joining God in his redemptive work

This week our staff has been working on vision and direction. We have been faithfully praying and dreaming together seeking God's heart and hand as we move into the next 18 months. In the words of Blackaby, we don't want to tell God what we are doing and then ask Him to bless it, we want always to see where God is already moving and jump on board. As we have sought scripture and looked at what God is doing, here are some of the conclusions we have come to:

1. Our vision has been too small. Our goals should not be about reaching x number of people or having x number in attendance in the building. Instead, we must join God in His redemptive work in our city. We must ask ourselves, "how can we be used of God to change our city!" Some answers:

2. We must teach the essentials of our faith effectively. As Tim Keller says, "We must teach people to 'think Christianly'. The erosion of a Christian world view in our culture has had obvious impact. We must not assume that people know the language and doctrine of scripture. It is not cultures job to teach them...it is our job. We will teach the Bible with conviction and boldness and clarity.

3. We will seek to become a congregation of missionaries. The church is not to be a congregation of consumers. We are not a business, we are a family. We must seriously minister to our community with the love of Christ. We call it our LP2C formula. We will agressively pursue outreach ministries to the poor, the displaced, the addicted and the outcast. We will adopt elementary schools, apartment complexes and nursing homes in low income areas. We will start more ministries to the homeless and the working poor through Celebrate Recovery, Men's Fraternity and the ROC clinic. These ministries will not be the "end all" to our ministry endevours, but only the entry points to a way of life and a beginning place as we present the gospel and find more effective ways to love our neighbor.

4. We will continue to focus on outreach to our community through the CUBE. In just one week, we have registered 1800 new contacts through our community facility. We will seek new and better ways to develop relationships with people in our community who are not connected to the Church and who don't know Christ.

5. We will greatly expand our community group ministry, with the ultimate goal of putting community groups in every neighborhood of western Oklahoma City. Biblical community is key in spreading the gospel. These groups will become bastions of prayer and community outreach. Each small group should be an "open door" to friends who don't know Christ.

6. We will continually utilize the arts as an effective way of connecting to culture. The arts spring out of culture and are therefore a natural way of creatively communicating the gospel message. While the arts are benign and contain no spiritual content in and of themselves, they can be used of God to draw people to Him. Council Road has always valued the arts; we will build on that tradition and continue to build this ministry and invite new generations into it.

7. We will become more and more a people of prayer. We will emphasize the need for more concentrated prayer in our lives together in biblical community, as well as in our personal prayer discipline. We will continually call the church to times and seasons of prayer throughout the year.

8. We will employ an Acts 1:8 model of reaching the nations for Christ. We will not focus just on our "Jerusalem" but will lift our eyes to what GOd is doing around the world as well. This year alone, we are planning 11 short term mission trips in some of the most remote parts of the earth. We will continue to strengthen our International missions initiative as we become more "missional" at home.

9. We will seek more effective ways of engagning our culture with the gospel message, utilizing natural times of sustained interest such as Christmas, Easter and back to School. As the apostles stood in the Temple Collonade during the Jewish holiday, we will proclaim the message of Christ most assertively when the opportunity is ripe.

10. We will continue to emphasize the biblical vision God has called us to in loving people to Christ and helping them on their journey with God and others as we celebrate the goodness of God, connect to the truths of God's Word, engage in biblical community as we pursue His purposes of grace in our great commission cause.

I agree with Bob Reccord (President of the North American Mission Board):

A missional church is one with intentionality to equip its people with an authentic biblical faith and a desire to incarnate an Acts 1:8 lifestyle as a corporate body and as individuals alike. They are opening to ever changing methods to deliver an unchanging message in a relevant manner to the context in which they find themselves. Style does not become a hang up for them as they realize the issue is substance. They clearly understand the mission is not about them, but about Him and His Kingdom and are willing to stand side by side with others of like Biblical conviction on the historic tenants of the faith to accomplish the mission of taking the gospel to the world.