kitchen set-up
o Nickie Demos
o Constance Denslow
o Sally Gabriel
o Alexandra Gratsias
Administrative Assistants
o
Patrick Bellidoro
o Christina Christodoulou
o George Verveniotis
Video / Photo
o Chris Gabriel
o Peri Ipiotis
Leadership, Guidance, Wisdom, et al.
o Fr. Emmanuel Gratsias
Excerpt from
wrap-up session: The Church of the Holy Resurrection is unique because of one man.
Father Manny’s enthusiasm, love and dedication are contagious. It is because
of him that we are here and it is because of him that we are constantly moving
forward. Thank you, Father, for everything.
Issued to Parish Council, Philoptochos and PC Standing Committee members:
Council Members, Parish Leaders and Committee Members:
As we begin our second full year in our new home, the potential for progress is enormous. We can look forward to continuing to grow our tremendous youth programs, undertaking improvements to our facilities, and expanding both our membership base and our ministries. The
This excitement carries with it responsibility, particularly for those of us involved in one or more parish organization or committees. We’d like to thank you for being a part of this group and to invite you to join us for a day that promises to be instrumental in laying the groundwork for our success.
On March 24th, we will be hosting the Church of the Holy Resurrection’s First Annual Leadership Conference. While the agenda has not yet been fully developed, the objectives of the day are at least threefold:
o To cultivate increased levels of teamwork across our various committees.
o To set goals and objectives for the year for our individual committees.
o To enjoy a day of both koinonia (fellowship) and diakonia (stewardship) with our fellow parish leaders.
The conference will begin in the morning and extend through mid-afternoon. It will conclude with a short prayer service to celebrate the eve of Evangelismos. Lenten meals will be provided for breakfast and lunch.
We hope you are able to join us for this day, as we believe that it has the potential to invigorate us and inspire us to achieve some great things this year. Please let us know whether you will be able to attend using the RSVP information below. More details will follow as they become available.
In His Service,
Father Emmanuel Gratsias Jim Gabriel
Pastor President
|
Saturday, March 24, 2007 |
||||
|
Time |
Session |
Speaker / Facilitator |
Location |
|
|
8:30 am – 9:00 am |
Registration / Breakfast |
Galleria / Fellowship Hall |
||
|
9:00 am – 9:30 am |
Opening Prayer |
Fr. Emmanuel Gratsias |
Fellowship Hall |
|
|
Welcoming Remarks |
Jim Gabriel Fr. Emmanuel Gratsias |
|||
|
9:30 am – 10:30 am |
Team Building Exercise |
Church Basement |
||
|
10:30 am – 10:40 am |
Break |
|||
|
10:40 am – 11:00 am |
Introduce Parish Committees: Setting Priorities & Objectives |
Alex Ipiotis |
Fellowship Hall |
|
|
Breakout Sessions |
Board Room |
Library |
||
|
Facilitator: Jamie Catacosinos |
Facilitator: Stella Hetzer |
|||
|
11:00 am – 12:15 pm |
Strategic Planning |
Youth Commission |
||
|
12:15 pm – 1:00 pm |
Lunch |
Fellowship Hall |
||
|
1:00 pm – 2:15 pm |
Facilities Management |
Membership Development |
||
|
2:15 pm – 2:30 pm |
Break |
|||
|
2:30 pm – 3:30 pm |
Review of Committee Meetings: Parish Roadmap |
Bill Beaury |
Fellowship Hall |
|
|
3:30 pm – 3:45 pm |
Evangelismos Prayer Service |
Church |
||
This document was written by Fr. James Kordaris, Director of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese Department of Outreach and Evangelism. Fr. Kordaris provided this document upon receiving notification of our Conference:
PARISH LEADERSHIP: Connecting the Dots
“…there are many parts, but one body.”
1 Corinthians 12:20
Fr. James Kordaris
Our churches are busier than ever with youth activities, seniors group, athletics, choir, junior choir, Bible studies, support groups, community outreach, Sunday school, educational programs and much more. As these activities grow and develop leadership from within, they often take on a life of their own, disconnected from one another and from the Eucharistic community out of which they were formed.
“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” (1 Cor. 12:27)
For a parish to be effective in its mission, all of its organizations and activities must be seen – and more importantly – must see themselves as members of one body, pursuing the same goals, and always leading toward the Eucharist. Sometimes we find that people will participate in one organization or ministry of the parish, yet they are rarely seen participating in Divine Liturgy. This happens in everything from Bible study to basketball.
