Many of us remember those famous words from the “Mission Impossible” series, but our mission is not impossible by any means, but an inspiring invitation to join the momentum of our church’s mission. During this past fall, our Vision Task Force explored the needs of our community, the gifts of our congregation, and the essence of our congregation’s mission statement, to develop 3 mission initiatives for the coming year, and they are to:

 

Build a loving inclusive faith community

Grow in faith and spiritual understanding

Serve others with gratitude and compassion

 

We determined that to be the church we’re called to be and to embrace the strategic innovation needed to get there, we need your help in achieving these goals. And we’re asking everyone to align with one of these initiatives in order to get there. But what does that mean? It means that everyone will sign up to participate in the development of these initiatives and take on various roles and responsibilities to accomplish the goals of that group. At an initial meeting of each group, the decisions about what to focus on for this year will be determined by the group, as well as how often to meet and how to assign tasks and responsibilities. Pastor Tim and the Long Range Planning Team will help lead the groups as we get started. So, tell me more about what each group is all about.

 

Building a loving inclusive community involves the many strategies to increase our church’s influence in our local community (within 30-minute drive). This would include increasing our visibility through signs, social media, advertisements, press releases, live-streaming, videos, and sharing and promoting all the incredible things going on at our church so that everyone in our community knows about Holy Spirit and what we mean to the community. Building also involves including more people in our fellowship events, social service efforts, children’s and adult programs. And of course, it also aims at bringing in new members to worship and to share the Good News of Christ with. We want our entire community to

celebrate with us in our mission.

​

Growing in faith and spiritual understanding involves nurturing everyone’s personal and spiritual growth. The emphasis here is on Christian education with a special emphasis on youth. In an affluent achievement-oriented community, religious education is a vital part of every child’s development, but many children receive little or no instruction, so we can make a big impact by expanding out ability to serve children and their families through our afterschool, Sunday school, confirmation and high school programs. Growing would also focus on adult programs as well that could focus on parenting and family, mental health, book clubs, and of course Bible and theological studies. Our goal would be that our entire community would grow in faith this year.

 

Serving others with gratitude and compassion involves the many social outreach opportunities we already have in our church, with a special emphasis on our local community. The emphasis here would be to determine how we can have a greater impact on the needs of our community, through collaboration, hands-on service, and creating greater awareness of these needs. We support many efforts each year, but we may want to align with fewer causes that we can be identified with. And we will want to invite others, encourage others, and celebrate all of our efforts to love and serve our neighbors with our entire community.

 

Now that you’ve got a sense of our mission initiatives, it’s time to choose where you’d like to give of your time and talents to fulfill the mission set before us. This Sunday, we’ll begin signing everyone one up, so take some time and pray about where God may be guiding you to serve, and let those innovative ideas take root and begin to grow. This is an awesome time to be the church! Let’s look forward to what God has in store for us. And thank you for all you do to serve God and the mission of our church.