Succeeding through Faith - Failing through Self

This morning my devotionals also brought me to the 17th chapter of Matthew. I believe what I found is significant for the Vancouver Church as we move forward to develop our mission and vision.

In the NET translation of Matthew 17:20 Jesus tells those who had failed as they were are trying to accomplish God's will in their world, “It was because of your little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; nothing will be impossible for you.

Apparently the disciples were trying to accomplish God's will (freeing a boy from a demon) through self. Jesus says God’s will is accomplished through faith – not self. When we set out to do God’s will through faith nothing is impossible for us to accomplish for God.

As the Adventist Community Church of Vancouver seeks to accomplish God's will in our community the leaders and yes the entire church needs to check self (including our motives cf. Psalm 139:2). First, are we trying to accomplish God’s will or our will. Second, are we trying to accomplish it through self or through faith. If through faith then we guaranteed success.

Let's make sure we are on the right team for the right reasons and that we are setting the right goals - God's goals. Then let's let our team captain (Jesus) lead us to victory!

Increase Our Faith

Today in my devotions, I saw something critical to our mission and vision process. It was found in Matthew 17:20 where Jesus says if we have enough faith, we can move mountains. In that verse, there is a contextual evidence to suggest that more prayer equals greater faith. So, I have just a couple of questions - do we have faith to believe that God is going to do something great in Vancouver because of the Adventist Community Church? Do we have faith to believe that we will make a difference in the community and in the lives of people at church? Next question: Are we praying about it? Are we increasing our time of prayer to increase our faith? Are we asking God for great things, or is it just a perfunctory performance as we begin to move forward. It is my believe that we need to focus on listening to God - in prayer, in the Word of God, and together so that we can focus our mission and vision. Take time to pray for your church now....

Our Third Meeting

We've been doing a lot of brainstorming in our meetings thus far.  What we've really been doing is beginning the process of building trust and teamwork.  We haven't gotten very far down the field yet as a Mission/Vision Team, but we are in the training phases of understanding each other, understanding the issues, and working together.  But we haven't arrived in any of those areas yet.

It's interesting to watch.  I'm the newbie.  I see a different perspective of the group than they see of each other.  Sometimes, we have a tendency to put people in boxes over time and see things from only one perspective.  As I've infused some new blood into things and we've brought some new people into the mix, there's a new thought process taking shape.  I think it's going to be a very strong process.

what I see in the process is a team of people who are coming to a clearer understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the church.  Over the next few weeks they will get some perspective on the demographics of the area we're seeking to reach.  And last night we began to pick over the process of the great commission - what we're called to do.  Matthew 28:18-20 serves as the great commission - a commission to go and make disciples. 

We also handed out copies of a book called, "The Externally Focused Church."  In this book, the author says the goal of the church is to seek the lost and serve the least.  While we do that, we're building community amongst ourselves and we're growing disciples together.

There are no more meetings planned for a couple of weeks.  We've got some assignments to work on over the next few weeks on studying the community.  It's a time of reflection.  Hopefully we'll see some parity of who the community is and how we would be able to reach them.  We'll also, likely, see some disparity and have to take some stands or make some changes.  Both are feasible.  

Please keep praying for the process.  I think things are going together well.  Last night we looked at sample mission statements and talked about what we liked and didn't like in those.  It was the beginning of discovery as to what a mission statement is and how it works.  

Mission is like the hub of a wheel.  The hub is attached to something solid (Jesus), and the wheel (everything the church does) turns on the hub (the mission of the church).  Every decision we face in the future will be measured against whether it will help us accomplish our mission or not.  In other words, we're going to do things on purpose, not by accident.  And our mission is our purpose.  

Hungry? Feed Yourself!  Break the Famine (Amos 8:11)

roger walter

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Senior Pastor Seventh-day Adventist Community Church of Vancouver

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Worship and Community

Last Wednesday, Pastor Roger split our 15+ visioning committee into 4 groups to discuss four components of church life: Mission, Worship, Spiritual Formation, & Community. I joined four others to consider the Worship component. 

We all agreed that many are blessed by our worship services, and yet we can do much to improve on them as well. We noted that we could better streamline our service to fit around a single theme (having the songs, children story, special music, etc. fit around the sermon topic), and we could improve on coordinating PA, lighting, and minimizing the length of preliminaries. More time for singing is a request our group members have heard. 

We thought we had strengths in the talent of musical ability and beautiful structure, good preaching, and a powerful message of truth. I wasn't the one to suggest "good preaching.":)

We concluded that many people outside our walls deeply long for something more than this world offers, and we hold the powerful message of loving Savior who can fulfill their hearts' cry.

What a great opportunity for us. 

