People of God called All Saints,

My first goal as pastor is to foster one-to-one relationships. A “one-to-one relationship” means I learn who you are from you—not from a third person. It means, I talk to you, not about you. I don’t take guesses or make assumptions about what you care about. Instead, I listen to you with curiosity.

One-to-one relationships release the power of the Holy Spirit into our families, congregation, neighborhoods, and world. It makes us stronger—more connected, more flexible and creative, clearer about who God made us to be, more able to do what God wants us to do.

My goal is to foster one-to-one relationships on many levels—not only between me and All Saints’ people, but also among All Saints’ people and between All Saints’ people and our neighbors—even between people and God.

For the sake of this goal, I’ve encouraged All Saints’ leaders to partner with Quad Cities Interfaith, or QCI. Now I encourage you to attend this event, which is made possible by that partnership:

One to One Training
Saturday, April 20^th
8:30 am until 2:30 pm
at Broadway Presbyterian Church
710 23rd St. Rock Island, IL

QCI does congregation-based community organizing. It was born over 25 years ago, in the midst of the farm crisis, when people of faith in the Quad Cities decided to get organized to help provide good jobs and housing. Then and now, QCI exists to empower ordinary people to make a difference in their community, state, and nation. And QCI wants to share its tools for empowerment with All Saints.

The most important tool QCI has to share is the One-to-One visit—which you will learn to use on April 20^th.

A one-to-one visit is an intentional, face-to-face conversation for the purpose of building or strengthening a relationship, gathering information and understanding what really matters to that person.

A one-to-one is a natural but uncommon conversation. Natural, because it flows from your curiosity and the other person’s responses, not from canned questions. Uncommon, because it’s a dedicated period of time for focus, curiosity, and courage, to share some of your self.

On April 20, Sam Finkelstein of the Gamaliel Foundation will walk us through one-to-ones. But why would you want to come?

+ because you want to help All Saints become a more thriving, Spirit-filled place, with more people worshiping and supporting it with their time and money.

+ because you yourself want to grow stronger, more able to foster strong relationships with people you care most about and more able to accomplish the things you care most about.

+ because you want to love God better by loving your neighbors better, so the Quad Cities become a better place to live for all kinds of people.

+ because you like meeting and getting to know new people.

+ because meeting and getting to know new people is hard for you and you want to get better at it.

+ because you want truly to leave behind the divisive behaviors of All Saints’ past and practice new behaviors of All Saints’ future that make room for unity-within-diversity.

+ because you want more engaging and participatory worship, stronger ministry with young people, a way to engage our neighbors, better evangelizing and welcoming ministries, great stewardship education, an expanded Food Pantry ministry, and more…

How exciting that you get to do all of these things through one-to-one visits!

All are invited to the One-to-One Training—especially leaders but not only leaders. It is free, thanks to our partnership with QCI, but registration is required. Call 563.322.4910 to register or for more information. Light breakfast and lunch will be provided.

Thanks be to God.

Pastor Clark Olson-Smith