Let me remind you that we have developed an awesome Mission Statement. In my many years of ministry in the local church and many years of consulting with churches across the nation, I can tell you, with confidence, that the Mission Statement of First Christian Church is the best and strongest statement I have ever seen.
We are Called and Empowered by God to Love, Serve, Grow, and Share God’s message of Healing and Hope with All
Since we are not in the habit of being
driven by a mission statement, learning to do this will take some time and
focused effort. We have also talked about making decisions motivated by our
core values. Core Values are more challenging because they come from our core
and changing our values calls for some changes at the very center of our
beings.
Our stated Core Values are: Radical Love
(Loving others like God loves us.); Reach the Lost (We do church with a
constant eye toward how we can best help those who do not yet know God get to
know God.); Obedience to God (Making following God and living our lives to
honor God our top priority.). These are great Core Values, but they are not yet
the values we practice. We all struggle with these values because our basic
core value is ME. For most of us our core value is getting what we want; making
sure that decisions are made that please me. My happiness and comfort are what
it is all about. Thus, changing our core values is a tremendous challenge. It
is a challenge that many people and many churches never meet.
Let’s look at an example. This past week
the Worship Committee announced plans to move the times of our worship services
from 8:30 and 10:30 to 9:00 and 11:00 beginning on the first Sunday of
September. This is a three month experiment that will be evaluated the first
week in December. This change was made with the approval of our incoming Senior
Pastor. The purpose of the change is twofold: to make it more convenient for
some of our senior members to make it to the early service (An act of love.);
to make the contemporary worship available at a time that might work better for
the unchurched (Share God’s message of healing and hope with all.).
It was reported to me that following
worship this Sunday some people were grumbling. I was not shocked. I, too, don’t
like change and changing service times will impact my life. On the other hand, I
don’t mind grumbling. I’ve been known to grumble myself. Here’s the deal. If
you don’t want to change the times of our worship services and your reason is NOT
about your personal comfort or your personal preference, tell me why. If your
reasons for opposing changing our worship times are rooted in following our
mission and your worry is about concerns for others and not about you, please
tell me what you think. If not, pray about it and ask God to change your heart.
I pray every day that God will change my heart – my core values. We are in this
struggle toward spiritual maturity together.
Copyright © 2012,
William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved
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