INFORMATION FOR PARTICIPATING CONGREGATIONS

We have 17 congregations participating: including Bellingham First, Cascade View, Cashmere, Cordata, Cottage Lake, Edmonds, Everett First, Friday Harbor, Mountain View, Northern Light, Othello, Parker Heights, Port Angeles, Saint James, Sunnyside, Westminster, and Wrangell!  One of the joys of the initiative is seeing all the creativity that takes place as each congregation makes the initiative their own, emphasizing their own unique combination of God-given marks of vitality!

HERE’S AN UPDATE FROM DECEMBER 2020:

Even in the midst of the pandemic, congregations are considering the Seven Marks of Vitality and asking what particular marks best describe their congregation.  They are also beginning to ask good questions of their neighbors and community, wondering what God is doing that they can engage in as a congregation.

Our national Vital Congregations Office will be resuming regular Zoom/ FaceBook Live conversations on the 7 Marks of Vitality in 2021.  You can find out more at their Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/PCUSAVitalCongregations/

Look for great articles from the Presbyterian Mission agency on congregational vitality.  https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/category/congregational-vitality/

We have a Facebook Group for NWC vital congregations’ participants to ask questions and share ideas. https://www.facebook.com/groups/NWCvitalcongregations/

The VCI manuals are available in print or PDF format.  If you would like to order more printed copies of the Year One Pastors’ Manual, you may order them through your Vital Congregations Catalyst.  The other VCI manuals are available in the PCUSA Church Store:  https://www.pcusastore.com/AdvancedSearch/DefaultWFilter.aspx?SearchTerm=vital+congregations  For PDF copies please contact your facilitator or Kim Westling, Presbytery Connector.

 
Vital Congregations New Reality (from a presentation by Carlton Johnson)

The new reality we are in during the pandemic has meant that the usual three-year cycle of Vital Congregations cannot happen as envisioned.   The usual way of thinking about the VCI is a preparation year, in which congregations covenant to be part of the VCI, followed by two years of the initiative.  If you would like to view the presentation by Carlton Johnson, it can be found here: Carlton Johnson Nov 2020.  The VCI office is also developing e-learning modules to assist pastoral leaders and sessions in the initiative.

The preparation year is being reimagined as “Foundational Planning & Preparation.”  This is what most of our initial 16 congregations did in 2019 and early 2020.  It includes these phases for congregations and presbyteries:

• Prayer & Faithfulness

• Casting the Vision of the two-year process

• (Re)forming Intentional Relationships, in a covenantal relationship with the presbytery and the other VCI congregations

• Preparations for the initiative – including naming facilitators, pastoral-leader and elder cohorts, and offering training on the arc of the initiative, as well as skills helpful for leadership to support the initiative in their congregations.

Materials helpful for this planning year can be found in the Vital Congregations Manual (for presbyteries) the VCI immediate toolkit (for congregations), and the cohort studies found in the VCI Pastors’ Manual.

Year One of the initiative is being reimagined as “Building Intentional Relationships and Honest Assessment of Congregations.”  Most of our congregations began Year One in 2020, but have pressed pause and will be resuming or restarting in 2021.  These are the phases for R & A:

• (Re)building – relationships among churches, pastors, and the presbyteries. Participate in pastoral leadership / elder cohorts.

• Engaging – in an honest, confessional assessment and prayerful discernment of the leading of the Holy Spirit in this time for this congregation.  Offer a season of prayer for Vitality, perhaps a Lenten or Holy week emphasis.

• Exploring – who we have been as a congregation, what traits of vitality have we exhibited, and what that means for the present and future. Continue to study and proclaim the 7 marks. Take the USCVS (7 marks) survey as a congregation, and notice whether the ‘leadership’ answers differently than the rest of the congregation.  (note: you decide who is tagged as leaders for the survey.) Contact your Vital Congregations Catalyst when you are ready to schedule the online and/or print survey.

• Discovering – engaging in a neighborhood exegesis through listening, observation, story-telling, and objective measurements such as “Mission Insite.” (note: the Mission Insite report is available free of charge to VCI congregations.  The Presbytery VCI Catalyst can share a sample report with you, and request your congregation’s report through the VCI office.)

Vital Congregations Initiative -Year Two has not yet been presented by the national office in this new format.  Year two includes

• Engaging – in more prayer & reflection on the 7 Marks of Vitality, this time asking where God may be leading you to strengthen one of the marks.

• Discerning – first, which action to pursue – (re)vitalization, clustering of churches, or a faithful death & promise of resurrection.  If (re)vitalization or clustering, also discern which Mark of Vitality to strengthen through creative experimentation (revitalization) - or in conjunction with another congregation (clustering.) 

• Experimentation & Evaluation – Prayerfully discern and implement an experiment in one of the 7 Marks of Vitality.  Then evaluate, and possibly try it again with modifications until you either decide to adopt that experiment as a vital component of your congregation, or move into a different experiment.  (this is what most of us did in moving to online worship!)

• Showing the marks – Celebrate the new vitality you have found through discernment & experimentation, and share that with others in the Presbytery.

For those familiar with Appreciative Inquiry*, you can observe the 4-D process in the arc of the Vital Congregations Initiative.  Which means, you can repeat years 1 & 2 as needed as you continue to adapt to the changing realities of your congregation and its neighborhood.

*For more information on Appreciative Inquiry, please see the Presbytery e-learning modules on that topic, available in 2021.    Mark Lau Branson’s book on the application of Appreciative Inquiry to our work in congregations is an excellent resource. Memories, Hopes, and Conversations: Appreciative Inquiry: Missional Engagement, and Congregational Change, Second Edition, Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.

If you have any questions, please contact the Vital Congregations Catalyst (soon to be hired), or one of our VCI Facilitators:  Doug Bunnell, Nettie Covalt, Jinsuk Kim or John Mason.   You may also contact Jenine Taylor, Presbytery Connector, and she will connect you with someone to answer your question.