Showing posts with label Success stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Success stories. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Success stories - How congregations grow.

"Success stories" is a regular feature of the UU A Way Of Life ministries blog which appear on Wednesdays.

Ashley: What's happening at your church?

Jonathan : Our church has grown from 56 members to 115 in the last 18 months.

Ashley: That's double. What contributed to the growth?

Jonathan: We hired a new minister who is very gifted at developing a sense of community.

Ashley: How has she done that?

Jonathan: By developing relationships with each member of the congregation, perceiving each person's talents, gifts, and interests, and encouraging them to share them with the congregation.

Ashley: Don't alot of ministers do that?

Jonathan: Hopefully, but this minister not only encourages but provides opportunities that challenge people a bit to experience their better self in the sharing. It is one thing to recognize people's talents, abilities, and interests, and to encourage the person to share it, but the most important step is in creating and providing opportunities. Usually that last step is not engineered and so nothing is mobilized, no traction is gained, and no results are produced.

Ashley: Once people utilize the opportunity, they are more invested?

Jonathan: Exactly, and once people are more personally invested they want to share their work, and they invite family and friends to come and witness it, and as these people visit and witness, the enthusiasm and spirit is contagious, is infectious, and the community grows.

Ashley: Thanks for the interview.

Jonathan: Thank you for the opportunity.

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Success stories - Wait times for appointments at VA now better than private practitioners

From New York Times on 01/22/19

Wait times for an appointment at Veterans Affairs hospitals have decreased since 2014 and are now, on average, shorter than those in the private sector, a new study shows.
Researchers used V.A. data to calculate wait times for about 17 million appointments. The public sector data came from a survey conducted by a physicians’ search firm in nearly 2,000 medical offices in 30 major and midsize metropolitan areas.
The study, in JAMA Network Open, covered four specialties: primary care, cardiology, dermatology and orthopedics.
In 2014 the average wait time in V.A. hospitals was 22.5 days, compared with 18.7 in the private sector, a statistically insignificant difference. But by 2017, mean wait time at V.A. hospitals had gone down to 17.7 days, while rising to 29.8 for private practitioners.

Editors note:
There is a new tag being used on UU A Way Of Life "success stories." As Johnny Winter sings in his great blues song, Bad News, "Bad news travels like wild fire. Good news travels slow. That's why you hear that bad news every where you go. Talkin about bad news."

Here on MBH we also provide good news in the form of "success stories."

There is an organizational development model called "Appreciative Inquiry" which focuses on what is going right instead of what is going wrong. Also, Solution Focused BriefTherapy (SFBT) in psychotherapy focuses as much on what is working as well as the problems.

So look for the success stories and pass them along. They will provide satisfaction, hope, inspiration, and gratitude.
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