Explanation and Background to Mission and Vision
In 2007, at the recommendation of the Nominating Committee, we changed from a Church Board where you served because you held an office, to a Governance board where board members served because the church recognized gifts which would enable them to govern well.
This new board focused on trying to determine—What do we wish to do, for whom, at what cost? This didn’t come easily. After nearly a year we had made some progress. At my recommendation, we voted to bring in a consultant. Part of this choice was driven by the concern that too much of our conversation about the results we wished to accomplish and been self-focused and a bit too parochial.
The consultant pointed out was that to be a faithful congregation we must be about fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission to, “Go make disciples.”
Wanting to be a faithful church, we revisited our vision and values under a model known as a “Vision Frame.” MISSION, VALUES, STRATEGY, & METRICS combine to create four sides of the “Vision Frame” and guide what we place in the center of that frame, the “Vision Proper,” a specific, time bound, vision that we pursue within the parameters of our Vision Frame.
This document reveals both who we are and who we want to become.
The Vision Frame is more self-explanatory, so let me address the Vision Proper.
• It isn’t about us. (It is about 752 other people)
• It isn’t about our church growing by any new members. (Of course we will)
• It isn’t about people coming to us.(Although some will)
• It isn’t about enlarging our denomination. (Even though that will happen)
• This vision IS about 752 people who will become Jesus followers because of our influence. (25,000+ people in our immediate three zip codes make no claim to any relationship with Jesus.)
Imagine our church as a group of people who strategize and think and plan and program to see 752 people become disciples of Jesus! What will we need to do? What needs can we meet? How can we intentionally rub shoulders and sympathize with people? How will we communicate compassion? What will we need to do to win people’s confidence? How will we learn and practice the best ways to invite people to follow Jesus?
Some of you may be reading this and you’re thinking, “I need to be cared for. I need to grow spiritually myself. I’m not spiritually mature enough for this!” But the truth is that when we get actively involved in loving people into life long friendship with God, we will rocket forward in our spiritual growth. We will grow best as we serve. In working with God for others we will be transformed more and more into the very image of Jesus.
This won’t be easy and I certainly don’t have all the answers. I wish I could hold myself up as an example of leading person after person, who is far from God, to be disciples of Jesus, but maybe too much of my energy has been invested in maintaining church rather than recruiting church! We all have much to learn and to unlearn. Our church activities may be good and beneficial, but we are not creating new disciples of Jesus at any appreciable rate. I don’t have a clue to all pieces that will make this picture of the church come into view, but I believe that adopting a God honoring bold vision is the first step to seeing that vision become reality.
God has a HUGE vision—the gospel of Jesus to the world that all might be saved!! We haven’t been given the whole world, not even Africa, or Asia, or Alabama or Alaska. God has us in Central Florida. Our facility sits where three zip codes touch. We have a local specific responsibility for Great Commission fulfillment right here. This is the “what” and in the months ahead together we will need to discover the “how.” 752 just happens to be the number of “active” members in our data base. So over the next 5 years it seems possible, with God’s guidance, and the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, and Jesus presence with us that 752 Christians could be instrumental in assisting 752 people become disciples of Jesus.