I am going to take a break this month on the stewardship series I began a couple of months ago, but let’s continue to take to heart the calling: A Year of Stewardship – A Way of Life.

Your Board of Trustees just completed its annual planning retreat on August 19. It was a pretty amazing six-and-a-half-hour experience for us. We explored what the group thought the church does best and listed those things we think we could do better. The important part of that exercise was not to just create lists for lists sake, but to provide us with the tools we need to put together an actionable plan for the rest of this year as well as the next 3 years. That will happen as we take our strengths and apply them to solutions for those things we need to do better. 

At our September Board meeting we will finalize the plan and will then circulate to the Council to assist them in implementing the various committees’ plans for the year. Some of the things that our members will experience is an effort to better communicate activities and programs that will impact the congregation. So, in addition to our current efforts (the Journey, This Week, Order of Service, bulletin boards, pre-service slides, & social media), we are going to put up signs or use white boards placed where people enter the sanctuary that highlight scheduled activities and programs. We have already implemented one element in this effort by providing large print versions of our Order of Service for those who find reading smaller print a bit of a challenge.

We are very excited for the potential this year and I look forward to continuing to work with our volunteers to bring events and programs to BBUUC. Let us know if you want to contribute any additional ideas.

Peace and Love.

Chuck