South Central Mennonite Conference

An Area Conference of Mennonite Church USA

Conference Ministers aid Congregational Ministry

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Four years ago Pleasant View Mennonite Church began using an Annual Evaluation Tool as a way of yearly  “taking the temperature” of the congregation. This short questionnaire asked congregants to evaluate pastors, elders, and even participation.  Being so close to specific situations, however, congregational leaders had struggled to compile and summarize the results without getting stuck on specific comments.

This led leaders to seek an outside resource person who, while having some prior knowledge of the church, wasn’t so close to the situation that they would get triggered and derailed from seeing the big picture.  This quickly led them to ask their SCC Regional Conference Minister (RCM), James Wenger, to assist the congregation in compiling the evaluations.

Pastor Jeff Selzer said, “We were really pleased with the way James summarized the evaluations in a succinct way that gave us a big picture of where the congregation is at this point in time.  So pleased that, though we had initially thought we would need to shorten his report, we ended up distributing it to the congregation in full! We will certainly look to use our conference RCM to help us with this again.”

Blessed to be a blessing

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We are in the midst of replacing our carpet in the Community Center and the main hallways of the church. It almost seems crazy that we are having to replace carpet after just over 10 years, but for me this is a sign that our building is being used for a variety of things in addition to church activities and Hesston College events. There’s a reason why it’s called the community center: it’s a space that can be used for community events and needs. And the hallway carpet is being replaced because we value accessibility. The carpet was beginning to bulge in some places, creating a safety concern and access issues for those with reduced mobility. Despite the price tag for replacing all this carpet there was no question that it should be done and was accepted unanimously by the council without push-back.
We are also repainting our children’s wing after the Hesston Community Daycare was there for over a year while their facility was being rebuilt. Another sign of the building being used for more than just church.
If we are blessed to be a blessing, and part of that blessing comes in a spacious facility, then we are happy to share what we have for the benefit of all!
-Clayton Gladish– Pastor