The Mission Study Committee started out its first meeting on Jan. 10 discussing key turning points in the history of First Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. We ended our final scheduled meeting last Saturday with a 5-year strategic plan that will be presented to Session at its May meeting.

Not a bad 3 1/2 months work for this 8-member team, which at the outset didn’t fully understand what we were getting into. Thanks to our expert facilitator, Mike Estrich, we learned as we went along.

Mike is president of Collective Insights and has worked on more than 100 strategic plans. We all were astonished at how he synthesized the content of each of our 4-hour sessions into meeting minutes that served as tools in our homework assignments and helped guide us in our deliberations.

In true Presbyterian fashion, we trusted Mike’s process.

This has been an enlightening and intensely challenging experience that engaged a range of different, well-informed perspectives among committee members: Monty Service, Paul Caram, Kia Howell, Geoff Ginader, Barb Macks, Jay Shimek, Katrina Johnson-Smith and Dale Shidemantle. Pastor Britney serves as the committee consultant.

Everyone on this committee had a voice that was heard and faithfully provided input for developing a robust and comprehensive plan in a relatively short period of time. It was clear that everyone embraced the challenge.

The entirety of the committee’s work addressed the states of volunteer development, hospitality, communications, faith formation and spiritual growth, families and youth, community engagement, stewardship, facilities usage, financial resources, and staffing.

Once approved by Session, the plan will be submitted sometime in June to the Lake Erie Presbytery Committee on Ministry for its review and final approval.

Our work last Saturday entailed refining the various action steps that will be enacted, starting later this year, in sequenced fashion over the plan’s 5-year span, with the aim of efficient implementation that is neither confusing nor overwhelming.

There is no reinventing the wheel, no change in direction. Rather this is a time of renewal, clarity and purpose in this season of transition for our church. Faithfully executing this plan will take a change in mindset around sustainability and intentionality of mission and vision.

The final phase of this project involved the creation of action steps for executing recommended strategies. Deciding how to carry them out will be up to Session. We’re now at the moment for handing off to Session on the next leg of this 5-year journey,

This plan’s 3rd year in 2029 coincides with the church’s 100th anniversary. It will be a time to reflect on our rich history, its impact on the community and its spiritual life, and how we will continue to shape that legacy.