Chapter 1: Where are we?

I started writing a space here to be about my background...but I really see that this blog should be able the church so lets start with when I got here and what have we done so far....(if you want to know about me...just go to my blog...or believe it or not...I have a phone number that you can call me at, ha ha ha)

When I got here I had no job description, an excited church who wanted to "do"something, and a Sr. Pastor that had worked so hard to allow a congregation to see the need of the people in Union to have an amazing relationship with God.

I am part of a 1st Start Development Team made up of members of the current congregation I am appointed to...as well as, the Sr. Pastor, Associate Pastor, District Superintendent, and the team leader of the NCCD team of the KY UM Conference. (basically, some church members and some big wigs). This team is in place to meet with me on a regular basis and help hold me accountable, and keep me on track and to bounce ideas off of and provide a support structure for me and the lead in this new ministry opportunity. Our first meeting consisted of a understanding of who they were as a team and what their responsibilities were and a little it of Q & A.

The general process that the KY conference has layed out for doing this sort of thing (in somewhat order) is:

-->Prayer Strategy, Culture Scan, Ministry Audit, Values Formation, Vision development, Mission development, Strategy, Timeline, Structure, Evaluation.

out of this very basic ladder of steps we start to form a ministry action plan.

So, using this as a basic guideline we started to work.

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The prayer strategy aspect of the new ministry is and I believe has to be the foundation of anything we do for/with God. It allows what we do for God to be with God. So as of a few days ago we now have a team leader to support and develop a prayer team that will specifically focus prayer and listening to God about this new ministry opportunity. They will decide how often they meet, and what will each meeting prayer time look like...but this ministry is underway and the foundation is being formed.

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While the prayer team was forming I spent the next few weeks right after I first arrive...not only unpacking our house (my oh my am I sick of boxes, heh heh) I also started to form meetings with people who understood and could find demographic information of the community of Union, KY. These are all number demographics, but these were extremely useful. For example, we found out that the average household income in a 2 mile radius of the geographic center of Union is around $100,000/year, over 85% of the houses were two or more child families, and one of the most interesting facts we found were that around 90% of the people who live in Boone County work in Boone county! Extremely interesting being a county who borders one of the 50 largest cities in the U.S.

There is tons of other Data that was found in different areas...but this was a first and important step in finding out where we were and who God desired for us to minister too.

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I then started meeting with those that were knowledgeable about the future growth of the Union area and where they saw the grow happening next. I met with people like the Boone County Planning Commissionwho showed me and told me where they saw the next big grow areas happening in Union and gave us an idea of what the developers were interested in doing and where they wanted to develop.

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I then started to meet with area churches to get their take on what they saw were the needs of the people living in and around Union and to also let them know what we were praying about and invite them to be a part of this ministry. I am still contacting pastors and meeting with them (man ministers are so hard to actually get a hold of, heh heh). Most have been helpful and supportive...but nothing beyond that. But I continue to meet with others and to develop relationships with them.

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I have purchased a few maps from the planning commission office so we can start to pinpoint out where the current church members of FUMC live and see if we have a current good representation on the city of Union from a geographical stand point. Once we can see the places where people live....I plan on contacting all of the current church members of Florence UMC to get to know them and find out from them if they could sum up and share what they perceive are the needs of the Union community and share the vision of offering to meet those needs in some way in a new ministry for the people of Union.

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So, that is where we are at currently and I will attempt to update you on the progress of this new ministry extension so that you can be a part of this ministry in presence, prayers, gifts, and service. Look for more to come on what is happening next.

Sometime soon I hope to share the meaning of the use of new terms to express what we are doing and why we are doing things differently. Hope to hear from you then! Until that time.....KUTPs!!!! (Keep Up The Prayers)

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Cultural:
adj 1: of or relating to the arts and manners that a group favors; "cultural events"; "a person of broad cultural interests"
2: denoting or deriving from or distinctive of the ways of living built up by a group of people; "influenced by ethnic and cultural ties"- J.F.Kennedy; "ethnic food" [syn: ethnic, ethnical]
3: of or relating to the shared knowledge and values of a society; "cultural roots"
4: relating to the raising of plants or animals; "a cultural variety"

Architect:
n. 1. One who designs and supervises the construction of buildings or other large structures.
2. One that plans or devises: a country considered to be the chief architect of war in the Middle East.