Minnesota Fellowship of Congregationalists

About Us

Our Mission Statement

It is the mission of the Minnesota Fellowship of Congregationalists to foster ministries that encourage and assist individuals & churches who freely seek God through Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible.

Our Goals

From the minnesota Fellowship of Congregationalists Board Retreat,

August 23,2004:

Here are the goals that we worked on for the day and the ideas that followed. It was a blessings to get together; to pray and plan and dream; asking God's leading it what we can do with the Minnesota Fellowship of Congregationalists.

Revised Draft of Our GOALS

Overall goal: To promote, support, and encourage the ministries of our National Association churches and our State Fellowship.

For our Clergy: To provide support and encouragement for our clergy.

For our Churches: To encourage fellowship among our churches, to provide educational and worship experiences for sharing and interaction, and to support one another in prayer and practical assistance.

For Missions: To provide and support opportunities for mission and outreach within the State, Nationally and World-wide.

For Youth: To promote and support Youth activities locally, state-wide, nationally, and internationally.

For our Budget: To be fiscally responsible and to increase financial resources so that support is available for our expanding mission and ministry.

For our Future: To encourage the awareness and spread of the Congregational Way and to increase our member churches.

Brainstorming and Action Plans:

After establishing our working goals we spent the rest of our planning time at the Retreat, brainstorming and looking at action plans to go with our goals. These are the ones that we came up with and will be discussing at our Board Meetings this Fall.

For the Clergy:
* Have an Annual Retreat (this seemed to be a desire by most everyone)
* Establish a Pulpit exchange to get to know each other
* To develop a "Chat Room" or other means of current communication
* To create a MFC pamphlet for students and others interested in Seminary and the programs and scholarships that are available. (ie. MFC Scholarship Fund, CFTS, Boston Seminar, Lay Leadership training, etc)
* To encourage new potential pastors in our midst
* Provide mentors for new pastors whether newly ordained or new to our fellowship and to setup accountability groups
* To continue and increase support for our established clergy including retired clergy, providing educational opportunities and appreciation

For our Churches:
* To compile and make available an Inventory of our Talents and Resources
* To use the Vicinage Council for more than just ordinations; could be effective in church disputes or accountability, recognizing training in basic mediation would be needed and provided
* To encourage more fellowship opportunities through practical helps and missions (Upcoming plan to help paint the parsonage in New Richland)
* Provide more resources to our churches through Workshops, Speakers (as with Colonial in the past), Retreats, and especially Build Up our Annual Meetings
* Offer an Adult Education exchange of teachers and resources, especially develop a program for understanding the History and Polity of Congregationalism
* Build up the Website with more special concerns and education so that it will be better utilized
* Create communication tools that will bring us together, letting us know of special events in our churches and intentionally reaching out to our less active churches.
* Visit each other's churches
* Be more active as Board members
* Continue and build our prayer support
* Build up Thanksgiving to be our "Congregational" holiday

For Missions:
* Gather volunteers from our churches for a Paint-a-thon for the Parsonage of the Church in New Richland (They don't have the resources at the moment)
* Participate in the Habitat for Humanity project with Colonial church; and then rotate working with each of our churches on different projects once or twice a year
* Get involved in Mission projects together; there are lots of needs and it would be great to take a Mission trip together.
* Have a booth at the State Fair next year, sell "Turkey legs" or whatever
* Participate in the twin cities flea market as a state group for fund-raiser
* Have a Metro "Harvest Fest" for the state food shelf and for our own celebration perhaps lifting up the Thanksgiving theme
* Sponsor a Congregational Church Fair or Mission fair or even start a new Congregational Classical Radio Station

For our Youth:
* Develop the Minnesota Pilgrim Fellowship - our state-wide group; hire a director to work with our Youth in this endeavor
* Promote the 30 Hour Famine program with Colonial Youth in the spring
* Promote and encourage the State-wide Youth Ski Weekend
* Bring Youth leaders together for a retreat, for networking, for appreciation, include Plymouth in our invitations
* Build up our NAPF representations for all our churches
* Encourage local artists, musicians, speakers to work with our Youth; attend programs that are offered together as a Minnesota Pilgrim Fellowship

For our Budget:
* Look at "fair share" ideas as guidelines, not requirements, for our churches
* Build up the desire to give by having missions and special projects to give to
* Complete new direction for the Theological Fund and let churches know of its availability
* "Don't hoard; Spend" for the kingdom of God
* Develop plan for how to include the MFC in estate planning; perhaps think of endowing a chair or making provisions for more resources to be available on our Heritage
* Continue to investigate socially responsible investing
* Publish our Budget and our goals, ask for pledges from individuals as well as churches, communicate our needs in written form

For our Future:
* Make monthly Board meetings and all State-wide meetings more practical and helpful to our churches. (Work out some of these plans)
* Build up our Heritage and celebrate it within our churches and as a group, using Thanksgiving or other times. Promote the Congregational presence in our communities and with other churches and councils in the State.
* Plan for planting another church
* Equip and empower individual for professional ministry in the NA
* Extend invitations to other "independent" churches to find out more about us and become part of us.
* Look at ways the Vicinage council can be more helpful to our churches for ordinations, being part of the planning as well as "guests"
* Look at our "founding" churches, celebrate who we are, where we've been and where we're going