Mt. Carmel Brochure

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JerryPDX's picture
Submitted by JerryPDX on Sun, 06/19/2011 - 7:17pm

I noticed that the "Community of Welcoming Congregations" booth didn't have a Mt. Carmel brochure this year. I asked Rev. Tara Wilkins about it, and she said they didn't get any this time.  I'm not sure how much good they do, but I like to see us represented.  

Pastor Chase's picture

Welcoming Congregations

Submitted by Pastor Chase on Tue, 06/21/2011 - 8:27am.

Not sure how that got missed. Perhaps it was a slip up on my end. I know we had a conversation regarding Welcoming Congregations & Reconciling Congregations. The questions was do we need to belong to both?

Gary Schulstad's picture

Good question on Welcoming Congregations / RIC

Submitted by Gary Schulstad on Tue, 06/21/2011 - 9:59am.

I was wondering about RIC / Welcoming Churches as I watched the Pride parade.  Creator has been asking this question before as well.  This would be a good topic for the RIC group. Would one of you like open a discussion in the RIC group on how other churches are answering this question?

JerryPDX's picture

Welcoming Congregations

Submitted by JerryPDX on Sat, 07/02/2011 - 11:09am.

I'm not sure if we need to "belong" to The Community of Welcoming Congregations to have a brochure at their booth.  My thought is that it's good to have our name out there in any venue possible.  In this case, if someone stopped by their booth and was looking through their display of brochures, and we had a Mt. Carmel brochure there, they might think "Hey, that church is near me and is welcoming. Maybe I should stop by!" The same for any RIC churches... I think it's a good idea for them to get a brochure to Tara.  I noticed that Central had one.  Not many of the others.

As for "belonging" or being members of Welcoming Congregations and/or Reconciling Congregations.... I'm not sure what the benefits are vs. costs (I don't know if there is a membership fee).  If it's free, I guess there's no harm.  If there's a cost, I'd want to know what we get.  I do know that Welcoming Congregations has a prominent booth at PRIDE every year and has a kiosk displaying brochures from various welcoming congregations. And I think people look through those brochures.  I guess they march in the parade... I'm not sure if someone's interest in a church is piqued by seeing them represented in the parade, or not.  I guess, in deciding what groups to join, we should think about what our goals are.  To me, the bottom line is that I'd like anyone who wants a safe, inclusive, welcoming place to worship to know that they can come to Mt. Carmel (and if that's not convenient, to other RIC churches, or if they don't want to be Lutheran, other welcoming congregations).  So, I guess I think of belonging to these groups as a potential for advertizing, maybe. 

What do you think?