Over the past two years, our church board has been doing some very grueling work of listening to the voice of God in our midst.
It seems that in our lives and the culture that surrounds us many divergent voices are competing for our attention. Voices telling us to “hold to what we have”, “remove what’s getting in the way”, “to jump onto the progressive bandwagons of church culture”, “to jump off of the bandwagons of church culture”, “to simplify”, “be like this church or that church”, “do this”, “do that”, “pray this way”, “be still”, “be active”, “create great programs”, “be missional”, “take of care of those inside the church”, “minister to those outside the church”, and many, many more.
As you can tell it’s easy to get lost and confused in the shuffle.
In midst of prayer, deliberate planning and thinking, conversing, reading books about church structure and sometimes painful discussions, we have come to adopt a new vision statement. A vision statement that we hope will help us to clarify our present and future directions as we listen to God’s voice.
So we have chosen to simplify and focus our selves into everyday actions of serving Jesus. Here is the long form of Emmanuel’s vision statement:
“Emmanuel Nazarene is a Community of Christ Followers Glorifying God by Making Christlike Disciples Who Learn, Live and Share Jesus Everyday!”
In short we are “Learning Jesus, Living Jesus, and Sharing Jesus Everyday!” This is what we believe is our greatest purpose and adventure in this life. This is what will ultimately glorify God and help us to be Christlike disciples who are making Christlike disciples.
May Jesus’ name be made famous among all people.
