A Year of Making It Better

I’m looking back on this year and thinking about living into our vision of Making Disciples and Creating Community. As you may recall, last December the Vision Team presented a report that came out of our most recent visioning process. At the time I summed it up in the words, “Make It Better.” Our goals were to make our church more effective in making disciples by doing more intentional mentoring, leadership development, and small group growth. We wanted to make things better by addressing the Stewardship Challenge of giving to fund ministry for growth and fund a possible building project to improve our facilities.

So, one year later, how are we doing? Positives can be seen in our recent Mentor training event led by Jennifer and Matt Lake. Over twenty people attended and there was an excitement around what we can do going forward. Our next step is finding the right leader to spearhead a mentoring ministry that reaches every member of our fellowship. Another positive can be seen in the ongoing variety of small group opportunities that emerge from our fellowship. New small groups are drawing new participants. This, too, is how disciples are made. Our Discipleship Coordinator, Jessica Peacock, can get you connected to a group.

On the goal of a possible building project, a Building Study committee has met over the course of the year under the leadership of Jason Meadows. This team made a recommendation to the Ad Council in October. The recommendation outlined the scope of a building addition and two architectural firms that might best serve our needs for the feasibility study. The Ad Council recommended waiting until after General Conference this February to make a decision on the feasibility study.

Are we Making Things Better? I think we are. I think we’ve done some good work on the vision. But we have a long way to go. We think of vision and growth as dramatic and seemingly instantaneous. But the truth of pursuing God’s vision for us is more like Eugene Peterson put it, “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.” The best way to see for yourself what God is doing is to come to worship, come to a small group, come to serve. You will be inspired by what the Holy Spirit is doing among us.

See you in worship,

Rich Morris, pastor