Again, what follows is verbatim from the responses recorded on the group sheets. Duplicate responses from the groups have been preserved. I thank God for each of you and for the gifts you are and you bring to our congregation. These are the discussions we MUST have to live into God's future for us and for our community.
Our next session will be on Sunday, January 29, when we will discuss, "Who Are Our Neighbors?"
1)
In your own words, what is God's mission in and for the world? The
Bible and your own life's walk with God are good helps to answer
this.
- To show God's love and to let people know about Jesus
- God's mission was to bring salvation through Christ
- Make us better people
- Teach us forgiveness
- Spread his word
- Teach the understanding of God and who he is
- God wants us to reconcile ourselves with him and our relationship with each other
- Everlasting life
- All know love of Jesus, forgiveness of sins, eternal life
- Love God and neighbor as yourself
- God wants us to know he loves us
- To tell others about God, his love and salvation, and to follow God's word
2)
God accomplishes God's mission through the Church of Christ, which is
made up of sinful, limited people like you and me. God has put all
his eggs in one basket – in Jesus Christ, whose Body we are as the
Church. How is the Church called to carry out God's mission in and
for the world?
- Spread the word by our actions
- To do and continue to do
- To help others who need you
- The Christmas dinner
- By having a vicar instead of a pastor
- Caring for people in our neighborhood
- Our Sunday services
- By having our church opened to the weekly meal
- Tell story of God's love and forgiveness to reach people where they are hurting
- Tell good news about Jesus – God looks at us and sees Jesus
- Welcome all who are seeking God
- To carry out God's mission to help those in need and bring them closer to God
3)
How is the Church's purpose, then, different from other
organizations?
- An organization reaches only a few – the Church wants everyone
- Most organizations do not teach about Jesus
- Some people have a different way to tell of God's love. For example, if you do not live a certain way you will not receive God.
- Our doors are opened to all
- Offering hope
- We are offering spiritual rather than financial help
- Offering spirituality and love
- Other organizations don't have as their purpose spreading God's Word (message of God in Christ), but they do spread God's love in some cases
- To bring people closer to God without monetary gain
4)
Drawing on your answers above, can you list some activities that are
central to every congregation's participation in God's mission?
- Worship service
- Sunday School
- Bible School
- Asking for forgiveness
- Sunday church service
- Sunday School
- Vacation Bible School
- Social gathering in the name of the Lord
- Movie nights
- Worship
- Bible study
- Sunday School
- Mission – local and far-reaching
- community meals
- food bank, clothing bank
- sending help to other countries
- youth missions
- sponsoring missionaries
- Feeding the hungry
- Sharing God's Word
- Visiting the sick and those who are incarcerated
5)
Think about where we focus our time, energy, talents and money at
CELC. What are we focused on?
- Building maintenance
- Money
- Building
- Reaching out
- Worship service
- Programs for our community
- Continuing maintaining our building
- Community meal
- Worship (music, also)
- Teaching
- Reach out to neighborhood, ICAN, Kingdom Builders
- Feeding the hungry
- Bible school
- Giving money to missions as well as sponsoring the Compassion Child
6)
How is the purpose/mission of the Church reflected or not reflected
in how we use the gifts God has given to us (i.e. in your responses
to question 5)?
- Too focused on ourselves and money
- Learning more of the needs
- Reaching out to our younger generation
- Care of home-bound members not as good as it could be (visits by members to members)
- Need to reach inactive members
- We do a good job with our limited resources
7)
From the perspective of the Church's mission, what are the most
important things we do as a congregation? What is most central to
God's mission for us?
- Community meals
- Konde Diocese
- Lutheran World Relief
- Clare House
- Worship
- Reaching out
- Spreading the word, God's love
- Offering hope in our economic times
- Spreading God's Word
- Accepting God's purpose for us and following through
- Weekly worship & Sunday School
- Love others by outreach (comm. meal, ICAN, Evangelism committee projects)
- As a congregation: uplift each other
- Most central to God's mission: worshiping and witnessing for God
8)
Are there some things we do which are not so central to God's mission
for us?
- When we focus more on ourselves
- Keeping the building
- Get off centered – put too much focus (on one thing)
- Don't get along with each other as well as we should with the love we should
- Don't always forgive & love our neighbor as ourselves
9)
What changes might we need to make to more closely live within God's
purpose/mission for the Church? What changes would we resist the
most?
- Be more friendly to visitors
- More people need to support the things that we do as a church
- Find a way to identify ushers, greeters, etc.
- Changing the service
- Do not resist change
- Offer something different that inspires and uplifts
- Organize a teen night or event (on a monthly basis)
- Doing events where we can step out of our church into the community
- Individuals need to change from within
- The change we resist the most is making changes
- There is some fear of those in the neighborhood
- Need to be more welcoming
- Cultural differences
- Changing the time of our church service to accommodate more people and have two different forms of worship service – traditional and contemporary
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