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You are invited to participate in an exciting project for our Beth Jacob Community!
We are beginning a process that will enable us to think together about our deeply-held values and what makes our community unique. This process will help to set vision and direction for the future of our community, enabling us to move forward with re-invigorated strength, connection, and clarity of purpose.
Why now? Over the last 5 years, our shul community has experienced significant changes in rabbinic leadership, in office personnel, and a pandemic. Moments of transition like these open opportunities for reflection. This project aims to take advantage of that. Your voice and ideas are important in this process that will lead to setting direction for our future.
In the next couple of weeks, you will receive an invitation to attend a conversation. These will be small groups (8-10 people) facilitated by a trained member of the shul. Groups will focus on open-ended questions about our community. Each meeting will have both a facilitator and someone taking notes (without attribution). The information from the meetings will be reviewed to identify themes, issues, ideas, etc. We will have the opportunity to explore the findings together late in the spring and the information will also inform the shul’s strategic planning process.
We have engaged Rabbi David Teutsch to help support this project. In addition to being a published author and retired professor of Jewish ethics, Rabbi Teutsch is highly regarded for the work he has done with synagogues in transition. He will train facilitators and note takers, help process the data, and work with the congregation and board to understand implications of the data collected during the conversations. We want as many voices as possible in these conversations. While we would love for everyone to attend meetings in person, we understand that that won’t be possible for some people for a variety of reasons and will therefore offer some gatherings on Zoom. We will work to make other accommodations as needed so that everyone can
participate.
You are invited to participate in the following ways:
1) Sign up to attend a meeting when the registration is sent out.
2) Offer to host. We are looking for congregants to open their homes for the meetings. Please let Leslie Morris know if you are willing and able to do that at morri074@umn.edu.
3) Be a notetaker. We are looking for people to take notes at the meetings. Please let Sharon Press know if you are willing and able to do this at sharon.press@mitchellhamline.edu.
Thank you in advance for your engagement in this project, in our community, and our future!
All the best,
Leslie Morris, Sara Lynn Newberger, Sharon Press
Community Conversations Project
Orit Ackerman
President
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