Looking for our Mission Statement

On Thursday night the Deacons met at church. It is an exciting time. We are looking at our purpose and trying to discern God's will for FBC Norwich. Sounds silly doesn't it? We know why the church exists. It is here to glorify God and to fulfill the great commission.

We are not looking to reinvent the world wide mission of the church. God did a good job. We are looking to focus in on what God is calling us to do and be here on the West side of Norwich, Connecticut, USA. It is the kind of thing we talked about when we were engaged in discussions with Central Baptist Church talking about a possible merger. We want to discern what God is calling us to do in 2011 and beyond.

So we began by looking at a list of things we decided were part of our purpose fro coming together as a church. The list included the following.

• Bring Christ Into Our Lives
• Do God's Will
• Fulfill great commission
• Share God's love
  
• Feed & Clothe Poor
• Teach God’s Word
• Gather With Other Believers
• Pray For Each Other
• Share God’s Word
• Learn (Study) God’s Word
• Bring God’s Word To Life
• Comforting The Sick
• Beacon To Jesus’ Love
• Bring New Believers To Christ
• Physical Care For One Another
• Christian Education For All
• Share God’s Love Around World
• Deepen Each Others Understanding Of Gospel
• Inspire & Refresh
• Glorify God

Then we looked at our church covenant, this list and tried to come up with a mission statement. We knew none of them would be the final version of what we were looking for but this was more a brainstorming session. Everyone's response went up on the board and this is what we came up with.

• To let God’s love shine through you…
• To bring the knowledge of God’s love to everyone…
• Put God first before making any decisions.
• A Bible believing church family that seeks to reveal Jesus’ saving message in fulfilling the great commission to other believers and teach God’s word to the unsaved. Will do this by living as Christ like example bringing God’s word to life. Caring for all in our community.
• Coming together to learn, experience & see God’s love
• Open our doors & sharing God’s love to all who walk in…
• Seeking to do God’s will by meeting together regularly to pray for each other, share and teach God’s word…
• Spread the good news of God’s love & grace to our human family, through word & deed, so that those who already know will be encouraged to always do their best to live in the way Jesus taught and showed us we should, and so those who do not know it will see the light of God’s love in us.
• Open our hearts to people who need help in knowing God.
• An authentic faith community showing God’s will through word and deed.

Our homework was to look at these and to try to refine one or more of them to fit into an all encompassing statement that reflects what we feel God is calling us to do. Stay tuned. There will be more discussion to come.

If you have ideas on this subject, feel free to share them with Curt Brockway, our chair, or any member of the Diaconate.

Peace!

Cal