FCWC First Impressions/ Assimiliation Study Group

March 26, 2008 Meeting Minutes

Meeting began at 6:00pm

Attendance: Laura Hazelett, Tom Daugherty (pronounced ‘Darty’), Adam Cappa, Paula
Keesling, Patti Boyce, Carma Parrish and Alice LaFuze.

Laura began the meeting with prayer and read our team’s bible verse. Following this
Laura discussed the work ahead for the group. 1) be in prayer about this team and our
work, 2) what is said here stays here, 3) be ready to research, 4) attend meetings, 5) be
open to new ideas, 6) Laura is the facilitator and wants the team to be open to discussion,
7) a prayer request secretary needed (Paula Keesling accepted), and 8) a team secretary
needed (Carma Parrish accepted).

The team reviewed a list of adjectives and was to choose three to explain:

1) How do we perceive ourselves personally? Words chosen: family-oriented,

real/genuine, strong (willed), lively, trendy, original, sincere, and caring.

2) How we think our members perceive the church? Words chosen: innovative, exciting,
trendy, too cool, trust worthy, unique, warm (some team members questioned this),
leader, confidant, pretentious, and outgoing.

3) How do we want our members to perceive us? Words chosen: real (holy spirit),
included, genuine, life of worship, seekers want what we have, and “reflection of Christ.”

Laura reviewed the mission statement of FCWC which has recently changed, “Reaching
out to every (changed from “whole”) family with the hope of Jesus, …equipping them to
live as a dynamic (added word) followers of Him.”

Laura then reviewed the core values of FCWC. Laura has talked to Lori and Keith about
the church greeters and a focus word was “relevant” that came out of their discussions,
targeting the 25-35 year old male.

Laura then reviewed the Vision Statement of FCWC. The background information
consisting of the mission statement, core values and vision statement were created by the
strategic planning committee of FCWC.

A team member suggested that we choose up to five of the core values to see which ones
we wanted to focus on. Regarding to our first task of first impressions the team chose the
core value words: culturally relevant, seeker friendly, family focused and encouraging.

A teamster spoke about the need for our church to better connect ourselves, the church
congregation, with the work that is needed to be done. As well, our greeters need to be
better trained and educated to know what is going on in the church, which are guests and
direct to the appropriate persons and places. We also need to do this for the welcome
desk. There was also talk of the need for the characteristic of leadership in these persons.
We also need more persons to work at these stations so that people are able to take guests
to necessary places to make the first impressions positive lasting impressions.

The need to improve the first impressions through the child care where the process can be
daunting, especially for guests, was also brought up.

Regarding our second task of assimilation the team began to review what core value
words should be chosen but ran short on time as the team discussed the need to better
communicate the desire to volunteer, including the church bulletin. The bulletin needs to
be a tool to encourage assimilation. Some of the team finds the bulletin to be too wordy,
wherein a clean-up of layout and verbiage would be appropriate.

Ending the meeting Laura reminded the team that our job is to dream big. Our job is to
not implement but create ideas and dream bigger. This meeting was a brainstorming
session. One teamster suggested the team utilize a first impressions tool called
“Moments of Truth” that lists the touch points of FCWC and then rate these. Moments of
Truth will be made available to the team on the team’s blog before Sunday’s service.
Each team member is to pass this out as well as provide five more people with a copy to
fill out before our next meeting.

Laura scheduled our next two meetings for Wednesday, April 9 at 5:30 and Wednesday,
April 23 at 5:30. For the next meeting Laura asked the team to pray over the information
she provided in each team member’s packet and seek out personal passions for our
church.

Laura ended the meeting at around 8pm with prayer.

Respectfully Submitted,
Carma Parrish

NOTE 1: Following meeting the idea of a team of couples to take new couples/families
guests out for lunch after church was discussed between Laura and Carma. This would
provide a time to make connections and begin assimilation through a one-on-one process.

NOTE 2: Laura discovered that the Core Values listed by the Strategic Planning
Committee addressed the issue of first impressions but did not address assimilation. This
is a missing link that our team should address as we hurdle the back door threat.