I personally am very hopeful and determined to see our church grow into a mature, intentional body of believers. By mature, I mean, wise and established follower of Christ. By intentional, I mean we do the hard work of thinking through our process of developing followers for Christ. When we apply the hard work of thinking and praying about our church's fundamental components--mission, worship, spiritual formation, & community, we can't help but move ahead towards God's dream for Vancouver.

Update for Meeting: 2009-04-08

We had a lively meeting last night with the Mission/Vision Team. We spent some time looking at who we are again. It's like a compass, you really can't use a compass to get you out of the woods, unless you first know where you are. Same with the mission - how can you go forward as a church, unless you have some idea of where you are?

Some of the things that keep coming up are:

• The 80/20 rule - 80% of the work is done by 20% of the members. 80% of the food at potlucks is brought by 20% of the eaters. 80% of the money given is done by 20% of the people who attend.
• Buy-in. There are a number of issues where the congregation is passively sitting and watching and where a few people are doing it all (this relates to the one above)
• Our facility is great
• Our debt is a negative that needs to be tackled
• Outreach, Evangelism, Mission to the community is very strong in our wish list, but not much is really happening. (But we're excited about Pastor Gene's upcoming seminar)
• Community within the walls is not happening, we don't even really know what it is
• Discipleship needs a process to advance it forward at a much stronger level
• We have truth and it needs to be shared
• We need to discuss these things with everyone in the church. We all need to have buy-in to this process. We all need to start the discussion with the rest of the church.

At the end of the meeting, we talked about how most churches are really only reaching about 7% of the community. That includes the Methodists, the Baptists, the Non-denominationals, and everyone else. It also includes us, as Adventists. Thom Rainer, in his book "Surprising Insights from the Unchurched" writes that we - Adventists - are the BEST denomination at reaching the unchurched. There is only one group that does better - and it's just a wee bit better - it's the non-denominational group.

How do Adventists reach anyone? Mostly, throughout the world, they are reached through our traditional evangelism. Statistics from the seminary tell us that of those the Adventist church is baptizing, 75% come from the unchurched background. We tend to think it's the opposite. We tend to think it's different. We tend to not like Evangelism nearly as much as we should. Read this post if you'd like some understanding as to why Adventists don't like Evangelism.

We concluded with watching a couple of videos - one was about building airplanes while they fly - it described what this team is trying to do. It's a process of taking a group of people who are moving forward, but also tweaking its direction, bring all ministries into alignment, and then also sending us out into the community. It's a process of refinement. It's building while it flies.

Next week we're going to start getting some snapshots of the area of Clark County. Who are we trying to reach. We have a bit of a better picture of who we are. Now we can look at the idea of who we are trying to reach. Then the next steps will be to define our Mission - which is a contemporary restatement of the Gospel Commission in Matthew 28, our Vision - which is defining what it will look like when we are accomplishing our mission, our Core Values - which will define HOW we do ministry as we pursue our Mission. Once we have those things in place, we can begin the process of making our decisions based on those things. All decisions will eventually be defined by our mission, vision and values.

So - let's keep going forward as we Reach the Lost and Grow the Disciples. Pray for the process and the team of people working on it.

God Bless!

Roger Walter

Senior Pastor

Adventist Community Church of Vancouver

Who Came The First Night

At the first Mission/Vision Team meeting, not everyone could make it, but here's who was there:

Marella R, Gail W, Stephanie R, Doug A, Dave A, Neil A, Ed B, Royalyn W, Shari P, Debbie J, Ron and Virginia O, Dave C, Craig F, Jack S, Dan W, Sid S, Rick K, Pastor Jeff, Pastor Gene, and Pastor

If you'd like to give input into the process, please feel free to contact someone on the team and help us figure some of this out. This is a journey together and it's a journey forward where God takes us....

2009-04-01 Update

The Mission/Vision Team met for the first time on Wednesday, April 1st. We discussed what we hoped to get out of this process which included things like:

• Safety to bring someone to church
• God's real plan for our church
• Community within the church
• Growth
• Spirit-led, Walking with Christ Church
• Outward Focus
• Personal Growth in Christ
• Single, Guided Vision
• The variety within the church pulled together

Then we talked about our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Barriers. These are the top 4 in each category: (not in order of preferences)

Strengths

1. Message
2. Children's ministries
3. Committed People
4. Facility

Weaknesses

1. Lack of discipleship process
2. Worship
3. Lack of community
4. Debt

Opportunities

1. Growing Community/Searching Community
2. Evangelistic Attitude of Church
3. Former SDAs
4. Personal Growth

Barriers

1. Stewardship and ownership wtih the church is low
2. Misunderstanding of the Message
3. Resistance to Change
4. Spectators

Our next meeting will be on April 8 at 6:30 pm. Please keep us in your prayers as we seek to understand our church, understand our community, and set a direction that God has already planned for us. And stay abreast here, as we'll keep you updated through the process!