“Where there is no vision
the people perish…” (Proverbs
29:18, KJV)
Vision
is essential if any person or group (including a church) is to ever achieve its
fullest potential. Having, sharing, and
implementing a biblical Vision gives us a direction in which to travel, a goal
to shoot for, a unity and efficiency in the Holy Spirit, and can harness God’s energy
and power to get us to where He wants us to be. And as the scripture above indicates, the lack of Vision can effectively destroy
us.
To
that end, most of you probably know that for the last few years, our church has
prayed, studied, learned our history, and listened to the needs of our community
and world, leading up to the adoption of our church-wide VISION of “Nurturing Community, Connecting All Through
Christ” back in 2015.
At
that time, an implementation plan was also adopted which laid out a series of ideas
and objectives to help us live out and live into this Vision. Since then, many of these objectives have
been accomplished, others are not yet complete, and some have been modified or deleted
to fit current realities. We celebrate the many things that this Vision has
helped us to do already!
The
time has come, however, when we as a church need to be thinking and praying
about what God wants next for our
church through this Vision.
Specifically, what “next steps” do we need take? Are there one or two “big ideas” or “signature
ministries” around which our “next step” could be organized and articulated? Whatever these end up being, they would be
things that – by their very nature – would be big enough to capture the hearts,
minds, energy, work and (yes) finances of our entire 2000+ members and friends.
That’s
why we need your help! Coming up this
month, our church leaders will be sponsoring a series of four identical “Vision Input TOWN HALL Meetings”
where anyone from our church is invited and encouraged to share their thoughts
and input about the dreams YOU have and needs YOU see for McKendree UMC over
the next 2-10 years. These thoughts and input will then be shared with our new Strategic
Visioning Team, whose work will begin in January 2019 to discern and recommend that
proposed “next step(s)” to our church leadership for adoption and implementation.
These Town Hall meetings will be held on the following dates and times in the church Fellowship Hall: Thursday, September 13 at 7pm; Sunday, September 16 at 9:30am; Sunday, September 16 at 11:00am; and Wednesday, September 26 at 6:30pm. In the meantime, please know that we need your
input and feedback in these guided times of discussion so that your church
leaders can begin to hear from God what He desires us to be doing next. So,
please mark your calendar for those events and plan to attend the one of your
choice. If for some reason you can’t be present
for any of these, please feel free to mail or email your ideas to the church office.
Until
then, thank you for continuing to help us be about “Nurturing Community, Connecting All Through Christ” here in
Gwinnett County! And never forget that God
loves you and I do, too!
