THE BIG FOUR

As I write this our church staff is trying to settle into a new (temporary) set of offices.  Boxes are everywhere.  IT folks are working on getting connections made.  We're waiting on a new set of keys to the building.  I'm looking around for some books I'd like to use, right now, for this article, but things are packed away in boxes.  Those will get unpacked next week.

Everything seems a little upside-down.  One of the challenges when things are upside-down is to remember what right-side up looks like.  It is easy to lose your focus when you are dealing with things you didn't think you were going to deal with.

So what is our focus for 2014?  Where are we headed?  What parts of our life will get special attention, prayer and energy?

I am suggesting the following BIG FOUR for the coming year.  Our leaders will pray over these and offer their feedback.

THE OPEN DOOR  -  This continues to be one of the most promising ministries we have for reaching people who may not feel comfortable with a traditional church setting.  We've been in a transition during the last year, and our TOD team -led by Pastor Stacee and Travis Jeffords- are going to be leading us in a new, more focused and intentional chapter at TOD.  One of my commitments is to do what I can, from the pulpit, to invite the entire congregation at FUMCB to discover a renewed passion for The Open Door as a key way we have of reaching and serving the larger world.

HOSPITALITY  -  The larger a congregation the more thoughtful its strategy for welcoming guests must be.  It's not just a warm welcome (welcome center, loving and helpful greeter and ushers, etc.) that is needed, but a plan for follow up.  Ashli Lovell is helping us translate our love for people into a strategy for welcoming people, and helping them connect with the community at FUMCB/The Open Door.  If you like people, if you want everyone who visits here to know they are loved by God and that they matter to us, then sign up to help with ushering, greeting, or serving as a part of the hospitality team.

FRUITFUL CONGREGATIONS JOURNEY (FCJ)  -  This program is designed to help congregations move forward with vision so that they make a difference in their community and the world.  Our FCJ team has been working through a series of books that explore what it looks like for a congregation to be vital, alive, and blessing the world for God.  This Shared Learning Experience will lead us to Stage 2 which will be about assessing our ministry.  FCJ is going to help us see who we are, why we are here, where we are headed, and what this says to us about all sorts of decisions (the use of the old post office lot, our missions outreach, staffing, new ways of sharing God's unchanging truth to a world that is always changing, etc.).ah

BUILDING  -  We are at the finishing stages of the courtyard project.  Now our leaders are beginning a long-term conversation and study about deferred maintenance needs here in our historic building.  If the building at Washington and 4th is going to be an effective instrument for mission and service and worship during the next 25-50 years, what do we need to do with it?

The challenging thing with priorities, of course, is that there are all sorts of good, important, on-going ministries that will go on...need to go on.  So it isn't like the other parts of our life (PDO, children's ministries, youth and young adults, Jubilee College Ministry, small groups, Wednesday food pantry, Interfaith Winter Shelter, etc.) will stop, but the BIG FOUR are where we will be placing special energy, prayer and attention.

A devotional by Max Lucado talks about having the heart of Christ.  He points out that Christ's heart was peaceful.  The disciples worried about how to feed a crowd of thousands, but not Jesus.  He thanked God for the opportunity.  The disciples shouted for fear in the middle of the storm, but not Jesus.  He slept through it.  Peter drew his sword to fight the soldiers, but not Jesus.  He lifted his hand to heal.

His heart was peace-full.  And the heart of Jesus, Lucado points out, was purposeful.  "Most lives aim at nothing in particular and achieve it," Lucado writes in Just Like Jesus.  "Jesus...could summarize his life with one sentence: 'The Son of man came to seek and to save the lost.'  Jesus was so focused on his task that he knew when to say, 'My time has not yet come,' and when to say, 'It is finished.'"

Will you consider the BIG FOUR?  Will you pray about the BIG FOUR?  Will you do everything you can to help God's church be as alive and vital as possible?  Will you offer yourself to help us be a congregation that makes a difference not only in the lives of individuals and families but in the larger world? 

In Christ and for Christ,

Mark