Chip’s Message: Growing in Gratitude

Who was it that said, “I love it when a plan comes together!”? I’m pretty sure it was John “Hannibal” Smith on the TV show The A-Team, and I agree with him. His statement comes to mind as I watch the progress being made on our Grounded in Gratitude, Forward in Faith campaign. The new roof is done. The solar panels are being installed. We’ll be living into a Green Faith initiative to lower our carbon footprint. We can tell people about what it means that our building is a part of our mission to walk lightly on the earth and to model what it means to be faithful stewards of God’s resources.

The construction also gives us new opportunities to connect with our mission as a church. We are building and remodeling not just our building but our ministry so that we can continue to find our place in God’s mission. We are a place where people worship, where faith is nurtured, where we prepare and send people out on mission trips, where music and singing connects us to God and one another, where parents can grow in faith and model it at home for their children, where people in all sorts of families know that we are a community with and for one another, where broken lives can find healing and wholeness. In other words, we are a church on a mission to make disciples who know God’s love and grace in their lives and who then go out and live and share those gifts with others. Our mission isn’t simply or only about the building. It’s about living our commitment to follow the ways of Jesus Christ and then living that commitment in this world God loves, believing that all of who we are and what we have will transform us and the world.

The construction is a reminder that we have committed ourselves to certain priorities that will help us enact God’s mission through us. Under the overarching roof of Radical Hospitality, we are organizing around the pillars of

  • Compelling Worship
  • Lifelong Faith Formation
  • Intentional Fellowship
  • Inspirational Stewardship
  • Transformational Mission

 

These pillars frame the way we view our ministry and mission, as well as we understand our building as a gift to us and the community. They invite us to stay focused on impacting lives with the good news of Jesus Christ and joining God’s work in the world. I look forward to the ways we can live into these priorities as our building goes through its changes, and as we do the same.

Thank you for your faithfulness through the construction and the transition it represents. You are giving faithfully to the ministry we share, and lives are being changed. You are being flexible as we have to adjust to blocked-off entrances, maintenance vehicles, room changes, and so much more. The construction itself is a spiritual practice.

And, thank you to our Campaign Project Management Team for their leadership of our campaign goals. Their help has empowered our commissions to take action on the many new things we said we would do as a church.

~Chip