By Not Known
It’s rare to find an organisation that doesn’t have a mission statement. Mission statements tell what we will do in order to fulfil the vision of what we want to be.
Our Ministry Plan 2006-2015 includes this mission statement.
Under God, our mission is to :
- honour God’s name through faithful and reverential worship and in faithful preaching of God’s word;
- abide in Christ as a living example through the teaching and sharing of his word, learning about and serving him, understanding his purpose and doing what he taught us to do;
- be an intentional disciple-making community that glorifies God in giving him first place in all that we are and do.
Notice the progression. We start with a concern that our Sunday gatherings are times where God is honoured. We honour him by listening to what he says, doing what he says, depending on him to meet our needs and telling of his greatness in word and song. Gathering like these help encourage us in the daily life of following Jesus in faith, hope and love.
As we were recently reminded in John 15, we must not only come to Christ but also ‘abide’ or ‘remain’ in him. This takes in all church activities that nurture and grow our faith, along with expressing it in service according to God’s gifts.
For some years now our ministry plan has included a focus on making disciples. This is the outward-looking aspect of our ministry. Disciple-making goes beyond mere conversion to Christianity. Disciple-making looks to form people into lifelong and whole-of-life followers of Jesus by teaching them his word and encouraging them to do as it says. do notice the word ‘intentional’. We need to be quite clear as to what a disciple is and quite purposeful about this aspect of our mission.
Finally, it is one thing to have a mission statement but another to fulfil it. Let’s all prayerfully ask this: What can I do to make the church’s mission a reality?