We as elders met last week. We, like you, are realizing what Pastor Bobby has said: “It’s an exciting time to be part of NSCBC. Not because we’ve discovered some new strategy or hidden ‘talent’ among ourselves, but because we are realizing more about how God is passionate about magnifying his Son and the Gospel.”
In our meeting Bobby shared how attendance and finances have been encouraging over the Summer. Praise God! He also shared how the staff and ministry leaders are working to determine how our vision and focus should impact their areas of ministry. Each elder has been linked to a staff member to encourage them in this endeavor. These plans will be shared at an all-church meeting in the early fall (date TBA).
We then moved on to review our church vision which is:
To see a Gospel Movement on the North Shore
“Our long-term desire is to see an extraordinary work of God’s Spirit, in every community on the North Shore, which results in thousands of people meeting Christ, growing as disciples, and serving in Gospel-Centered churches. We want to see lives renewed, families transformed, homes opened up, skeptics welcomed, prayer mobilized, leaders developed, old divisions healed and churches partnering together in mission. We want to take part in a Gospel Movement that declares the reign of Christ and re-aligns all of life to his holy love — transforming the landscape of the North Shore.”
Based on this we sought to further define a church purpose/focus statement. We agreed on:
“We are an ordinary people united by an extraordinary hope, transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ, and called to live on mission together.” We concluded that in order to help focus our efforts and ministries we might need to expand the statement (or provide background material) to explain how this might be done.
In the last section of our meeting we discussed what it means to contextualize our ministry so we can better accomplish our vision. We realized that we don’t fully understand the North Shore culture and need a richer grasp of our community’s hopes, fears, dreams, struggles, etc. Knowing this will help us connect the Gospel to everyday life. And this knowledge comes through real and honest friendship.
—Howard Botterill, Elder
