What is our mission? 

What is our plan? 

Where are we going? 

What is God doing and where is God calling us as a congregation? 

These are good questions that earlier generations didn’t necessary have to ask. Church was assumed. Church was an integral part of society. Church was the only show in town…but not anymore. To say the same thing differently, the mission field has come home and we find ourselves in a new missional era. We need, given this our time and place, to move into our future with a defined purpose, intentionally, and a razor-focus of who we are and what God is calling us to do! 

This past year, through prayer and much discernment, we have imagined and have fussed with how God might be leading us forward. We kept coming back to what Pr. Steph and I want to call, the main thing. The main thing is this living relationship that we have in and through the person of Jesus. That’s it, that’s the main thing! We want people to know Jesus. Every time Jesus encountered someone life was transformed. People were healed and forgiven. Eyes were opened, ears too. Those who encountered Jesus got their life back. You can see it and hear it and feel it. He connected with people as they are, where they are, being who they are. He spoke humanity’s language. He explained God-stuff with images and parables from daily life. He died and rose, again. He multiplied his efforts with his twelve disciples. He sent them forth to all people, everywhere. The church was his idea to reach out and connect with all people, everywhere. 

There are many images of the church in scripture. The Apostle Paul spends a lot of time describing the functionality of church by using this image of the human body. Paul writes, “For as in one body, we have many members and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another (Rom. 12).” This image of body underscores that we are connected and related to each other. Our lives are graciously not our own. We belong to each other! So, we exist to connect people to God and to each other. It is about connection and relationships – really, that is all there is in life!

We will, over the next three years, expand and deepen our sense of a Connecting Church through focus areas of Connection, Worship, and Impact.  

Connect:

• We will connect with others by being a warm, welcoming, hospitable people and place.
• We will connect people with small group ministry where life is shared and people are supported in relationship.
• We will connect people through spiritual immersive experiences such as retreats, mission trips, service in our local community, and sending kids to Bible Camp. Faith is not only taught but caught! 

Worship:

• We will continue to craft meaningful and worship-filled opportunities in both our traditional and contemporary services along with a strong commitment to excellent music.
• We will strive to make worship invitational, missional, and contagious. 
• We will set goals and develop strategies to increase attendance. Yes, we want MORE people to be connected to God and to each other. 

Impact: 

• We will be very intentional about making an Impact on the next generation – children and youth ministry. These are formidable years and we would like to see a long-lasting impact.
• We will be a church that engages in unparalleled acts of service. We are a downtown church that will focus primarily on the homeless and hungry issues in our context.
• First Lutheran is a church of generosity. Always has been! We will seek out ways to be outrageously generous as it relates to our way forward.

This is a start! 

Really, we would like to see it as a three-year adventure. An adventure that exists and finds passion within the hearts and minds of First Lutheran folks. It is all about relationships – relationship with God and others. We are here to Connect and Worship and make an Impact for Christ’s sake. This is our time and place – and we will make the most of it!

It is a really good time to be church. 

Pastor Marty