A Glimpse of Vision 2015

Since today is the last day of 2014, and tomorrow is the first day of 2015, my heart and mind are focused on what God might do in and through Glory of Christ Fellowship (GCF) over the next year. The elders plan to lay out the details of our vision at the January 18 church members’ meeting, but just to give you a tease, here are some of the things that are capturing our hearts right now:

             

(1) Although it's been a long journey, we trust that the Lord will provide a Minister for Worship when he is pleased to do so. Whatever his timing, we will be articulating our vision for prospering the worship ministries in the life of GCF both within and without of the church in the early part of the year. We’re excited about amplifying our desire to praise the One who is alone worthy of our praise, and we’re excited about using music as a bridge to the unchurched in our city.

(2) I am very excited to preach through Acts in the winter and spring, to hear Pastor Kevin preach through 1 Peter in the summer, and to preach through 1 Samuel in the fall. The primary labor and love of my life is carefully meditating on and preaching through the Bible, so I am very excited to feast on these three books, each of which is rich in its own right.

(3) Although we’ve experienced some difficulties with regard to Community Groups in recent days, the elders are excited to press on and learn to love God, love each other, and love our neighbors in this context. The Lord helped us to make some necessary adjustments in 2014, and now we must move ahead with passion in 2015. We are very excited to see what the Lord will do as we become a true gospel community in the coming days.

(4) We are deeply thankful to God for the Christmas Outreach on December 13, 2014, and we’re looking forward to praying about what the Lord would have us do next. We plan to have an outreach vision meeting on January 10 which will begin the conversation, and hopefully by the end of January we’ll have a clear vision of an outreach event for the spring. In addition to developing a spring event, we have some ideas for increasing our effectiveness in Elk River and beyond, but you’ll have to come to the meeting to hear about that!

(5) We are deeply thankful to God that GCF has been able to invest over $25,000 into church planting over the last seven and one-half years, and we look forward to helping our newest church plants get off the ground in East Saint Louis and the west side of Chicago. We will be investing money in these efforts, and Pastor Charlie will be investing some of his time as well. Although we are a small church and haven’t yet planted a church of our own, we are directly impacting the planting of new congregations and for this we are deeply grateful to God.

(6) We are deeply thankful to God for the fruit we’ve borne in global missions over the last seven and one-half years, and we’re thankful for the difficulties we’ve endured along the way. Some of those difficulties were very difficult indeed, but we believe that it’s a new day for GCF global ministries and we have an exciting vision to lay before the church which we hope to implement in the early months of the year.

(7) The elders are very grateful to God and the people of GCF for the times of sabbatical that were granted to Pastor Kevin and myself. Pastor Kevin will be on sabbatical from January 1 to March 31, and I will be on sabbatical from May 25 to August 25. Sabbaticals are not vacations, rather, they are times of refreshing and renewal of body, spirit, and ministry vision. Both Pastor Kevin and I are elated to see what God will reveal to us in these months, and how it will impact the coming years of our ministry at GCF.

(8) GCF is now seven and one-half years old. In God’s time, we need to acquire a property and building of our own, and 2015 is the year in which we’ll start that process. We have articulated a vision for why we need a property and how we will raise $1 million dollars needed, and we plan to articulate that vision to the church on January 18.

(9) Over the last several months, I have been working on a formal "Church Leadership Internship" program for GCF and, Lord willing, we will implement that plan in the fall of 2015. We are praying that God will provide at least five men and women for this program (the women, of course, cannot be pastors but they can engage in many other kinds of ministry). We will be reaching out to local colleges and colleagues to attract and appoint ministry interns, and we will be pursuing a potential partnership that, if successful, will provide substantial resourcing for this program. 

This is just a glimpse of “Vision 2015” at GCF, and we look forwad to January 18 when the process of prayer, fasting, and seeking the power and provision of the Lord will begin in earnest. In Christ, God is making all things new, and we are praying that the family of God called GCF will tangibly see, feel, and taste that this year.