After three congregational meetings after worship, we are drawing near to completing the first phase of our visioning process, as we discern who God is calling us to be as a church. We all agreed that the benediction, which we repeat at the end of each service, paints a picture of the what we want our lives to look like. We have summarized the benediction in the following way:
The vision is for a church that helps people discover the God who is present and active in their lives, the God who wants to work through them in the lives of others. It is a church that then equips them to discover their purpose in God, giving them the training, the skills and the opportunities to do what God is calling them to do.
For much more on what this means, please listen to the sermons from the past three weeks. They can be found at http://claytonpc.com/relaunch.
We talked about the importance of distilling this down into a short and memorable phrase, which can serve as a short-hand way of referring to our big idea. The proposed phrase is:
Empowering People to Serve Christ
As a point of clarification, this statement is meant to guide us in our future and in our decision-making, not necessarily to serve as a tagline which will invite other people to church. It may indeed draw people, but its main intent is to keep us focused in what God is calling us to do.
The next step will be to flesh this out with goals, programs and specific plans of action.
The other item to be concluded is a new name for our church. There have been two that people have really liked and one new one that has recently been proposed. They are:
1. The Church of the Vine
2. Discovery Church
3. New Life Church
Please think and pray about the right name for us.
The Steering Committee invites you to stay after worship for a few minutes on Sunday so that we can consider the short statement and the new name. If you cannot attend for any reason, please feel free to give us your input by replying to this email. We want to make sure that everyone gives their input and is heard.
If we can complete this first phase, we can move on to the second phase of fleshing out plans of action, especially in regard to a high-profile relaunch this Fall.
Thanks for all of your participation in this wonderful process.