Back in January, the Discipleship Council of Christ United Methodist Church gathered for a planning retreat. As a guide for our planning, I suggested that we reflect on the statement we see every week on our worship bulletins:
Committed to growing
Richer in Spirit
Warmer in Fellowship
Deeper in Discipleship
Broader in Mission
for the sake of Christ Jesus
The logic was that if these statements express our intentions as a congregation, then those intentions should guide our planning. We started with several questions, addressing each line from the above statement:
- Do we feel that the intended impact or effect is being accomplished?
- What might we do new or differently to further accomplish these intentions?
- Does this list of statements fully capture what our intentions, as a church, should be?
Moving in the direction of our bulletin statement becoming a vision statement, it was suggested that we review our bulletin statement in light of the Mission and Vision Statements of the denomination. Reviewing these in the UMC handbook for 2025-2028, we came to the Call to Action. This was the most helpful piece to our work at Christ UMC because it answers the most important question: What intentions does our denominational connection expect churches to act upon? The Call to Action from United Methodist Leadership is as follows:
Grow and form disciples of Jesus Christ,
Develop Christ-like leaders
Stand in solidarity with the poor and the vulnerable
Seek health and wholeness for all people and creation
(2025_2028_UMC_Handbook_26.pdf , page 4)
With the Call to Action in mind, we began to suggest some refinements to our current church statement. Though they were minor, we felt they were important to include. I want to thank Kim McCluskey for being a great conversation partner in this effort.
In that same span of time, Christ UMC was approached about placing an ad in the Mustard Seed Mountain Newsletter published by the Mother Jones Center. As a result, Chelsea Young, our Director of Communications & Digital Media got pulled into the work. After talking with Chelsea about the church statement and the refinements we proposed, Chelsea developed a graphic for the Mustard Seed Mountain ad:
In addition to a wonderful graphic presentation, Chelsea’s involvement led us to add an invitational element to the statement. It also led to an emphasis on the fact that growing in these various ways is most truly done in community, not just as individuals. The end result is one you will see currently on our exterior sign and on the church announcement screens:
Come Home!
Together we grow
Richer in Spirit,
Deeper in Discipleship,
Warmer in Fellowship,
Broader in Mission and
Service to the world in
Witness to the Gospel of
Jesus Christ
I will talk more in the coming months about what each statement means to express. I will also talk about how these statements can serve to guide our life and work as a congregation going forward. I consider this to be a working document, open to further inspiration and refinement. However, I feel it reflects well who and what Christ Church is and intends to be as an expression of God’s Kingdom in the Ohio Valley.
Blessings,
Pastor Joe