As promised, here is your week 1 email giving you information about the themes/categories that emerged from our Who Do You Say We Are sessions. Again, these themes were fairly easy to identify as they were repeated by all of you again and again in the sessions.
This week’s theme (and these are in no certain order) is children/youth.
In almost every session, people said that Forest Park gets excited about children/youth. When asked what we would need to keep doing if a tornado leveled our building, many of you said we would need to keep doing youth. Also, when we asked what an Elder could ask for $1000 for and receive it by the end of service, several said “a need for the kids”.
Many people noted that an important thing that we do well for children/youth is including and involving them in the church. In addition, you all said that some of the best things we do for children/youth is Children’s Moment, Children’s Church, Youth Life and VBS. Many of you said that you would miss Children’s Moment if we stopped doing it.
It is clear that children and youth are an important and integral part of our culture at Forest Park and that was summed up best by this comment from one of you-“Forest Park has an atmosphere where kids seem natural and can be children rather than taken out of service.”