RESOURCE GRANT PROPOSAL
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Name of Congregation Central Presbyterian Church
Address 125 North 7th Street
City Terre Haute, Indiana Zip 47807
County Vigo Resource Consultant (choose staff from this drop down list)
Telephone (812) 232-5049 Fax (812) 232-5040
Email Website www.thcpc.org
Number of Households 247 Number of Individuals 385
Average Worship Attendance 155
Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN) -350897338
(An Employer Identification Number (EIN) is also known as a Federal Tax Identification Number. This is the
number you use to report employee income and withholdings on IRS W-2, 1099, and similar forms)
Project Description:
Tell us about your congregation’s need for this project and resource and how it supports your mission.
The church’s last comprehensive strategic planning was performed in 2004, as required by the presbytery in preparation for calling its current pastor in 2005. Previous strategic planning reports were issued in 1989 and 1977. Considerable architectural and building-use planning was done in 2008 in connection with a feasibility study that preceded a capital campaign and a building renovation. However, that planning was not comprehensive and did not serious address mission, staffing, and other important topics. The leadership of the church believes it is time again to engage in comprehensive strategic planning. We recognize that we cannot pursue all attractive missions, but rather need to focus on a few that are at the heart of the congregation’s identity. Moreover, in addition to producing a plan, this time we also want to institute a “culture of planning” so that in the future we always are in a planning mode, re-considering annually the major points in our plan and revising or extending them as necessary, resulting in our always having a plan that is both long-term and current. In consultation with our resource consultant from the Center for Congregations, we determined it advisable to retain the services of a strategic planning consultant to assist us in this effort. The session has accepted the task force’s recommendation of a consultant and has authorized this grant application for the purposes of obtaining funding that would enable the engagement.
Mission of the Congregation:
Write your mission statement (or any statement of purpose or profile of your congregation)
The 2004 Mission/Vision Statement for the congregation is as follows: We are a community of believers called by God to grow in the knowledge and teachings of Christ, to share the love of Christ with all, and to respond with compassion to the needs of our changing world.
Project Director:
Give us the name and contact information of your project director (the person who will lead this project for your congregation and is responsible for all grant reports to the Center). Tell us in two or three sentences why this person is the best choice to lead this project.
Name: Lant B. Davis
Email:
Best phone number(s): (812) 232-5049
Street address: 2100 Ohio Boulevard
City: Terre Haute State: Indiana Zip: 47803
Resource(s) to be used:
Provide information about the resources for which you are seeking funding.
1. List the NAME of each resource SEPARATELY including as much contact information as possible.
a. This could include name, address, telephone, email, website, brochure, author, etc…
2. WHY is this resource the best one for your congregation at this time and for this project?
3. WHAT criteria did you use to select this resource from multiple options?
1. We seek funding to assist in the retention of Rev. Sarai Schnucker Rice, field consultant for the Alban Institute: Rev. Sarai Rice.
2. We selected Rev. Rice out of a very strong field of potential consultants for several reasons. She is a fourth-generation Presbyterian pastor, so we are confident that she will understand our unique Presbyterian polity, including recent changes in the structure of the denomination’s Form of Government. We appreciated her willingness to tailor her approach to the culture of our congregation; we had the impression that some of the other consultants had a “method” into which they would squeeze our culture. Rev. Rice uses “appreciative inquiry, among other techniques, which focuses the conversation initially on what is positive and worthy of affirmation, thus reducing defensiveness in the congregation or its leadership. She has a particular expertise in analyzing the staffing of a church for the mission it plans; this is a subject on which we feel the need for advice. She currently works in an interfaith ministry, and we believe that experience will be relevant to our context, in which we increasingly have begun to work in mission with churches of other Christian denominations. She currently is consulting with another church in our presbytery that is similar in many ways to our church; references from that congregation reported that the engagement was going very well. We had good “chemistry” in our telephone conversations with Rev. Rice.
3. Early in our process a three-person task force appointed by our session asked the Center for Congregations to identify a resource consultant who would be able to advise us. Marie Fleming was assigned to us. At her suggestion, we read several resources, including Holy Conversations: Strategic Planning as a Spiritual Practice for Congregations (Rendle and Mann), the Center’s “Special Report on Strategic Planning,” as well as some others we discovered through other sources, including A Door Set Open: Grounding Change in Mission and Hope (Steinke), Twelve Keys to an Effective Church, 2nd ed. (Callahan), Recreating the Church: Leadership for the Postmodern Age (Hamm), and What Every Pastor Should Know: 101 Indispensable Rules of Thumb for Leading Your Church (MacIntosh and Arn). Two of our task force attended the Center’s all-day workshop on strategic planning facilitated by Sandra Herron in October 2012; one attended the luncheon workshop in Indianapolis. In consultation with Ms. Fleming, who came to Terre Haute to meet with our task force, we identified four potential strategic planning consultants. Our task force interviewed them all—either by extended telephone conversation or in person. We spoke to references for the two consultants we considered the best match for our congregation. Based on these interviews and references, the task force recommended to the session that we retain Rev. Sarai Rice, a field consultant for the Alban Institute.
Timeline:
Write out the timeline for your project. You have up to 12 months to complete the activities related to the grant funded resources (those you named in the “Resources to be used” section). The timeline should be organized by month or quarter, depending on the pace of your project. The timeline should include key activities related to the grant funded resources. It may also include key activities related to the project that are not a grant funded resource but integral to the implementation of your project.
