Future Planning

At the end of this week, all of our teams at Faith are supposed to have their mission statements done. Then the future planning team is going to meet again and come up with a strategy for the next three and a half years. I'm also meeting with my mutual ministry team for this first time this week.

When this work is done, we'll have a better sense of where we're headed and how to get there together.

"How blessed is God! He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth."

This certainly has to be the basis for our plans or we're missing the boat.

"It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for."

Everything we do personally and as a church ought to be modeled after what Jesus would have for us.

"Every time I pray, I ask God to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do."

Identity first (children of God), purpose second (kingdom builders). We're talking about this at our NCD team tomorrow night. We need to live our our spirituality first and then learn from others, drawing closer to the heart of God in the process.

Paul ends with something that I wish were true in our society, "The church is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church."

This is true: "The church is Christ's body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence."

With Jesus at the center of our worlds, we are to be salt and light to those in need, filling the world with God's presence. How blessed are we to be in on this work God is doing in and through us!