Link to CommunicationsCommittee > CommunicationsReport20180305 >CouncilAgenda20180328

Acknowledgement Directory

Background

At a time when the church congregation was struggling with its identity, this page was started as a possible way to acknowledge the countless contributions made by members of the congregation, in a way that would affirm all the gifts that our members bring to Christ. The thought was that as in books that register gifts and donations to the church, this page might be a register of how non-monetary gifts can also contribute, and be acknowledged. We are a church that is blessed with many gifts, through the talents and dedication of its many diverse members. It can be difficult for us to appreciate the breadth and depth of these talents, and as an affirming and accepting congregation, we need to give due respect to the dedication of our members.

There are times when our congregation does gather as one, and these talents come together in most synergetic ways. I refer to events such as our ChurchFete, but also to our response in times of trouble, our embracing of calls by both the sacred and secular dimensions of our society to respond to people in need. Such "acceptance and affirmation" is is both our blessing and our obligation, as part of our response to the call of Jesus Christ.

But most of our work is done either as individuals, or in small groups. Our Fete, for example, does not happen without the dedication efforts of a small group of people. Indeed, our church is full of small groups! According to our database, we have 78 different groups active within our church. The vast majority of our congregation are members of at least one of these groups, often several of them. That is a huge amount of engagement with the life of the church!

So how do we get our heads around such a large community? I would like to propose a strategy that would continue to accept and affirm the many and varied things that people in our congregation undertake, often with little acknowledgement or reward, as a way of quantifying that engagement. Here it is:

Proposal

We propose a simple, yet hopefully effective, way of acknowledging gifts of talent, time, and discernment within the congregation. This page will contain a sequence of items, or short paragraphs ("one-liners") that name a person or group, together with their contribution(s) to the life of the church. Here are a few (hypothetical) examples:

I hope you get the idea. In practice, we would expect the list to grow and grow and grow! Once the concept is endorsed and accepted by our community, we hope that it will allow people across our membership to more fully appreciate the church family into which we are all accepted and affirmed.

These entries can be added by anyone - if you are logged in, people will be able to see who posted the entry. If you are not logged in, your posting will be anonymous. Either are equally acceptable. The citation of the gift should be short and to the point, although we would not want to dictate a strict policy in this regard. It would be appropriate to let the cited person know of your posting, but again, we do not want to insist upon any policy in this respect. We would rather leave issues such as this to your judgement.

Note that both individuals and groups can be cited. If you use the standard wiki names, then clicking on the name (especially in the case of groups) will give more information about the people being cited. (The examples are links to off-site pages, but in practice, would link to other wiki pages.)

We have not suggested that the person proposing the citation add their name - the emphasis should be upon the gift-giver and their gift. But people may want to reflect upon whether this also should be a strict policy.

The CommunicationsCommittee discussed this idea at its recent meeting (CommunicationsAgenda20171204), and endorse it to ChurchCouncil for their consideration.

JohnHurst
for the CommunicationsCommittee

AcknowledgementDirectory (last edited 2018-03-06 08:57:10 by DavidMorgan)