Our Vision
Notes
Transcript
To become a multi campus church of regional significance with a global impact; known for glorifying God and bringing hope and healing to the community through acts of service, holistic care, education, mission and disciple making
There are three distinct parts to this vision.
There is the scale, the outcome and the scope.
Or the size of the vision, the achievement and the variety of ministries we hope to have.
I want to talk briefly about the scale of the vision before looking at the desired outcome and scope.
To become a multi campus church of regional significance with a global impact
For those who do not know we had planned on a very different and pioneering approach
For the first time Queensland Baptists were supportive of the approach I proposed of funding a significant community facility consisting of a sports centre, holistic care, coffee shop and church offices upfront in a greenfield development.
Then COVID19 came along and the entire financial environment changed.
Others had done this but always from an established and significant congregation.
Some had existing church properties and were planting another congregation, others had very significant business backing and a sizable new congregation seeking to establish a permanent facility.
But no one had built a significant facility upfront without either a congregation or large church with existing assets behind them.
The closest was our ministry in Woodford where I was able to convince Qld Baptists to buy the old picture theatre within six weeks of our arrival in town.
It took over 12 months for that deal to get through council and reach settlement and then a further 6 months or so before we could actually use the building for church services.
But it is a record which stands to this day for a church plant without a parent congregation.
Before that in Tully we swapped the manse for the Squash Courts within 3 months of arriving in town.
In Woodford we secured a property within 6 weeks.
It would have been really nice to break my own record for a third time but it wasn’t to be.
Please understand that it is still my dream to one day lead this congregation to acquire our own facility.
To hand over a church that you have founded to the new Pastor with your own facility and thriving ministries is one of the greatest joys.
But let’s get back to the present.
None of those dreams matter if the church is not firstly being what it is commanded to be.
The absolute core of any churches vision has to be God’s Glory and his mission for them.
Anything else is just pretending.
Anything else is actually an offense to God.
We desire to be Known for glorifying God and bringing hope and healing to the community
That is the heart of who we are to be.
Everything before and after is only a description of what we hope it will look like.
Do you see that at the very core of our vision statement is the Great Commandment and the Great Commission wrapped into one simple sentence.
Glorifying God, isn’t that what the Great Commandment and the Great Commission have at their core?
Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30 and Luke 10:27 all make this clear.
37 Jesus replied, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’
Hope and Healing, isn’t that a summary of the second part of the Great Commandment and what the Great Commission is all about.
39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
Hope is found in Christ alone.
Healing comes from him and is experienced in the midst of the community of Christ.
18 Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
We desire to be Known as a church which glorifies God and brings hope and healing to the community
A Church should not be known for its lovely buildings, although great facilities are a very useful ministry tool which you can use to glorify God and bring hope and healing to the community.
A Church should not be known for its size, although if you are really fulfilling the mission of Christ in almost every circumstance a church will grow.
You do have to also get the right structure and leadership, otherwise you artificailly limit what can happen.
And size gives resources which help to fulfill the mission of Christ.
A Church should not be known for anything other than the fact that it glorifies God and brings hope and healing to its community.
If it is doing these things then it will be known in its local community and if it doing these things really well then it will be known in wider spheres.
Our vision is To become a multi campus church of regional significance with a global impact; known for glorifying God and bringing hope and healing to the community through acts of service, holistic care, education, mission and disciple making
I dream of a church which is regionally significant and has a global impact because I dream of a church which is glorifying God and bringing hope and healing to its community.
I dream of a church which is bringing the whole Gospel for the whole person; locally, regionally and globally.
If we really work at these things then we will see growth and we will see increasing influence and that is a good thing because that enables us to see God’s name further glorified and more people given hope and healing in Christ.
Do you see the progression here.
We start where we are.
With each step forward we seek to fulfill our mission and in so doing our vision grows closer to becoming reality.
It does not happen overnight, but it can happen over time as long as we remain true to the calling and not get distracted by our own comfort.
This brings us to the scope or variety of ministries we hope to see.
Now let me be clear here, it doesn’t actually matter what you do as long as what you are doing is working.
We just think there are certain things that a church should have and do because that is what we are used to.
Worship services, Sunday school, youth group, kids club, home groups, ladies and men’s breakfasts.
All of these things are what we think of when we think about church ministries.
But the reality is these can all be activities we do, or they can be ministries we conduct in the power of the Holy Spirit.
There is a big difference and many people don’t actually know that.
In many places, especially under times of persecuation the church has none of these things.
A handful of believers simply gather in secret and pray quietly and share quietly what God has been teaching them from the Scriptures.
Perhaps one of them may know enough to teach the few gathered together.
There are no programs, no activities, certainly none of the usual trappings of church.
But God uses their faithfulness regardless.
In our context we can have a full range of ministries.
it is simply a matter of what someone has the passion for and can gather a team to see it happen.
Note that our vision doesn’t describe any particular ministry.
It describes an approach.
We seek to Glorify God and bring hope and healing to the community through acts of service, holistic care, education, mission and disciple making
Acts of Service, that is simply loving people, serving people in whatever situation we find them.
It might mean simple charity through food, or perhaps mowing a lawn.
It could go further to community transport or whatever it is people need and it is within our means to provide.
Holistic Care, Toni and I have always dreamed of having a church that is able to offer counselling and health care and physical care and rehabilitation.
Of actually caring for the whole person in one location as part of a multidisciplined team focussed on bringing hope and healing in the name of Christ.
Education, Wether it be formal education of children through a school or a homeschooling cooperative, helping parents to discover how to raise a child through the various stages of life.
Providing couples with insight into the dynamics of being partners or helping people to understand how to be faithful stewards of the resources God has given them.
The church has always had a role to play in providing education, wouldn’t it be wonderful if through providing knowledge we also enabled people to find hope in Christ and healing for their relationships?
Mission,
Romans 10:14-15 says
14 But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? 15 And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”
In so many places people have never encounted an understanding of Christ.
How will people know if no one is there to tell them?
A church that is being obedient to God’s mission and vision for them will be a church that not only supports missionaries but also raises up some of its own people to go to those places where Christ is not known and to bring his message of hope and healing to those communities.
The real test is when children and teenageers feel the call of God upon their heart and their parents and grandparents encourage that call instead of telling the Youth Pastor to back off!
One day we will have children’s and youth pastors.
The measure of this churche’s committment to the purposes of God is wether the parents of those children and youth support a pastor whose ministry empoweres those children to go on mission themselves overseas or locally by inviting the unclean kids of the community into the youth group and actually befriending them.
Many a pastor has suffered because the kids they disciple actually get committed to the Gospel but their parents don’t like the implications of overseas service or local mission amongst those they consider unclean.
Do you want your children hanging around with outcasts as Jesus did?
Disciple making, is what the Great Commission calls us to, it means our young people will get radical for Christ.
It means we will raise up our own missionaries to overseas places.
It means we will serve those in need.
It means we will be advocates for justice.
It means we will sacrifice our own comformt and put our money and our time where our mouth is and resource ministries, even those that have no direct benefit for us because we have the means and someone else has the passion.
It means that our heart will always ask, “what is God’s purpose for us in this situation.?”
How can I advance his cause through this church?
Mission and Vision statements can be nice sounding words that no one takes seriously, but you have them because the pastors says you should.
Or they can be real expressions of what the church actually is and is on about.
The greatest risk for us as a church plant is that we forget that these statements are who we aspire to be and we focus on our own comfort and doing what we have always done.