Core Vision Approved and posted!

The final report of the Core Vision Team was approved by our Presbytery and we've posted it on the CGPC website. Click here to go directly to the report.



I'd encourage you to focus on pages 3 through 7. That is the heart of the vision and goals that we believe God is placing before our church. The rest of the document provides the background to the vision and goals.



Our next task as a church family is to continue down this path while our Pastor Nominating Committee searches to find our next Senior Pastor.



You can post comments about the vision here if you like.

Bigness versus intimacy

I know surveys can be misleading. However this article from Presbyterian Outlook is titled: Survey: Megachurches more intimate, believers less gullible and the lead sentence is:


A new survey by Baylor University researchers suggests that megachurches are more intimate, believers less gullible, and atheism less prevalent than popular stereotypes would suggest.



How can that be? Again from the article:



“How does that make any sense?” Stark asked. “The answer is: That’s how they got there. Their friends brought them to church, and then they brought their friends to church, and that’s how the congregation was built.”

Good News - Final Report is done

On Monday night our Session approved the Core Vision with a few edits. We made those changes and the report has been sent on the the Presbytery's Committee on Ministry. We will be posting the final version on the church web site in a day or two.

Milestones

Tonight should be a significant "milestone" for our church. The Core Vision Team and the Session (our church's board of elders) will discuss and hopefully approve our church's Core Vision.

This reminded me of a recent blog post by management guru Tom Peters on the importance of milestoning.

Agreeing on a vision is a milestone - a point worth celebrating. However it is not the end point. Actually calling and installing a new pastor is also a milestone and not the end point. As we reach any significant goal or milestone in our church or individual lives, may we borrow from Paul writing to the church at Phillipi:

No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. (Philippians 3: 13-14, NLT)

Be in prayer that we stay tuned in to where God is leading.

Becoming Prepared for Growth - Preparing the soil

If we discover God's rhythms and live more in sync with God’s heartbeat, we believe a natural result will be to enjoy growth in many ways. We will grow in our knowledge of Jesus; we will grow in favor with the community; we will grow in sites we haven’t thought of yet; and the Lord will add to our numbers.

To engage in the life-giving and life-changing ministry envisioned here we need an organization and a facility that are as flexible and life supporting as we are. Our current building limits our ministry. It is too small and too inflexible to support our current needs. We sometimes limit our ministry based on our facility. Over the next few years we will be need to participate in significant building revisions to support the needs of the church God is calling us to be. Similarly our current organization is based on the model of a Program Church and to support larger numbers of worshipers we will need a different model which likely includes a second called pastor.

How much soil preparation do we need before we call our next pastor? Or do we just sit around and call a super-pastor to do it all for us?

PCUSA and the missional church

Check out this take on being missional in our denomination from Michael Kruse. The basic idea is that being missional is found in our Book of Order. Interesting.

PCUSA and Missional Church.

Becoming better disciples - growing

So first of all I'd like to see us use a different word than "disciples" - but we havent' come up with one yet.

As CGPC becomes even more missional and relational, we believe our calling is to learn to care for what God cares for, to love what He loves – to be in rhythm with the heartbeat of God. This means we are focused on teaching individuals how to develop this kind of heart. We’ve often called this discipleship – and yet it requires a deeper meaning of that word. Essentially, we are being called to live out the commandments of Jesus to love God fully, and to love each other completely.

So how will that get done? What kinds of things do we need to be doing to transform head knowledge to heart and soul and strength? To make love an action verb?

Becoming more relational - nurturing

CGPC is a congregation that relishes in and nourishes relationships. We believe our relationships need to be upward and across, inside and out. We focus on our upward relationship with God, our relationships across with each other. We focus on our relationships inside the body of Christ and those currently outside in our community.

This shows up in our worship, like our sharing time and our greeting time; it shows up in how many small groups exist in our church; it showed up on our survey where we indicated we wanted more time for “recreation.”

What specific goals or projects should we take on to make us even more relational?

Becoming more missional - planting

From its beginning CGPC has felt called to support missions work around the world. As our environment and culture have changed, we now believe God is calling us to move from a “mission-minded” church to a “missional” church – to move from a program approach to supporting missions to an all-church heartbeat for missions.

We believe we are becoming a church where every person feels personally and individually called to be a life-style evangelist or missionary. By living authentic, disciplined Christ-centered lives, wherever we find ourselves becomes our mission field. While it is certain some might be called to serve in other countries, most will find their mission assignment in the workplace, in their neighborhoods, and in their schools. Opportunities exist all around us all the time that allow us to share the love of Christ with others.

We are aware that the term “Missional Church” is used a lot in the Christian community these days. So, if we use that term, we’ll have to continue to define it for our church. Here’s an answer the the question “What is a Missional Church?” from the Presbyterian Global Fellowship:

"In short, the phrase “missional church” refers to the fact that “mission” is not a program of the church but rather the very reason for the church’s existence: as the church, we are who we are because we have been called and sent by God in the power of the Spirit to be witnesses to Jesus Christ in all that we do. . . . The church doesn’t exist for itself. Rather, it exists for God’s Kingdom mission! "

Question: What do we need to do to make this happen? That is what are some specific goals, projects, to-dos?

Vision becoming clearer

Our Core Vision Team has been sifting through all that we've been learning and we are beginning to frame the vision. I thought I'd post some of the info here in case anyone wants to respond. So here goes a series of posts.