A priest from a large parish refers to this as the need to “connect the dots.” All the activities, organizations and ministries need to connect in the Eucharist. And while all the various activities of the church may be worthwhile endeavors, they may not be moving people toward transfigured life in the within the body of Christ.
We all know the argument: “What if this activity is the only activity in which a member of the parish is involved? Isn’t it better to have some contact than none at all?” But if a parish organization is not led by a Christ-centered individual who sets an example by being present in Liturgy, how do we expect this activity to bring people to the Eucharist? An activity is effective when lives are transformed in such a way that people are inspired to become more Christ-like. One way to change perceptions is to refer to every activity and organization of the parish as a ministry, reminding us that everything the Church community does should lead people to Christ.
“Different kinds of service, but the same Lord.” (1 Corinthians 12:5)
Often the various parish ministries and organization develop into one person’s or one group’s turf. The activity becomes an autonomous group within the church, not coordinated or integrated with others. Sometimes there may even be competition among the groups. This is not compatible with the vision of the Church as the body of Christ with many limbs and organs all working together.
Building a Leadership Team
An effective strategy for getting the limbs and organs of the body of Christ working together is to gather the leaders of all the various ministries on a regular basis to pray for the church, coordinate the parish calendar of events and discuss common activities and goals of the parish. The priest directs the parish leadership by presenting the vision or mission of the Church, and opens the lines of communication between organizations and ministries. A positive result of this can be that all begin to coordinate their efforts and cooperate in working toward a common goal
This happened recently at the parish of Saint Nicholas in Youngstown, Ohio where a monthly Saturday morning breakfast meeting of all the leaders of the various parish ministries and community organizations was initiated. As the ministries planned the parish’s first annual Family Outreach Sunday, they were drawn together to work toward making this a successful event for their individual organizations and for the parish.
Their coordinated effort resulted in attendance not seen at St. Nicholas since Pascha with attendance up by nearly 50 percent. Each organization hosted a booth in the church hall. Many provided food or refreshments to be served at the brunch, and the day was a positive experience for those who hosted and those who attended. Their first Family Outreach Sunday was a success in that it brought many inactive Orthodox Christians to church while bringing the ministries of the parish together to work toward a common goal.
Parish Activities/Ministries Coordinator
In 1999 the clergy and lay leadership of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church of Portland, Oregon began to assess the growing needs of the parish, and to consider ways to coordinate and grow the ministries of the parish. Initially they considered hiring a youth director, but upon further consideration realized that there were parish needs beyond the scope of the youth program. The leadership at Holy Trinity concluded that what was needed was a parish staff member whose responsibility it would be to coordinate the growing number of existing parish ministries and to develop additional ministries.
With the assistance of a grant from Leadership 100, the parish established the position of Parish Activities Coordinator, to address the challenge of organizing a large and active parish life, promoting volunteerism, fostering involvement in existing ministries, and working collaboratively with clergy to develop new ministries. Under the guidance of the parish priest, the coordinator works with the leaders of all parish ministries with a particular emphasis on youth related activities, and connects parishioners with suitable church ministries and programs. The position of Parish Activities Coordinator is outlined in the Ministry Profile section of the www.Outreach.goarch.org web site.
“Without Vision the People Perish” (Proverbs 29:18)
Every parish has a different personality – different strengths and weaknesses. Every parish is located in a particular environment in a particular neighborhood. Every parish is made up of a different group of people with different needs, ethnic heritage, skills and education. For these reasons, every parish will have a different vision for the ministry that lies before them. Vision is a picture of the future that produces passion.
With their priest as their guide, parish leadership is encouraged to hammer out a vision for the future of their church. Vision causes people to imagine the future of their church and to develop concrete steps to realize that vision. The greater importance of vision is that it creates passion in ministry. And if we are passionate about ministry, that passion will be contagious. People will be inspired to accomplish great work for the realization of the vision.
As Orthodox Christian leaders, give all you can to this effort. Give all the time, service and prayer that you can give. Apply whatever gifts you have to this calling, because eternal lives are at stake.
Rules
The following instructions sheets were provided to the three teams:
The 2007 Festival went almost perfectly. Thousands of people descended upon Brookville for good food, good music, cigar vendors and Bouncy Castle rides. Many, many drachmas (or is that Euros now?) came pouring into the church. Everybody left happy.
