History

The Now is the Time campaign is the result of a lot of time developing a plan! In January 2005, the Long Range Planning Task Force was organized to find a way to reach out to the congregation and get an idea of what God was calling CVLC to do. To this group of 10 congregational members from each demographic in the church, it was important to reach out to the congregation as a whole to feel what was on their hearts and minds in regard to the mission of our church.

The Task Force decided to format a survey that would ask members to rate/comment on current programs as well as suggest changes/new ideas for the church as we move forward. Two mailings of the survey were done, one in May 2005 and one in January 2006. The results were astounding! First, the feedback surpassed all expectations. Typically, when a survey of any type is mailed to a mass amount of people, a 1-5% response rate is reasonable (and in some cases, generous). For this survey, the response exceeded 20% of the congregation-they clearly had something to say!

Based on the data collected in the surveys*, the Church Council held a retreat to prayerfully consider the direction of the church and…voila! Here we are today embarking on one of the most ambitious and God-propelled movements in the church history! What an exciting time! Now is the Time!

*The results of the survey were book-bound and can be found in the church office.

One of council’s responsibilities is to lead this congregation in stating its mission, to set goals and priorities, to evaluate its activities in the light of its mission and goals and to do long range planning.

As a consequence and initialed by council, on January 10, 2005 a Long Range Planning Task Force, representing a cross section of members and associate members, had its first meeting. They discussed how to reach the most members and associate members and get the most feedback possible. This was accomplished by sending an every person questionnaire. Two mailings were sent to be sure everyone received a copy, the first one during May, 2005 and the second during January, 2006.

The results of the survey (104 responses) were broken down by category and age group and given to council in booklet form during May, 2006. The members of council individually reviewed the results between May and September and at an offsite retreat during September, 2006 developed a Four Year Plan which was officially adopted at a regularly scheduled council meeting during October of that year. Read more…