Project Overview:
St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church (St. Paul, Minnesota) has a long tradition of being a good neighbor in their community. As their property ages, however, congregational curiosity emerged around its sustainability and how to best steward it in the decades to come—wondering whether a capital campaign might be necessary to both establish a building reserve fund and incorporate necessary improvements toward its flourishing and the flourishing of its partners.
Believing a strong vision and good story was indeed possible, Flourish partnered with Vandersall Collective in the facilitation of an intentional listening process designed to explore money narratives, unearth congregational and community perspectives, and determine next steps, if any, toward St. John’s initial hopes of a capital campaign.
Project Details:
In partnership with Vandersall Collective, FPC provided support to St. John’s in the following ways:
- Facilitated a weekend retreat with key church staff and stakeholders to explore theological money narratives, discuss and unpack challenges and opportunities within church systems and dream about what is possible for themselves, their building and the community they are invited to love.
- Conducted a congregational survey to further unpack money narratives, gather feedback around guiding principles, and glean insight into perceived congregational priorities as they headed into a potential feasibility study and capital campaign.
- Coordinated listening sessions with key community partners and stakeholders to gain insights into how their neighborhood perceives St. John’s, anchored in the core belief that congregational envisioning of their space ought to include the voices of their community.
- Provided support and final recommendations to church leadership, synthesizing our findings into a final report that captured what was heard throughout the listening phase and its implications towards a potential feasibility study and capital campaign.
In Their Words:
Vandersall Collective and Flourish Placemaking Collective’s approach has been highly collaborative, engaging hundreds of members in a very intentional process of deep listening before we determined to move forward with a feasibility study. Their culture of diversity, inclusion, and an orientation toward justice matched our own aspirations as a faith community. Our consultants designed a process of inclusivity which led us to include interviews with neighborhood and community partners with whom we are already in relationship, or who regularly use our space.
The results were thorough, comprehensive, and have affirmed our instinct that our faith community is ready to support much needed capital improvements. What’s more, with their candid and honest feedback we are also now more keenly aware of potential challenges and hurdles to the growth and development we hope to achieve in this process of fundraising and building improvement.
At this stage, we cannot recommend their work highly enough!
Jered Weber-Johnson | Rector, St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church
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