Refocusing Our Mission Statement
As we continue our discussion on a new mission statement for our church, I wanted to take the opportunity to breakdown our mission statement. Our new mission statement is:
We exist to make disciples by gathering people to worship God, connecting people to a Christ-centered community, growing people to reach their world in the power of the Holy Spirit, and multiplying disciples to expand God’s Kingdom.
This mission statement is a little longer than the previous one, so this week, I wanted to tackle the first part of this statement. “We exist to make disciples” aligns directly with the Great Commission, which call us to “make disciples of all nations.” If we are not making disciples, then what are we making? If we call ourselves followers of Jesus, we should strive to produce what He wants us to produce…disciples.
Before Jesus even called His first disciple, there were disciples of John the Baptist who were curious to find out who Jesus was.
The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples,36 and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So, they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. John 1:35-39
These men wanted to know if this was the man that John had been talking about. They had questions, and Jesus invited them to “come and see” who He was. They had questions and Jesus was willing to answer them. As a church, we should be inviting to the people we know to help explore the claims of Christ and find answers to their spiritual questions. Our Gather Goal is to invite people into our homes and to our church to find Christ.
When looking at the Disciple-Making Map, the purple section is Gather and there is a yellow line to the right of it. This line is a demarcation line of people ready to move into the next part of the map of Connect. A person does this by putting their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, or if they have already done that, they are wanting to join our church. The whole idea of Gather is to provide an opportunity for people to meet Christ and meet Shady Oaks. Next week, we will move to the next part of the Disciple-Making Map to Connect.