March 25, 2006

Posted 3-28-06

News Update

from the Eugene Church

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Ken met with the Vision Planning Leadership Team, also known as the Church Board. Ken shared some highlights from his recent trip to Colorado Springs earlier this month.

Ken and Mary Jean went to Colorado Springs to begin the process of Vision Planning and gather key strengths and accomplishments of the Eugene Church while spending time in prayer and meditation asking God for insight and guidance.

While in Colorado Springs, Ken was reminded of the following Vision Planning concepts.

First, Vision is more than an understanding of purpose. Vision is found in an understanding of the Purpose played out in the Mission and guided by the Core Values all the time executed with Strategy guided by Goals, Objectives and Action Items.

Purpose is why we exist as a church. According to Mark 12:30 & 31, our purpose could be defined as "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength…You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Mission is what we do to fulfill our purpose. Acts 2:47 simply states the mission of the early church. The Mission of the early church was "praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."

Core Values are the accepted principles or standards of the church, regarded highly as important and useful. These constitute our ethics and ideals.

The Strategy is played out in identifying the Goals which constitute the points (bullets) of the Vision Plan. Objectives help us work toward accomplishing the Goals as we break them down into bite size pieces. Action Items are the steps to completion.

In the pictures above you see some of the notes Ken generated as he was led to identify what we do now and to dream of what we are capable of also doing in the future. He presented his work from Colorado Springs on 16 charts with various levels of detail separated along the four different components of Mission as expressions of our purpose. He was led by God to use the acronym LIFE to break the activities into expressions of Lordship, Instruction, Fellowship, and Evangelism. They are expressions of the past, present and future of our church.

Our Vision Planning efforts are just in the beginning stages as we the Vision Planning Leadership Team pray and listen for God's guidance in setting the course for the future. We will be calling on many of you to help in this process. Be praying and listening for God’s direction in regard to your level of participation.

Submitted by: Don Patton

All scripture used on this page is from the New International Version (NIV).