Assuming the Center for Congregations awarded this grant in November, we would seek in December to contract with the Alban Institute for Rev. Rice’s services. She would begin her work with us in the spring of 2014, with the “Phase 1” initial weekend site visit in the first quarter. Before the end of the second quarter, we expect to have identified a congregational strategic planning team who would have met with Rev. Rice on her second site visit and who would have received training from her on how to proceed with gathering information and planning. During the third quarter Rev. Rice would make her third site visit to help the strategic planning team analyze the data and develop goals and strategies for the congregation, after which Rev. Rice would prepare a staffing and governance report based on the plan, including recommendations regarding changes that might need to be made to the staffing design, governance structures, or budget in order to achieve the congregation’s goals. The engagement would be concluded sometime in the fourth quarter.
Participants:
Tell us the names of principal congregational leaders participating in the project and give us their congregational role (example: board of deacons; trustees, etc).
P.J. Ekstrom (member of session)
Robert Horneker (member of session; corporate president; Mission Committee)
Renee Newton (member of session; Mission Committee; Strategic Planning Study Group)
Linda Shaw (member of session; Mission Committee)
Murray Pate (member of session; corporate vice-president; Interpretation and Support Committee; Strategic Planning Study Group)
Brad Bough (member of session; Nominating Committee; Governance Documents Task Force)
Joe Harder (member of session; Personnel Committee)
Don Lowder (member of session; Finance Commission)
Chuck Shutt (member of session; Worship Commission)
Susan Moulton (member of session; deacon; Nominating Committee)
Lance Weatherwax (member of session; Facilities Commission; Personnel Committee)
Eileen Whalen (member of session; Church Life/Church Action Commission; Fine Arts Commission)
Beth Whitaker (member of session; Youth Ministry Design Team)
Connie McLaren (clerk of session; corporate secretary; Church Life/Church Action Commission)
Bruce McLaren (treasurer; Finance Commission; Interpretation and Support Committee)
Cheryl Moles (Christian Educator; Christian Nurture Commission; Communications Commission; Youth Ministry Design Team)
Sarah Kelsheimer (Church Secretary; Financial Secretary)
Lant Davis (pastor)
Impact
Describe how this project significantly impacts your congregation. Impact is the effect the grant activities will have on the life and mission of the congregation. Impact describes behavioral attitudinal, and mission-related changes that may take place both short-term and in the long term life of the congregation. What impact will the project activities have on the congregation and, over time, what long term changes will occur?
The congregation has known for at least the last twenty years that if it stays in its current downtown location it will have to renovate its historic (1860s) structure. At least half of that project now has been accomplished, including new HVAC, electrical service, plumbing, and renovation of the kitchen and all parts of the building except the sanctuary. In addition, a recent grant from the Center for Technology in Ministry has allowed a substantial upgrade in the technological posture of the congregation. All of this has increased the congregation’s capacity for ministry. While plans for the future necessarily will include structural repairs to the sanctuary roof and renovation of the sanctuary itself, now is the time for the congregation to add a new focus—on using the newly increased capacity in ministry.
• This year a long-term mission of the church, operating a pre-school for about ten disadvantaged children, became unsustainable in its current form. The congregation needs to decide whether this will remain a mission focus and, if so, how it will need to change in order to meet the needs of contemporary families.
• Our congregation has long identified with the higher-education community and has sought to minister to it. The church is located across the street from Indiana State University and has strong connections with professors and administrators there and at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. By supporting an ecumenical student ministry—United Campus Ministries—the congregation seeks to minister to the students of the university and local colleges. However, that ministry has lost considerable denominational support and has been threatened with closure. At the same time, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has begun a new initiative in higher education—UKirk—which if we participated in it would in some sense compete with United Campus Ministries and would probably require the addition of a campus minister to our church staff. The congregation needs to decide if it is still called to campus ministry and, if so, what form that mission will take.
• As a downtown church we are close to some of the poorest neighborhoods in Terre Haute. We are located adjacent to the central bus station. In the past our congregation has given money to other organizations that serve the needs of our community, but our record of “hands-on” ministry (other than the preschool) has been slim. We need to decide how God is calling us to respond to these needs.
In short, it is time for the congregation to re-consider its identity—what makes Central Presbyterian Church unique. We recognize that we cannot do every good ministry that comes our way, so we need to decide our particular calling and expertise. We want to arrive at a point where we can say, “That is a very attractive and needed ministry, but that is not in the core of our mission; we need to leave that for another church or agency and focus on what we do best.” We need to deploy our resources in a manner that leads to synergy and self-reinforcement, rather than chasing random ministries that change from year to year.
The impact of a successful strategic planning process will be to help us discover what really excites us as a congregation, generating energy for mission and growth. New mission may suggest that we need to change our governing structures (committees, etc.) and reallocate or increase staff. Finally, once our congregation sees the value of this kind of planning, we expect that planning will become a part of our culture. In the future, rather than ramping up for a large planning effort every ten years or so, we intend that the strategic plan will be grow and change to meet the felt needs and to reflect our experience in attempting to implement it. Thus, each year we would want to consider our progress in meeting particular goals, then to decide whether to change the goals, declare them complete, change the timeline, etc. Ideally, from year to year the strategic plan would have a revolving time-frame of at least five years. It would be maintained by a group of persons committed to the idea of planning, evaluation, and continuous improvement.
Evaluation Plan
Please tell us how you will evaluate the success of this grant project. Evaluation can occur throughout the project and/or at the end of the grant period. As you write your plan, ask these questions – who should be involved in the evaluation (staff, committees, etc.), how will we gather information (surveys, focus groups, etc), who will head the evaluation, and when will we complete the evaluation? If your grant has more than one resource or activity, you may want to design a plan for each resource or activity. Ideally, your evaluation plan will relate to the impacts you described in the “Impact” section.