“How would you rate us?”
The Session of the church has contracted with a consulting firm called “Holy Cow!” to assist us in developing, distributing, and interpreting a congregational survey this summer. The survey is part of the process of creating a Mission Study, the purpose of which is to describe our congregation, our history, our current context, and our hopes and dreams for the future. All of this, of course, leads toward the search for the next pastor of Nacoochee Presbyterian Church.
The Mission Study Taskforce (Jennifer Thomas, Johnny Bailey, Elizabeth Crittenden and Gordon Fowler) are working now with the consultant to create the survey. We expect it will be ready to go out via email sometime in mid- to late-July. Each adult member of your household should receive, complete, and return his or her own survey. So, if we don’t currently have individual email addresses for all the adults in your household, please provide those by going to our CONTACT page, then fill out the Mailing List Signup fields and click JOIN. If you are already receiving our monthly newsletter, then your address is already on the mailing list. If you are not receiving the newsletter and have previously signed up for it, there may be a problem that needs to be addressed by our Communications Committee, whose chair is Jennifer Herrera (jsl.herrera@gmail.com). Please contact Jennifer to let her know that something isn’t working properly.
If you would rather complete the survey on paper, we can arrange that, too. Once the survey is distributed, we will have paper copies available at the church, near the office door. You can complete it, and mail it back to the church office or drop it off during business hours. The survey is anonymous. There’s no need to identify yourself on your copy.
Our goal is to receive at least 80% response rate on this survey. Those of you who are familiar with the use of surveys will recognize that this is an ambitious goal. Most surveys are considered successful if they receive a 40% to 50% response rate. But the consultant assures us that this is possible. Your participation is important to us, so please plan to invest in the future of Nacoochee Presbyterian Church by returning a survey.
As we’ve previously talked about, preparing to call a pastor is a multi-step process which will take several months to work through, and this survey is our next step. Once the congregation has identified our values, concerns, and expectations via the survey, the next step after that will be to discuss these very important issues and hopefully reach some consensus on their priority. You will hear more about those discussions once the survey results are in.
As I said in the beginning, I am honored to walk with you through this time of transition and growth. If ever you have questions about what to expect next, please don’t hesitate to contact me or anyone on the Mission Study Taskforce. My telephone number and email address appear in every Sunday’s bulletin, and I look forward to talking to you.
Blessings,
Teresa