The Vision – In a Nutshell
We are a growing, changing organism. We were planted on the site of a former nursery and our purpose is to be like trees and plants in a nursery.
As we look forward to the next few years God is calling us to:
· Become more missional - Planting
· Become more relational - nurturing
· Become better disciples - feeding
· Become prepared for growth – preparing the soil



The next post will discuss 'becoming more missional - planting.' Any comments on the summary version?

To church or not to church

Here's an article that looks at people who are "Spiritual but not Religious." It calls them SBNR's and we all probably know some - many of us were SBNR's at one time in our life.

To Church or Not to Church

Survey Says . . . .

The Core Vision Team has looked over the results of the congregational survey and we've developed a 4-page summary called the "Core Story." We hope everyone will read this story and will provide feedback especially about the question: What is God calling us to do over the next 5 to 10 years?



http://www.scribd.com/doc/6041020/CGPC-Core-Story-2008

Be in Fellowship Hall this Sunday after second service to discuss this story and where we go from here.

Are we "Evangelical?"

In describing Center Grove Presbyterian I've often said that we are "evangelical." I came across an article by John Ortberg that talks about that word. Check it out and see if you would say that does or does not describe our church.

Remember the Core Vision event will be Sunday 9/21 at the church. Check back here for more info on the survey results in our "Core Story."

Church Survey

Today we did a survey at church. We got 211 surveys - so I think that's a good percentage of our members and regular attenders.

So after taking the survey and thinking about our church and future, what came up? What should we be talking about? Or maybe a better question, what do you think God is telling us or teaching us?

PS. the next major church-wide event will be Sept. 21 after church where we'll review the results of the survey and have dialog about where God may be leading us.

Missions at CGPC

Tomorrow and Saturday a group from CGPC will be doing a mission project at Camp Pyoca in Brownstown, IN. We'll be doing construction work helping the camp build some new structures that will help move the Presbytery's camping ministry forward.

How big a deal is "missions" at CGPC. It seems to be part of our DNA. Our funding mechanism is probably unique - at least I haven't found a church that does it our way. Here are some questions to ponder:

• In thinking about our current state, what is the role of missions?
  
• In what way did the role of missions change from our first pastor to our second? (If you've been around that long!)
  
• What changes, if any, do you see over the next 10 years?
  

Saved, healed and made whole

For our devotion/discernment time last night our Core Vision team meditated and discussed something from last week's sermon. Pastor Alice said that the word usually translated as "Save" in the New Testament also can mean "heal" and/or "make whole."

Thinking about CGPC, in what way are we called to be part of God's work in saving, healing, and making whole? For example, how do we relate to and minister to hurting and broken people in our congregation and in our community? Is this part of what it means when we say "disciples change the world?"

One thing that occurred to me after the meeting is the way many people from our church have reached across the street to set up a worship/teaching service on Sunday mornings at The Hearth. To me that's an example of a saving, healing, making whole ministry.

John 3:17. "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save (and heal, and make whole) the world."

Strengths Again?

Last night our team met after my hiatus on a mission trip to Tulum, Mexico. We had a great discussion about what we're learning about the strengths of CGPC. We developed and discussed a list of strengths. We asked ourselves 2 questions about the list. 1. What are the top three things that draw you or keep you here? 2. What do you think are the top three things that would encourage a new guest to return?

Here's our list. We'd love to see how others answer the 2 questions:

• Relationship-focused
• Global mission focus
• Biblically based
• Diversity of age groups
• Lay leadership
• Heritage and history
• Home groups
• Engaging pastor
• Friendliness
• Children's programs
• Worship services
• Adult education programs
• Lots of kids and young families in our geographic area
• Ability to learn from our mistakes
• A Praying church
• Resources
• Property
• Location
• Unity
• Hymnals
• Organ
• Reverence

So what do you think?

Ever feel stuck?

Just in case you feel like we're stuck, check out this video. As we move along this transition as a church family I hope we all feel like we're not waiting on anybody else to move us or save us. We wait only on the LORD!

Key Dates Set - Update

The team met last night and selected three key dates for Congregational input.

August 17 (New Date) we'll do an all-church survey. It will be done at the tail end of each worship service so we can maximize participation. We'll also figure out a way for those out of town that Sunday to do the survey by the following Sunday.

The second key date is Sunday September 21 - from noon to 2 pm. That will be an all-church Vision Event where we'll have a chance to discuss in small groups where God may be leading our church.

There will also be a retreat in October with the Session and staff to try to move to a final version of our vision.

Remarkable at CGPC

Daniel Pink - author of A Whole New Mind - posted recently about how important it is to make a product or service "remarkable." I know that our church is not a product or a service or a business. However, I think there are many things about CGPC that could be called remarkable.

Maybe this is the same as the strength question, or maybe not. Maybe remarkable could mean, when I tell my friends or family about CGPC here's what I say is special - that is remarkable.

For example, one thing I always remark about is our passion and heart for missions.

What else?

Steve Williams

What are some of our strengths?

This week we need to start having good conversations with each other about:

• what we value about our church,
  
• our strengths,
  
• our opportunities,
  
• our church organization, and
  
• what we feel most passionate about
  

Let's start with strengths. What are some of the strengths of our church? I'll throw out a few:

Purpose statement. We not only say "we believe we are called to be a church where strangers become friends, friends become disciples, and disciples change the world", we try to live it and base our programs and activities and budgets on that purpose.

Relationships. I think I stay involved here because of the groups and teams and friends that I've become attached to - as much as anything.

I'll add some more later. Any response?

Opening Post

The idea of this blog is to create dialog and discussion around what is the mission and vision of Center Grove Presbyterian Church. We will post discussion questions from time to time.