Monday, October 28, 2013

Mission Insite

I am jazzed!  This morning Crystal and Carlo and I received online orientation about Mission Insite, a resource that provides churches with valuable demographic information about their mission fields.  It is available today at www.missioninsite.com for all Alaska Conference clergy and laity.  Anyone in any of our church has free access to data that is designed to fit your community. 

Do you want to know how many preschoolers live within a 3 mile radius of your church building?
Do you want to know how many Samoans live in a specific area near your building?
Do you want to know the average income levels of people living in your neighborhood?

Mission Insite can give you this information today.  It is FREE to Alaska thanks to Mission Insite and the Pacific Northwest Conference.  Another example of how our big sister conference is helping us. 

Each pastor or layperson from any UM or union church in Alaska can log on and set up their own account.  That way each search or report you generate will be saved.  The amount of information and detail will amaze you.  Carlo Rapanut, as chair of our Board of Congregational Development, and Crystal Feaster, our conference assistant, will be learning the capabilities of this system.  They will be available to show others how it words via webinars or perhaps the clergy retreat.  We hope to present it to our annual conference next year. 

The goal  is to bring a major focus on our mission fields.  We simply need to know more about the people we are trying to serve.  We hope that Mission Insite will become part of our conference vocabulary as we experiment with ways to reach out with the love of God.

You will be hearing more each week in the E-Aurora about this new resource.

Grace Always,
Dave

No comments: