Vision – David Horita
Welcome to 2018 and our new website and new blog. It is one small step as we seek to implement our new vision. In April the churches of Fellowship Pacific overwhelmingly agreed to pursue a vision that will demand all of our passion and focus. Read the new vision statement, and note the use of the word “every:”
Our mandate until 2022 is “to develop relationships and resources that propel every Fellowship Pacific church to be accountable to their gospel mandate.”
“Every” means that there are no exceptions, no excuses, no cheap justifications. It means that we, as a family of churches, agree that accountability matters as we reach an increasingly secular world with the good news of Jesus Christ. We are in this together through our intensified relationships and increased resourcing.
The Regional Board also established some daunting targets that they believe this new vision should lead us towards. Note again the intentional use of the word “every.”
Target 1: To increase our number of congregations by 30%, with people coming to Christ in every church every year.”
Target 2: To have 2500 new leaders impacted through intentional leadership development.
Target 3: To have every church within Fellowship Pacific instituting an intentional discipleship plan.
When we passed the new vision statement, we accepted the responsibility to pursue these targets together. The “every” in these statements is referring to your church. My church. Their church. Every church. I acknowledge that it seems a bit overbearing to keep pointing out that the word “every” implicates you in this mission. Fortunately, I have no issue with being redundant, if it means that the message gets through!
In the Fellowship Ministry Centre we are already moving towards these goals. We spent the summer creating a Discipleship Framework that can help each church create their intentional plan. We are developing a new church planting plan, with increased funding, to reach the “30 new church” goal. We are retooling our consultation processes to help our churches become increasingly healthy and missional in order to attain the “every church, every year” target. We are building innovative leadership training options for current and emerging leaders. Our staff are all in, and all challenged by the possibility of glorifying our amazing and powerful God through achieving this vision.
But our Ministry Centre staff is also extremely aware that we are not the front lines of ministry. You are. One of our five values at Fellowship Pacific states that we believe in the Local Church. We believe that leaders are made in the church, and have changed our core training methodologies because of that. We believe that lost people are reached with the gospel when healthy churches help people to become fully formed disciples, and live their lives missionally within their communities. We believe that new churches, both satellites and new plants, are essential for this to happen – since the local church is at the forefront of the battle. We know that the vast majority of you believe the same thing.
We have a new vision. It must include every one of us as individuals and every one of our churches, or it will not be achieved. Why? Because it is your vision, your mission, and your belief. At the Ministry Centre we are anxious to be accountable for our part in helping you to achieve this. Please join us, and be willing to be accountable for your part. The word “every” means just that.