The Making of our Vision Retreat

Part 1: The Concept

In December, with our ministry strategy coming into focus and Vision Retreat coming up on January 11, we asked ourselves: How might we share this with the congregation in a way that is clear and inspiring?

We gathered a few members from our ministry and outreach planning teams to plan our Vision Retreat. Our retreat team was Dawn Trautman, Madelyn Soussoudis, Ellie Sudbrock, Bekah Anderson, Kevin Bowen, and Pastor Danielle.

We talked about the many goals we had for our retreat. Perhaps our biggest challenge was to convey information with clarity, with just the right amount of detail, while also making the whole retreat have a sense of community and feel inspiring. We also wanted to make this a proper retreat experience. It needed to be an opportunity to recharge and deepen faith, not just an informational session.

Madelyn emphasized the importance of having a sense of continuity. We needed to make it really clear that this whole strategy came out of our yearlong listening process. “People need to know, we heard you.”

Pastor Danielle emphasized that our presentation be grounded in Scripture, and highlight the ways our teams looked to God’s story and Scripture in shaping Advent’s mission, vision, and strategy. We are the church, after all. Everything we do is because of God’s story.

And for Kevin, who also served as a co-chair on the Vision Team, it was important to show how this ministry strategy was clearly aimed at realizing Advent’s Mission & Vision.

So we had a LOT of goals, and plenty of ideas in the mix. And, of course, we had to do all of this in under 4 hours, with lunch.

Things really clicked together when Dawn had the idea: “What if we made the whole retreat a story?” And what if we made a giant storybook to guide us through the retreat?

That was it. Building on the theme of “Our Story,” our retreat plan really got moving.

Ellie got to work planning the construction of a giant storybook. As Christmas approached, Kevin and Pastor Danielle began writing a script based on all the input of our two retreat planning meetings with the group . . . weaving together the stories of The Road to Emmaus from Scripture, Advent’s history, our visioning process last year, and people’s individual stories throughout the retreat . . .

Part 2: Pulling it Off

In the new year, Jan 11 was coming fast, and we hit the ground running.

One week before the retreat, January 4, there was still no storybook built. We had only a very rough version of the script.

The retreat planning team and other volunteers from Council and our strategic teams gathered for 4 hours on Saturday, Jan 4, to read through a rough version of the script. There was a lot of feedback, and still a lot of honing and writing to do.

That week, Dawn rewrote the skit that unveiled our strategy. The skit drew directly from quotes said by Advent members during our listening small groups in spring 2019. Pastor Danielle wrote all of worship, including the guided meditation. Pastor Danielle and Kevin wrote and rewrote explanations, prayers, and instructions throughout the week, with Kevin was editing and formatting the script all the way up to late Friday night. It came in at 67 pages.

Then there was building the storybook. Ellie estimates she spent a total of 30 hours constructing and illustrating our storybook. She made the pages out of deconstructed cardboard boxes, which she somehow made perfectly straight. We recruited Mike Feucht to design the cover, which went through several drafts throughout the week, and also to many hours to stencil and ink onto the cover. Our staff, Carla, Laura, Pastor Danielle, Deacon Adolfo, and Kevin assisted with translation, design, and gluing down the pages the storybook.

One of the biggest challenges of a retreat for our whole congregation at Advent is making it bilingual. Our office administrator, Carla, who is bilingual and has worked professionally as an interpreter, put in a great deal of time beyond her regular responsibilities working on translations with Kevin as the script came together.

More volunteers came by to help with setup throughout the week. Our communications interns, Pastor Jim, Madelyn, Deacon Adolfo, Carla. Every day, downstairs at Advent was busy.

Our Vision Team co-chairs, Jon Dohlin, Dorothy Trigg, and Kevin regathered one evening for tea, to reminisce about the visioning process, and try to sum up the past year in a 3-minute story.

Our high school communications interns helped film Advent members reciting excerpts of our 8 Guiding Principles for a special video. Pastor Danielle and Kevin touched base with former Advent high schooler, Sarah, who helped film interviews with some of Advent’s oldest living members.

Part 3: The Day Of

And let’s not forget all the volunteers to helped the day of! Our band, hospitality team, everyone who brought food, our speakers and readers and more. This retreat was possible because of all the people who gave their time and talents to help bring it to life.

SO many people contributed to this special day! Just like SO many people contributed to our ministry strategy throughout last year.

To all of you, and you know who are you are: THANK YOU. Thanks be to God for you, and for all the Advent members who have shared their gifts to create something amazing and special together. Thanks be to God for the Holy Spirit working through each of us and through our community.

Part 4: What Now?

Now, we get to look forward to the journey of living out this ministry strategy — Sundays, Small Groups, Community Center — and we know God is present, Jesus is walking with us, and the Holy Spirit will be working in and among us on this journey too.

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A Deeper Dive:

Creating our Ministry & Outreach Strategy

In September, after a 9-month process led by our Vision Team, Advent’s Mission & Vision was finally coming into focus. But how would we actually make this aspirational Mission & Vision come to life?

That is the question our strategic ministry & outreach planning teams got to work exploring last fall.

Both teams were a mix of Advent members and staff. Our Strategic Ministry Planning Team was Madelyn Soussoudis, Dawn Trautman, Chandra Travis, María Martinez, Onésima Cruz, Bekah Anderson, Kevin Bowen, and Pastor Danielle. Our Strategic Outreach Planning Team was Vicar Abby Ferjak, Juan Minier, Brad Abromaitis, Ellie Sudbrock, Scot Zoid, Debby Díaz, Teódula Gonzalez, Bekah Anderson, Kevin Bowen, and Pastor Danielle.

From late August to early October, our Strategic Ministry Planning Team met 4 times, and our Strategic Outreach Planning Team met 5 times.

Bringing in new teams was a little messy at first, but so worth it. It took some time for new teams to absorb, give feedback on, and own the direction and insight the Vision Team had been building over 9 months. But once we were grounded in Advent’s renewed Mission & Vision, our ministry and outreach team members infused fresh life into the process with new ideas and perspectives.

Guided by our Mission & Vision, the ideas overflowed, and exciting possibilities began taking shape.

In October, we held 7 feedback sessions, plus a open surveys on the sanctuary wall and in our e-letter, casting an even wider net as we gathered further input from over 60 Advent members. At end feedback sessions, we grouped ideas from our strategic teams into categories on the wall, and invited people to place post-its on what resonated with them. The activity sparked fascinating conversations about people’s varying priorities and perspectives.

In November, through a lot of work and a little Holy Spirit magic, we synthesized all of this input and the ideas from all our strategic ministry and outreach team members into one coherent plan that felt true to the whole yearlong process. In December, our ministry and outreach teams joined forces to build out this combined plan together. The core steps of our plan?

Sundays. Small Groups. Community Center!

We are excited to live out this ministry plan in 2020 and beyond.

- Written by Kevin Bowen, Communications Coordinator