Vision 2020 Update: August 2017

 | 

EVANGELISM TEAM

The Evangelism Team has been tasked with the implementation of three of the Vision 2020 Outreach Strategic Objectives, those being numbers 1, 5, and 6.  

Strategic Objective # 1

Introduce members to ways of sharing their faith in relational, non-threatening, and non-coercive ways. Our metric for this will be to create non-threatening fellowship opportunities outside the church walls on at least two times during the year, as well as implementing the same number of Evangelism training programs in that same time period. Our goal is to have these scheduled by January of 2018.

The Committee proposes that the MBBC Staff choose one of the free online programs on Evangelism that are available, and then schedule a Sunday evening supper to instruct all of the Sunday morning Bible Study Teachers on how to present this curriculum to their respective classes. The goal is to complete the program in a month or two. Once the program is completed, a fun, outside-the-walls event will be scheduled to celebrate the completion of the training.    

Strategic Objective # 5

Develop a prayer team whose chief responsibility is to pray for those individuals on our active church member prospect list. Our metric is to task a designated group of deacons to form a prayer team and coordinate their efforts with the church’s Outreach coordinator. We have already begun implementation of this team, but hope to expand its membership in the coming weeks. Scott Fenn is going to reach out to the Deacon Body for volunteers at next month’s Deacons Meeting. One suggestion that was made was to incorporate deacons who are not currently active to join the Prayer Team during that off year.

In addition to members of the Deacon Body, we would also like to reach out to each individual Sunday morning Bible Study class for volunteers as well. Every week, Sharon Howard will send the group a list of prospects from the prior Sunday to pray for. If any of the prospects live near someone from our Prayer Team, there are welcome packs available from Sharon Howard that the Prayer Team member can drop off with the prospect.  

Strategic Objective # 6

Develop creative outreach ministries that promote evangelism in our current cultural context. The metric will be to create one new outreach ministry per year, in one of three main areas of emphasis: Education, Healthcare, and our local school system. The first one is scheduled to begin in 2018.

There are currently many outreach programs that address these areas, and we have additional suggestions to help meet this objective as well.

One suggestion is to schedule a fellowship opportunity for local professionals of a particular field. For example, hosting a Banks Lunch, or a Physicians After Work Meet and Greet.

Sharon Howard has started a “Pray For Me” program for all of our Elementary school aged children, and we want to broaden this out to our middle school and high school youth as well. This is where we pair each student with a church member as a prayer buddy, so every child will have someone praying for them throughout the week.

Our “Spartan Day” at the beginning of the school year will continue to be a strong connection and ministry opportunity to the local school system. In addition, we would like to have parents who reside within other school systems to take turns hosting a high school football tailgate for church members, as well as friends and visitors from that respective school. We have determined that we have church members who live in Homewood, Vestavia, and Hoover just to name a few.

We would like to use Samford University’s “Church Day” to take the opportunity to send representatives from MBBC to host a booth and hand out welcome material. We have a Sunday Morning Bible Study group specifically for local college students to get connected.

We want to continue the partnership that our Women’s Ministry has with Grantswood Community School in Irondale. There are many outreach opportunities associated with this relationship, including backpack buddies, breakfast buddies, and weekday readers. 


WORSHIP EVALUATION TEAM   

We held our first meeting in May, The team is comprised of people who attend traditional or contemporary service.The tool we use for evaluation is called an" Examining Worship" Form. This tool is to help us look at the various elements present in worship and how they help (or hinder)
our ability to connect with God.

Team members are to evaluate worship services from other churches at least six times per year as well as our own Worship service.

Our team started viewing or attending other church services in May before the first meeting. We discussed how many churches have a blended service rather than a traditional service / contemporary service offering as Mountain Brook Baptist does. We also discussed how technology was used in other church services and how that might effect the traditional service sanctuary. We also looked at ways to add special moments of hearing from church members during the services whether it be reading scripture or a personal testimony. We found that the Traditional service is hindered by having a set one hour service time and already has to limit what takes place during that hour.

Our next meeting is setfor September 10th. We will be turning in our Evaluation forms from attended services at that time.


LOVE GRANTSWOOD TEAM
The committee conducted quite a bit of research to put together a proposed plan. After presenting that to Principal
Ann Tillman, and subsequent followup, here is how we will proceed for now:

Backpack Buddies: GCS will identify the students
and make the arrangements to designate a place to store the food and a staff member to distribute it. We are going to have food for them to begin on the August 18. We have completed the paperwork to be able to purchase some of the food for this from the Community
Food Bank of Central Alabama to reduce costs. Cooks On A Mission has agreed to fund this for August- December, 2017. We also created a Sign-Up Genius for the deliveries, and have all of them through December covered.

Breakfast Buddies: This is an informal opportunity
for MBBC members, especially men, to eat breakfast with a student, get to know them, and just be a friend. (These children need someone to pay attention to them, and the more men who can take part, the better. Further, they are almost never around professionals
such as doctors, lawyers, bankers, engineers, etc. or even people who have been to college, so pairing these students who are particularly at risk with MBBC folks has huge potential upside. In this program, MBBC volunteers would pick a day of the week and go
have breakfast at the school from 7:15-7:45am. The cost of breakfast is $2.25. We will need people to sign up so the cafeteria can prepare enough food. We have 3 or 4 young men signed up so far.

Backpacks for Students: MBBC provided 336 backpacks
to give to students who don’t have them, The backpacks have already been delivered and were extremely well-received by Grantswood. MBBC volunteers who served as greeters on the first day of school reported that about 40% of the children came in to school that
morning with the backpacks on.

