by Rev. Donna Schaper, Interim Minister

Convergence!  What a gorgeous word.  It’s almost as nice as when someone says “yes” to you about something.

Thanks to all 249 of you who filled out the Convergence survey. Thanks to the Church Council for deciding to use it as the basis for our profile in the upcoming search for a settled pastor. Thanks to Convergence for giving such a good bill of health and for such an honest appraisal of both our strengths and our weaknesses.

Please give yourself a good hour to read the entire survey here.

Then write down three things that you appreciate about it. When Rev. Cameron Trimble has the virtual conference with us on Sunday, November 9 (a virtual meeting at 11:30 a.m.), we will share these comments with her as preparation.

The study is like a well balanced meal and a feast of sorts. It contains something for everyone. Let’s use it to our and its full advantage.

4 Comments

  1. I take issue with the figure of over 200K as the average household income for our area. The figures I looked up are 65K for Alachua county and 71.6K for Gainesville.

    • Mary, I think you’re right. We should get clarification on what data they used for the area. Perhaps they excluded students? Even then it sounds high.

    • Agree, Mary. I hope folks with access to other appropriate data will make changes in any document that goes forward for prospective pastors to consider.

    • Hello Friends!
      I am so glad that you are reading this report so thoughtfully and are curious. I emailed Rev. Dr. Anna Mitchell Hall,
      Director of Research and Development for Convergence to ask this question.

      First, I want to clarify that this data is not for Alachua County or Gainesville at large, but much smaller sections. Within one mile around the church, the average household income was $56,500 per year. When expanding to a 5 mile radius the church, the average household income is over $242,000.

      The data comes from several sources, but she cited Synergos in particular, which sources most of the income info and draws on IRS, SSA, and Census data. We have access to these reports and I would be happy to share them with interested parties. They are quite long and detailed with many charts and graphs, so if that is of interest to you, please let me know!

      One activity for someone interested might be to reach out to local leaders to find out their sources of household demographic information and what those say. Sometimes locally sourced data can add important nuance to the national data. 

      Thanks for being curious!
      Talia

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