We are about 18 months in to this experiment so it’s time to share some data with you all. I know that our story is not about the numbers, that stats don’t capture changed hearts and transformed lives, however numbers are an indicator of life in a community, so let me share a little slice of our life with you.
In the last six months we have had 55 unique individuals participate in SFC events. These are participants in official SFC programs, and don’t include the people that our community engages with informally. For example I did a funeral this fall and have engaged in pastoral care for persons not included in that count of 55. While there is more ministry happening, that 55 is more of an attendance number, which correlates to the questions on the conference report that each church must fill out. Our total count for participants has grown in each 6 month period of our ministry from 21 to 41 and now to 55.
Our average attendance from last quarter (July-Sept) was 19.5 people a week. This sounds awesome until I remind you that I’m counting the 3 Lowerys at least twice each week. Why is that? Well if this was a regular church we’d get credited as attending both worship services, so here we get counted at both Thursday and Sunday dinners. That means our average participation without our family was more like 13.5 people each week. This isn’t just dinner though, but factors in our monthly events too, which means there is some more potential double counting if people came to more than one event in a given week and can include us again too.
We have a core group of 9. Jeff and I are two of those 9. The other 7 are all people we did not know before moving to Sellwood. If you add in our active kids our core group number blooms to 13. These are people who are deeply committed to the community and attend regularly. Regularly for some means weekly and for others means monthly. We have other people who come occasionally and some folks who come sporadically, pretty much like any other church or community organization!
We have had 23 donors this year. 6 of these donors are regular participants in our community. 17 of these donors are outside of the community. Some of these are our family and friends, our seminary professors, our colleagues, and others who care about new forms of church. Thank you all! We are well under budget and with all of your amazing support look to be starting 2015 with more than $7,500 in roll over funds! We run as lean a ministry as we can and I believe this frugal focus has helped us to do amazing work within our budget. Of course without our donors and the conference support we receive this would not be possible at all, so thank you again!! Each year we get a smaller portion of conference funding so we continue to need your support in order to keep this faith community alive.
We paid our apportionments (shared giving to the ministries of the wider United Methodist Church) at 100% again this year. We know it’s a drop in the bucket compared to what we’ve been given, but we hope that these gifts will bless other new ministries as well.
So that’s how we are doing by the numbers. I wish that we were growing more rapidly, but that’s my anxiety talking. I know that we are in a solid place, creating something important. It’s not easy to plant a church, yet I am encouraged by our progress and hope to share many holy moments with you through this blog in the coming year.
Happy New Year!
-Eilidh
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| That’s what we’re doing- helping something grow! |
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