LONG RANGE PLANNING

He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken. -Psalm 62:2

Survey Questions Details Page

2023 Engagement Survey Update

Thank you for your tremendous response to our 2023 engagement survey! Gallup received 442 survey responses, far exceeding almost everyone’s expectations and enabling the launch of a critical item on the church’s long range plan (Vision 2030).  This incredible response rate along with the candor of responses are reasons to celebrate, giving us a solid baseline to measure engagement improvement progress against in the years ahead.

As a first step, members from the Long Range Planning Committee met with Albert Winseman, author of Growing an Engaged Church, to do a review of our survey results.  Dr. Winseman is a former UMC pastor who now works as a Senior Consultant for Gallup, where he focuses on helping faith communities grow their engagement.  Dr. Winseman’s observations about our results were remarkably revealing, highlighting our strengths and opportunities for developing richer spiritual engagement.   

 

Our Strengths

The survey results revealed meaningful engagement strengths across NRUMC. We most strongly agreed with these engagement statements from the survey:

- “At NRUMC, I have opportunities to learn and grow.”

- “The spiritual leaders at NRUMC seem to care about me as a person.”

- “The other members of NRUMC are committed to spiritual growth.”

- “I speak words of kindness of kindness to those in need of encouragement. “

We will build on these significant strengths going forward.

 

Areas of Improvement

However, our results also indicate a relative lack of depth in our spiritual engagement.  In particular, we agreed least with these engagement survey statements:  

- “In the past 6 months, someone has talked to me about the progress of my spiritual growth.”

- “In the last month, I have received recognition or praise from someone at NRUMC.”

- “Aside from my family members, I have a best friend at NRUMC.”

 

Guided by Dr. Winseman’s insight, there is clear evidence that we should aspire to take our engagement to another level at NRUMC - to grow a deeper, more personal level of spiritual engagement with each other.  We are kind and care about each other, which is great; but we need to make sure we are engaging in core Wesleyan conversations like asking each other “How is it with your soul?”

 

Going Forward

In the weeks and months ahead, we will be taking bold steps aimed at increasing our engagement with each other.  Dr. Winseman advised that the best way to make progress is to focus on just one or two specific areas, and to build where possible on existing strengths.  Based on our survey results, he counseled NRUMC to take action in the two areas below: 

 

Create a Covenant of Membership for NRUMC – This covenant would include simple and clear expectations of a) what members can expect from their church and b) what is expected of members of NRUMC.  Doing this well requires broad congregational participation.  Our plan is to conduct focus groups and workshops to help craft our covenant.  We encourage you to get involved in these conversations.

 

Make the Most of Our Small Groups – When we shared with Dr. Winseman the rich variety of small groups that are flourishing at NRUMC (UMM, Joy, Sunday School, choirs, mission teams, to name only a few), he immediately advocated that we build on that strength.  These small groups are ideal settings to pursue deep spiritual engagement.  We hope to encourage more members to join our small groups and to provide training to our small group leaders around deepening spiritual engagement within their groups.  

 

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Looking further ahead, we plan to conduct a second engagement survey in the Fall of 2024 to track our progress and evaluate our efforts to increase NRUMC member engagement.  We are committed to keeping the congregation informed about our progress - with intentional transparency around our strengths and weaknesses, our successes and failures, our challenges and our triumphs.  We are all in this together.   

 

We rejoice at the opportunity before us – to further engage people on their journey to

discovering extraordinary life in Christ and make disciples for the transformation of the world.  We

thank you for providing the responses and data that we together can use to build a more spiritually engaged future for NRUMC. 

VISION 2030

The Long Range Planning Committee commits itself to the vision of North Raleigh UMC into the years ahead. 

 

To assure we keep our focus on critical items throughout the extent of the Vision 2030 timeline, we have defined key milestones and goals for each of them. As time elapses, we will be adaptable to changing conditions, such as the impact of the Blessing Initiative.

 

While there is some overlap, our measurement focus is defined for each of our focus areas – Engagement, Worship, Service/Missions, and Investment. In measuring our progress, we account for:

 

  • Initiation - The year in which action plans for each milestone are enacted.
  • Integration - The target year in which we would expect the milestone item would become an integral part of operations at North Raleigh United Methodist Church.
  • Responsibility - The individual(s) or church organization(s) that has the primary responsibility for execution and completion of the milestone activity. 

 

 

Engagement

Focuses/Goals:

  • Need for continuous improvement
  • Ongoing engagement with church members
  • Stronger engagement with people and organizations outside our congregation
  • Inter-generational activities
  • Intentionally introduce God's love across communities
  • Utilize partnerships, innovative programs, & advocacy to support mission & infrastructure

Worship

Explore New Faith Community

  • Small group engagement
  • Community Gatherings: Meet-ups, concerts, tent revivals, outdoor worship, etc.
  • Partner with other Methodist churches
  • Work with the Conference for financial support and seeking location
  • Build team to work on establishing a New Faith Community

 

Livestream the Contemporary Worship Service

  • Meet with audio/visual professionals to determine needs
  • Installation of necessary equipment

 

Make Worship More Engaging for All Ages

  • Focus on engaging Scripture, the Wesleyan Way, and Methodism
  • Investigate installing screens in the Sanctuary

Service/Mission

Focuses/Goals:

  • Make service to others/missions a core value -- Establish a culture of service
  • Expand opportunities for local service projects/missions
  • Central theme -- combating hunger and food insecurity
  • Focus on serving those in our own congregation
  • Create opportunities for participation by non-members (recruitment)
  • Create intergenerational service projects/missions
  • Collect, analyze, and report data on our activities/progress