DRAFT: 2008 Focus & Process: Impacting our Community for Christ

2008 Focus & Process: Impacting our Community for Christ

Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." Jeremiah 29:7

Foundational Principles:

Represent the character of God and provide credibility and authenticity to our proclamation.

Express the Being Good News / Sharing Good News and

So that the Churches are the best thing in the community ideals of the Network.

Major Goal:

Catalyze united, sustained effort toward “Kingdom Class Community.”

- Listen to the “Voices of the City” to humbly discern the greatest felt needs of the city.

- Identify a key goal to tackle together as the Body of Christ

- Draw community leaders into participation to draw together, and do together, what we could never do ourselves

Action Steps:

Pastors begin by seeing themselves and their congregations as Jeremiah 29 servants to the community.

Identify 3-6 influencers in each of the key sectors of the community

u Church u Family u Education u Politics / Law / Public Protection

u Media / News / Communication u Business / Finance u Entertainment / Arts

Develop questions to use in listening sessions. Possibly:

§ How long have you lived in this community, what first brought you here?

§ What is it about our community that expresses its greatest good… and why do you care?

§ If our success was completely guaranteed, what bold steps might we choose as a community?

§ What opportunities do you see to make this happen … and who do you think cares?

§ If there was one thing that hasn’t yet been said in order to reach a deeper level of understanding / clarity on our community, what would that be?

§ Are there any other people you feel need to be a part of this process?

Listening sessions with key leadership in each sector of the community

- Summarize finding by sector and across sectors

- Present summary findings back to participants / Check if what they are saying is being heard

Bring leaders together

o Would you be willing to come together one time to see if there is anything in our community that we can address together that we could not address alone?

§ Brainstorm top issues

§ Identify top obstacles to top issues

§ Select top goals

§ Narrow down to top five and then top goal

Pastor’s Retreat

- As servants, pastors meet to seek God for how to serve our community

§ Select action steps with 6, 12 and 18 month benchmarks

- Draw community leaders into participation to draw together, and do together, what we could never do ourselves

Recruit and expand the team

Time Frame:

- Three to six months beginning in January 2008. Eighteen months after inquiry process

Six Churches Launching Canning Hunger ~ Together

All Nations launched this past Sunday. First Church of God, Grace, Hillcrest, New Life and Newton Christian all launch in November. So far 165 participating families across the greater Newton region are committed to connecting with 20 other neighbor households. That will mean a total of 3,300 household connections! If 85% of those participate, 2,805 households will mobilize to work together on an ongoing basis to end hunger in our community. If each household donates $6 worth of dry goods, that’s $16,830 worth of donations mobilized through our prayer, care, share strategy. Think of these connections as bridges being built that we pray will provide the opportunity to care for needs and share the gospel in a deeply compelling way!