The Administrative Council is responsible for overseeing the life and ministry of Wedgewood Church. The Council is extremely important for setting short and long range goals for our congregation.
"The thing I love best about our music program is the lack of pretention and ego, no matter who is playing. What we do in worship is praise God, not perform, and so we let pretty much anybody, with the proper support and direction, play and sing in worship."
"Don't dream small."
Create a sense of urgency. "It was when we said out loud to each other, 'At our current rate of spending we have about four years of money left that we really got moving.' We didn't do half-measures."
"Any church worth its salt has really good food on a regular basis."
"All people are welcome but not all behaviors are welcome."
"I tell redemption stories a lot about people in the church, so everyone can see the difference even our little contributions make to the whole.
"We didn't do one thing. We did a lot of things."
"Visitors decide in the first five minutes if they will return."
"Ask people - what makes you tick, where have you found love, when and where have you experienced the presence of God in the church? What are you hope and dreams for the future of the church."
"The flag became the number-one identified reason why new people came to church. Almost without exception, when asked everyone said, 'I saw the rainbow flag and I knew it meant you were a welcoming church."
"We don't have volunteers other churches have. We pay our lead Sunday School teachers."
"The only tried and true way to resolve conflict is to sit down face to face."
"Hire people on your staff who look like the people you want to attract."
"Don't put together a big event without having another event to announce at the big event."
"People come back because they make a connection, they were warmly welcomed, somebody used their name in conversation."
"One absolute must to becoming a more multiracial community is valuing different cultural expressions in worship."
"If you want a multiracial congregation, you need a multiracial staff."
"We knew that getting people into smaller circles- go smaller to get bigger- was the key to breaking the cycle of being stuck in a 60 to 85 size church, but we didn't seem to be very good at it. Our wider culture didn't support it: people were busy in their out-of-church lives and found it hard to commit to a weekly or even monthly gathering. (Interestingly, we have had much better luck getting people to commit to doing the work of the church- people for the most part like to feel valued and engaged, and like to have a concrete way to give back when they have discovered a church that feels like home.)"
"They are looking for leadership. Give it to them."
