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