Community Groups - part of the pie

This blog has primarily been about the team building the mission/vision material.  But something happened yesterday that is so much a part of this that I had to also cross-report it here.  

Our Community Group training happened yesterday and the response was overwhelming.  The mission of the church is discipleship and evangelism.  The Community Groups will handle the discipleship.  This has potential to be huge! 

You can read about it here: http://tinyurl.com/akw9bq

Be a Difference Maker!

roger walter

Senior Pastor http://bit.ly/qO3Vg

Adventist Community Church

Last night we had an interesting discussion about the various size of churches - small, medium and large churches. The background for the discussion was this information take from the book "One Size Doesn't Fit All."

You can find this information at this website: http://bit.ly/anNoe

We probably spent about an hour talking about the ramifications of those concepts. The consensus was that we are a medium sized church that is on the verge of breaking into a large church - but some of our attitudes, actions and agendas are still in the small church. We are going to have to break completely into the medium church before we can ever grow beyond.

Of course,t he discussion also centered around the idea that as we grow bigger, we must also grow smaller through small groups. See http://www.vancouveradventist.com/news_entries/3113 for more information.

But we got stuck on the mission statement again. We've let it sit in our subconscious for over a month now and haven't talked about it, haven't thought through it, haven't dealt with it - just to let it sit and rest a little. In that time, we've talked about core values and some other issues.

Last night, I presented a basic remake of the mission statement as this:

• To be a community of people who worship the creator, proclaim the truth, and grow people to be disciples of Christ.

or

• To be a community of people who worship the creator, proclaim the gospel, and grow people to be disciples of Christ.

We got stuck on some of the wording, wordsmithing, etc. And it rests again. I was a bit frustrated, because I thought we would be able to get through it. In reality, I'd rather get stuck here than on some of the other issues. Once we hammer through this, it will enable the rest to come more easily.

If you were going to draw out the direction of what needs to happen it's this:

Mission --> Vision --> Core Values --> Strategic Plan --> Programs

Each of these builds on the previous one and points to the next one in the mix.

Mission: is a contemporary restatement of the Gospel Commission in Matthew 28:19-20

Vision: Is more specific to us - and is a picture of what it looks like at our church when we're accomplishing our mission

Core Values: are our deeply held beliefs about HOW we do ministry in pursuit of of our mission

Strategic Plan: is the steps we will take to get there over the next 3+ years

Programs: are the things we do from the day-to-day

We've gotten a lot done, and we really all agree on the basic concepts - we are really looking at the wording that will unite the church and ignite a passion in us to reach the lost. That's what is really going on.

Our next step: To begin talking to the greater group of people in the congregation to see what they think and get their input.

God is good - all the time, and this will get us pulled together eventually.... Your prayers are always encouraged!

Pastor Roger