As promised, here is your week 3 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 fellowship.
Relationships and connections to one another seemed very important throughout the sessions. Some of you described Forest Park in relational terms like “a close knit community,” “an extension of your actual family” and a place where we are “involved in each other’s lives.” One person even said that when they think of Forest Park they think of the Cheers theme song. In fact, when asked the first thing you think of when thinking of Forest Park or how you would describe Forest Park almost every session included the answer “family or friends.” You also said that being a member of Forest Park means being a part of a family or community.
Most of you said Forest Park gets excited about fellowship and many of the best special events that you named centered on fellowship such as the Thanksgiving meal, bingo and chili cook-offs, the golf scramble, etc. You said that if Forest Park stopped doing fellowship activities you would miss it and if a tornado leveled the building, continuing to stay connected and have fellowship was a top priority.
When asked about the best things we do for special groups such as youth, families with children, young adults and retired people the answers were often related to fellowship based groups and activities such as Youth Life, Life Groups, Lunch Bunch, Disciples Men, Disciples Women and 39ers.
Many people said that they have seen God through the connections with others at Forest Park. One person said that they see God “through the ease and comfort of how the people interact with one another.”