Enhancing community

 

We join organizations to meet a variety of needs: fellowship, activities, and shared passion are the most common. Women of the ELCA groups can meet those needs by continuing to be—and learning more about being— inviting, welcoming, and engaging. 

Here are ideas and resources to help you enhance your unit’s sense of community.

  • Women of the ELCA purpose statement: Our purpose statement gives us a framework for our ministries and activities. Keep your women’s group focused on it so that women are not expecting something other than what Women of the ELCA is about.
  • An umbrella organization: Any group that wants to grow and thrive has to look seriously at how it can incorporate the gifts, desires, and passions of all women. Our founding mothers did just that when they wrote our constitution and designed the variety of models for structuring Women of the ELCA groups. If you your structure doesn't seem flexible or is limiting participation, maybe it’s time to look at renewing your unit with a new model.
  • Community: Gift of Grace. This video based on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book, Life Together, is a wonderful tool for you to look both seriously and humorously at what it means to be a community of women. Borrow a copy for your next gathering, retreat, or discussion. Contact us at Women.ELCA@elca.org or 800-638-3522, ext. 2737. Plan ahead; copies are limited.
  • Shared Wisdom: An Effective Style of Leadership: Are there occasional, or even frequent, differences of opinion at your meetings? Do tempers flare? This resource summarizes a group discernment model for decision-making built on the principle that every person has a piece of the wisdom, but not all of it. Try it at your next meeting to help move you in a new direction.
  • Women of the ELCA discussion board: Wondering what worked and didn’t work for others? Ask questions and share ideas with women throughout the organization.
  • Spiritual gifts inventory: Knowing what your gifts are can help you find just the right place within an organization. Use this inventory with the women in your unit and assist them in fitting into or starting a new role, activity, or program.