However, when making the last batch of loukoumades, our Loukoumada King could only find one (very old and dusty) bottle of Metaxa remaining. He did not see that the seal had been broken years ago and that someone had drawn a skull-and-crossbones on the dust-covered label. It was not until the loukoumades started glowing that the entire loukoumada crew realized something was amiss. They quickly scooped the last batch of loukoumades out of the fryer and into a bucket. They tried to hide the bucket in the church basement. They did not count on the fact that the basement was now so well organized that the Facilities Committee would quickly find the bucket.
You, as Parish Council members, must now make sure that the Toxic Loukoumades are disposed of safely. But of course you do not want to get near this bucket yourself. That is the job of the Committees! Which committee, you might ask? Well, they’re all in this together. It is in the best interest of the Facilities Committee, who oversees the facilities; the Youth Commission and Philoptochos, who use the basement; the Information and Outreach Committee, who does not want to have to write about this in Koinonia; the Membership Committee, who does not want all of the members becoming radioactive before they’ve met their Fair Share commitment; and all of the other committees to assist.
Your job is to instruct the committee Chairmen on how to direct their committee members through this exercise without starting a general panic. But keep your distance!!!
A few rules to bear in mind:
· The Toxic Loukamades are all sitting in a bucket, which has now been safely roped off from the rest of the basement. There is a rope circle, approximately 20 feet in diameter, around the bucket.
· In order to decontaminate the Loukamades, they must be emptied from the plastic bucket back into the original Metaxa bottle. (But for now, a second bucket will suffice)
· The committee chairs and members are not to know about the danger. They will get scared and disperse to parishes 20 miles or more away (to stay safe.)
· Nobody can touch the bucket, or enter the perimeter of the circle. They will have a number of long ropes and bungee cords that they must use to manipulate the bucket.
· If the loukoumades spill onto the floor, the entire area will be contaminated – end of show! They and the buckets must remain within the roped off area.
· The committee members will be wearing blindfolds. Only you may instruct them when to remove them. If you do so before the successful completion of the exercise, you will be placed on Church Order and Sacrament duty for every weekend until the end of the year.
· You are to remain in your assigned area. If you require information, make sure that your committee chairs are able to get it for you.
Come up with your instructions. Communicate them clearly to the committee chairs, and make sure they provide you with feedback on how it’s going in case you need to come up with a Plan B.
We have a “minor problem” impacting the parish. The Parish Council is relying on its committees to join forces and solve the problem. So far, they’ve been very tight-lipped and have told you nothing about the specific nature of the problem. (Some of your committee members have hinted that the Loukoumada King was dipping into the Metaxa a bit too heavily, and we now need to “fix his mess.” You’d better do your utmost to contain the rumor mill.)
The Facilities Committee, Youth Commission, Philoptochos, Information & Outreach Committee, Strategic Planning Committee, and Membership Committee have been mentioned specifically. However, the other message coming through that nasty rumor mill is that everybody is affected and each committee needs to do its part.
So what do you need to do?
· Your job is to communicate and coordinate between the Parish Council and your committee members.
· Listen carefully to your instructions. Translate them into easy to follow steps for your committee members.
· Your committee members are not to cross the perimeter of the circle marking off the “problem area”. If they do so, they will be immediately placed on both Church Order and Coffee Hour duty for the next 52 consecutive weeks.
· You are not to touch any equipment you find around the “problem site.” Your jobs is to communicate and to help your committee members.
· Oh, and by the way, your committee members will be blindfolded. Removal of these blindfolds will result in the same 52 week sentence.
· The Parish Council will be “in conference” in the Parish Council meeting room during the entire exercise. You are to reach out to them as needed.
We seem to have a minor problem impacting the parish. You have not heard any of the details, only vague rumors about the Loukoumada King and Metaxa. The Parish Council is relying on its committees to join forces and solve the problem. They will give your chairpersons some of the details, as much as they think can be passed along safely.
This problem affects numerous parish committees. It is clearly in the best interest of the Facilities Committee, the Youth Commission, Philoptochos, the Information & Outreach Committee, the Strategic Planning Committee & the Membership Committee to assist. In short, everyone is being called upon to help.
Your job is simple. Take your instructions from your committee chairs and execute them.
But first, please put on your blindfolds and leave them on until instructed to remove them. Our facilitators will guide you to your final location once you have your blindfolds on. Failure to comply with this rule will cause you to be immediately placed on both Church Order and Coffee Hour duty for the next 52 consecutive weeks.
