Visioning for the Future

In the Fall of 2012 the Visioning Table hosted small group gatherings for Bible Study to discern together what God’s mission is and what God’s purpose is for us. This is what we discovered together…

God’s mission is to send God’s people out, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to ALL people to share God’s Word of love, forgiveness and life; to build relationship with ALL people and to teach ALL people, welcoming ALL people and baptize people into the life of discipleship.

With this as God’s mission, the purpose of the church is to…

Unite together to spread God’s Word of love [forgiveness and life] to ALL in the community and world around us; to build relationships with those in our community and the world; to care, serve and provide for ALL people; and to grow together in faith.

This is what the Word Clouds represent… all of these things that Christ the King said during the small gatherings, all the things that they felt were God’s mission and our purpose as the church.

When the Visioning Table reviewed these results the natural question that arose was – does the current mission statement of Christ the King fit who we are today? After several small group conversations, lots of prayer and a longer discussion at our annual meeting January 27, 2013 Christ the King adopted:


Hearts Loved By God
Hands to Serve All
Through Jesus Christ

This statement reflects who we are – loved by God always and empowered to serve ALL in Jesus’ name. We expanded this mission statement with a vision statement…

We are a Reconciling in Christ congregation. We are called by Christ the care for, to love, to understand, and to listen to each other, regardless of race, age, gender and gender identities, marital status, physical and mental abilities, sexual orientations, national origin, or economic status. We celebrate together our unity as God’s people, committed to being a radically loving and welcoming community of faith, centered in the Good news of Jesus Christ. Christ the King is a place for each person to discover and grow in their God-given gifts and, through the Holy Spirit, share them with the world.

Figuring our the mission and purpose of God’s church isn’t all that the congregation talked about. We also discovered what our collective ministry dreams are, those ministries that all of us feel are an important part of who we are or who God is calling us to be. You’ll notice that the three largest words are College, Serve and Feed.

You see why “serve” was a part of our mission statement. Much of the word cloud is ways to serve – it is who we are and who we want to be.

Feeding people is another important part of who we are, it’s why we participate in the Soup Kitchen, the Souper Bowl of Caring, and why we partner with CHOW and the Friends Dinner.

An exciting part where we will be taking new steps is in reaching out to the College Community over the next year. We have three colleges in our community and they are full of people how are loved by God and have the desire to use their hands to serve all.

So, the work of the Congregational Council is now focused on helping disciples identify their passions and being a resource, partner, convener, and support system for helping to continue ministries we are already a part of and getting new ministries off the ground. If you want to get connected to one of these ministry dreams please contact a member of council.