A Community Update from Jordan
Friends,
This past Sunday I shared in our gatherings about the season of growth we find ourselves in as a church. The Parish community has doubled in size over the past two years, and is currently growing at a clip of over 30% per year.
While growth in Christlikeness — not growth in church size — will always be our value and pursuit, we recognize God at work in bringing people’s sacred stories together. We are thankful for the unique expression of community happening within The Parish, and encouraged to see so many people caught up in life together. We desire to steward what God is doing well and with open hands.
Still, every season of growing involves growing pains. On Sunday, we remembered how the early church (Acts 6) responded to rapid growth by discerning their communal limits, grappling together with how to care well for all.
Their story informs our own. We are nearing our limits in several important categories — facility (space), finances (budget), and people (staff and volunteers). The first of these challenges we need to address is that participation at Sunday gatherings is overly disproportionate — the early gathering is under-utilized (with plenty of space and mostly empty classrooms), while the second gathering is overly cramped (with little room to spare and overflowing kids areas).
We are exploring what steps should be taken to better balance the services. Likely, we’ll need to begin making all family ministry areas available in both gatherings, and shift service times (to 9:30am and 11am). But before we take these steps, we want to be sure they will have an impact.
To that end, we’re asking every person/family in the church to take two steps:
- Review and prayerfully consider the questions on this survey in light of your needs.
- Complete the survey before next Monday, April 1.
Please submit only one response per family, considering what you think your general patterns of participation will be.
If you’d like more context, please listen to a portion of this past Sunday’s sermon by clicking the play button below (if you prefer, you can listen to the sermon in its entirety here).
Thank you, friends, for your hearts as we help one another in this work of our people.
Jordan
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