Well into our third month working to learn our congregation’s answers to Who Are We? Who Is Our Neighbor? And Why Are We Here?, our Mission Study Committee has stepped on the accelerator as the answers are pouring in through spontaneous individual contributions, our questions of the week and our participation in the U.S. Congregational Life Survey. Much work remains as we continue to pull everyone who attends Rincon into this effort and we begin to study all the information that we have collected.

Surely, we don’t have a mission or a vision statement yet, but like the monsoonal clouds that we see building up over the mountains in the distance ever so slowly as they gather the heat and the moisture, our planning has taken time, but now the blessing of your response is about to deluge us with information that we’ll be studying, structuring and summarizing in the coming weeks. Talk about a flash flood!

Our committee wishes to thank everyone for getting involved in our effort and being so timely and thoughtful when we’ve needed input. Case in point is the response to our Question of The Week. While we haven’t tallied every question yet, we have some results we’re happy to report. For example, our three favorite hymns, out of 120 songs mentioned by 110 respondents, were Amazing Grace, Spirit of Gentleness, and A Mighty Fortress is Our God, in that order. Amazing Grace was mentioned by over 25% of all participants and was the clear favorite. Other hymns in the top ten were, Old Rugged Cross, Peace Like A River, In The Garden, Holy, Holy, Holy, Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee, Precious Lord, Let It Shine (This Light Of Mine) and Morning Has Broken.

When we asked you to name our three top strengths, our people and their qualities, such as openness, friendliness, inclusiveness, and caring, was the top answer group by far. Music had a very strong showing at large. Other salient mentions were UCC’s open and affirming stance, and Rincon’s staff.

So we go on. As we await for the results of the US Congregational Life Survey, our “Cottage Meetings” will be taking place, initially using the Spiritual Friends gathering as their platform and eventually reaching every single Rincon member between now and mid-October. Stay with us and expect our report by late October or early November.

You can contact members of the Mission Study Committee at the following e-mail address: missionstudy@rinconucc.org.