When Bishop Gates met with us in the Fall of 2022, we talked a lot about declining church attendance and how the statistics are not very encouraging. He gave us some hope though by emphasizing that for churches to survive and flourish in the future, they have to be seen to be doing good in the wider community, and he encouraged us to continue thinking about how we can best do that.
In an effort to understand more clearly how we can best serve one another both within our own parish as well in the wider Ipswich community, we are going to take a deep dive in discerning just what are our core values, our mission and vision for the future, and how that will inform our programming and the use and development of our facilities going forward.
In June the Vestry welcomed Rev. Ed Cardoza, Bishop Gate’s Diocesan Missioner for Property Stewardship to talk to us about the best ways to go about this discernment process. He brings a lot of experience and expertise to these sorts of efforts, and a deeply spiritual understanding of the why, what, and how of being a church in today’s rapidly changing culture.
The first step in launching this discernment effort is to engage the whole parish by getting as many folks as possible to respond to three questions:
1. What qualities, characteristics, or values brought you to AMC?
2. What do you think others in the Ipswich Community value or identify as the key qualities that make AMC special or unique?
3. What qualities, characteristics, or values about AMC would you hope the community would hold?
A mailing has been sent in which parishioners have been asked to submit five one or two-word answers to each of these questions by simply writing those words on colored coded answer cards, and returning them in the stamped addressed envelope. They can also be submitted online by clicking on the button below, put in the offering plate on a Sunday morning, dropped off by the office, or put in the letter box on the front porch.
During the month of November, the answers have been displayed at Coffee Hour and at Special Events, where parishioners have been able to further tweak responses by identifying any answer that particularly resonates with them by sticking a red dot on it.
The response has been very good with almost 500 answer cards submitted. Click on the buttons below to see an alphabetical list of the responses and to see which ones have received red dots. If you would like to add a red dot to any response, just email the office with the word or phrase - amcipswich@verizon.net
Also in November a team of Visioneers is being assembled that will take six to eight weeks to review the three-questions responses and engage in deeper conversations with individuals and various groups both within the parish as well as the wider Ipswich Community. The upcoming seasons of Advent and Epiphany will be a “Season of Listening.”
VISIONEERS
The Vestry is seeking thoughtful, honest, prayerful input from every member of the Ascension Memorial Church community. That process of collecting the values and perspectives that will shape our future as a parish is underway. Visioneers are needed to help further engage the Ipswich community as well as the Parish in this process and, in addition, to participate in identifying our Five Core Values that will ultimately inform how we envision programming that will be relevant and geared toward the future long-term growth of the Parish, and the facilities we will need to successfully implement those programs. Their work will also assist the Vestry in refreshing our Mission Statement and in crafting a new over-arching Vision Statement. We hope to have this Mission-Vision-Values discernment process completed by mid to late February, 2024, but we are going to take whatever time is needed to get it right.
Visioneers can be anyone among us who is positive, open-minded, engaging, playful, flexible, patient, persevering and believe in their hearts that our best days lie in our future, not in our past. Visioneers will represent all of us: young and old, newly arrived and pillar of the parish, male and female, gay and straight, conservative and liberal. We need every voice heard and Visioneers will make it their business to be sure that happens.
We envision a team of 12 people representing a diverse cross section of our Parish. The time commitment will involve meeting with various parish and community groups, and meeting once per week with the team from early December through the second week of February.
By vote of the full Vestry at its most recent meeting, the five-member Executive Committee (Rector, Senior and Junior Wardens, Treasurer, and Clerk) has been given the responsibility of choosing the Visioneers.
If you would like to be considered for a spot on the team, please send an email to the church office at amcipswich@verizon.net with a brief three or four-sentence paragraph stating why you wish to be considered and what strengths and insight you think you would bring to the discernment process.
Thank you,
The AMC Vestry