| One of the principle responsibilities of a congregation, as the body of Christ, is to be a vital presence in its community. Yet, a congregation must acknowledge that it is necessary to be in relationship with its local community in order to be a vital presence in the lives of those who live in that community. The project took place during the spring of 2003, at Lisbon United Methodist Church; a congregation in the Baltimore-Washington conference of the United Methodist Church.; Recently, Lisbon UMC experienced several transitions. The church is located in a geographical area experiencing much change in population growth. This has helped to fuel a feeling of "us", the long-time residents versus "them", the new comers.; During the project the congregation employed Percept Group, Inc. to do a demographic study of the ministry area. With the information provided from Percept Group, Inc. the study group created three areas of ministry to focus on in the near future and shared those with the congregation. The three ministry focus areas were: youth, family, and inclusion. Youth and family ministries were related to the large number of families that the demographics showed were moving into the church's ministry area. Inclusion ministry was chosen because of the recent large number of visitors and new members to the church and the desire to include them in the body of Christ. The project goes into depth in discussion of how these three focus areas were decided upon and how they were implemented into the ministry of the congregation. |