Special Events: They would like our help with other
special events at the school,. These will likely be the Title 1 Monthly events which meant to to encourage parental involvement. There is also a possibility they would like help putting on parenting, cooking, and other life skills classes, and getting the Brookwood
Baptist Be Well Bus to come to the school. As a starter, we plan to stock the teacher workroom with healthy treats during the first week of school, and maintain coffee supplies and snacks going forward.

Summer Bridge workbooks: They would like us to purchase
and provide books in early May 2018. 

Shorts, pants and underwear, hygiene supplies: They
would like us to provide extra shorts and underwear for the school to keep on hand for accidents, and to provide a supply of basic hygiene kits for children who need them, and to provide other classroom supplies as needed. They have subsequently asked us to
provide and install a cabinet to house the clothing. Research on this is underway.

First day of school: Three MBBC volunteers were on hand on the first day of school to help greet students and get them to the cafeteria or gym, console those with separation anxiety, and to deliver supplies to  classrooms

Back to School Prep: On Saturday, August 4, 14 MBBC members worked hard to help get the school ready to receive students and their families. The MBBC team:

• Cleaned and dusted the cafeteria, library, computer center

• Replaced four bulletin boards

• Pressure washed front sidewalks

• Cleaned and weeded the entrance to the soccer fields

• Sprayed round up around the exterior

• Fluffed pine straw outside cafeteria

• Cleaned all the clocks

• Cleaned the stage area in the gymnasium

• Measured the area for school vegetable garden

School Raised Bed Garden:

In talking with Ann Tillman about more big picture (God-sized) ways we can engage, it came out that they would really like us to take the lead in installing and maintaining a raised bed vegetable garden. There is an area behind the school that is fenced in where they want it, and there is a spigot and hose right there. This garden would have many benefits, and eventually could prove a source of food for some of the families. We will need to construct and install the beds, and help maintain them as needed. This is tagged as a main event for the September 23 Fall Service Day.

ESL Childcare:  They may need three to four child care workers on Thursday nights (6:30-8 p.m.) for ESL classes. This depends on whether classes will continue by Literacy Council.

SMALL GROUPS MINISTRY TEAM

Small Groups completed their ad hoc committee work and submitted the following recommendations to the church semi-annual conference in July. The Small Groups ad hoc committee under the God sized dream of Discipleship was tasked with the following objective:

Provide small group experiences for every life stage group in the church, both
on Sunday mornings as well as throughout the week.

1. Develop two (2) new ministry teams – one for Sunday Morning Bible Study and one for Small Groups

Each of these ministry areas should have a dedicated group of MBBC members that
focuses on planning, implementing, and evaluating new approaches to their respective ministries on an ongoing basis.

2. Clearly identify and communicate the goal of SMBS and Small Group Ministries.

Since we offer SMBS classes and small groups, it would be helpful to clearly distinguish
between the two and the unique purpose each serve and how these two ministries differ.

3. Consistently encourage members to become active in SMBS and small group to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ.  

4. Provide an annual training and recruiting event for SMBS teachers and Small Group leaders. 

The first one kicked off on Sunday August 13th where more than 30 current and interested
Sunday Morning Bible Study teachers gathered at a teaching workshop lead by Dr. Paul House from Beeson Divinity School.  

5. Identify teachers within our congregation who can teach four to six-week series on a periodic basis as requested by SMBS classes.  

6. Consider hiring a part-time employee to develop our SMBS and small group ministry.

AGE-GRADED MINISTRY EVALUATION

Committee is broken into three groups to focus on and research appropriate age related
ministries offered to: Children, Students and Adults. Currently each group is gathering information from around the community and other churches on activities offered. Committee will meet back in early fall on their findings.

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEARNING

Plans to bring a noted speaker to the church in fall of 2018.  Has asked one who
declined.  Continuing to research other speakers to ask.


SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM

  • New website design will be launching in the near future.
  • We will be working to collect pictures and videos at different church services and events over the coming months to use throughout social media and the website.
  • We are looking into ways to best streamline our social media efforts.
  • We are thinking about creative ways to engage others on social media - stories from members, updates from different mission groups, testimonies, events, etc.

WORSHIP TECHNOLOGY AND WEBCAST TEAM

Committee Members:

  • Stan Breaux, Chuck Redden, Tripp Watson, Matt McCurry, Tom Burns, Kely Hatley

    Strategic Objective #3:     Explore new technologies that allow for worship participation at times and in places that are separate from when and where a particular service is held.  

Primary Tasks/ Decisions:

  • Add video projection capability to the traditional worship service
    • Evaluating possibility of adding a large screen TV that could be hidden behind the center lectern in the Sanctuary without changing the aesthetics of the Sanctuary
  • Add video projection capability and a sound system to Hudson Hall to enhance our ability to hold meetings, etc. in this area
    • We believe that a video projection system and a sound system can be easily added to Hudson Hall and mostly concealed above the ceiling.
  • Add video projection capability to the Chapel??
    • Decided not to pursue this idea due to difficulty of implementing it without harming the aesthetics of the Chapel.   

Strategic Objective #5: Explore the possibilities of live streaming webcast.  

Primary Tasks/ Decisions:

Video and production and sound needs for the Sanctuary and Hudson Hall

Video recording equipment and web streaming service for either the Contemporary Worship Service or the Traditional Worship Service

  • Evaluate live stream of worship service
  • Video record worship service
  • This becomes very easy after item #1 is figure out
  • Make video of worship service available online
  • This also becomes very easy after item #1 is figure out

Next Steps

Prepare a Request for Proposal (RFP) to distribute to a number of audiovisual services companies for quotes for the:

  • Video and production and sound needs for the Sanctuary and Hudson Hall
  • Video recording equipment and web streaming service for either the Contemporary Worship Service or the Traditional Worship Service