Clear Direction
During Christmas Holidays many families decide to out to ‘walk-off lunch’. It’s a great idea! But it’s also helpful to have an idea of where you might go and how you will get there. When sight-seeing it’s amazing how it is possible to ‘bump into’ things to see. But if you have a family group and no-one has a great idea of where to go or what to do it is easy to end up spending the time debating only to find that it has grown too dark to go out.
If that is the case for a simple family walk, imagine how difficult deciding a direction becomes when you add relatives, friends. And then add people with different interests, different backgrounds, different preferences. You’ll all have different ideas and can literally be ‘pulling in different directions’.
Direction is good for a church too
In contrast, it is clear to me that the early church had a clear sense of purpose and identity. The apostles felt ‘constrained to preach’ (Acts 4v19-20), but also knew the responsibility for care of the church and so appointed deacons (Acts 6v2-4) in addition to Elders. Neither teaching nor care was a topic of debate – they were understood – and the understanding of their importance led them to make definite decisions and take clear actions.
They had also been given the command to ‘go and make disciples of all nations’ (Matt 28:19-20) and to ‘be my witnesses’ (Acts 1:8-9) by Jesus himself and so the church recognised God’s leading with Peter and then Barnabas and Saul (Acts 11, 13) and, led by the Spirit, sent them out as well as ‘gossiping the gospel’ themselves (Acts 8:4).
When Paul went out on his missionary journeys we see take God’s commands to the church and apply them personally, resulting in a clearly expressed vision – that Christ be preached where he had not been preached before (Rom 15:20). And Paul passes a similar charge to others (e.g. Timothy, 2 Tim 4:1-2).
Vision Statements
A clear expression (a ‘vision statement’) of our purpose and direction remains important for any church. It helps focus on what is important in the work of the church for this time, and it sets a direction in the work of the church that everyone can understand and follow. Now there are many things a church must continue to do, and a short statement cannot express everything a church does or wishes to become. But it does communicate priorities in the life of the church, it helps set our direction and it can provide a way of evaluating how well we are progressing towards those priorities.
A new Vision Statement
In July the P&D Team (Pastors and Deacons) met for an away-day in which we sought to identify the current state of Cambray Baptist Church – it’s strengths and weaknesses – and to seek from the Lord an expression of where we need to focus as a church. We identified three areas which were of vital importance: our corporate growth in love for God and His people, our daily growth in discipleship as disciple-making disciples and our daily witness for Jesus as we are scattered through the week. These are themes which we are convinced must be central and reflect God’s call to us as all disciples (Luke 10:27, Matt 28:19-20, Acts 1:8-9).
It’s useful to capture this vision statement visually, and we have expressed it as follows:
More work to do…
Of course, a statement with no impact is of little use. In the new year we will be talking a lot more about the vision statement and how we can use it to guide what we do and to reflect on the impact of our ministries and the impact of the teaching in CBC on our lives.
Above all, we long that the Vision Statement helps us to focus on the priorities God has for us as a church in the days ahead. We are passionate that God would impact Cheltenham, our nation and the world for Jesus through God’s people in CBC. And so we encourage you to grow in love, discipleship and witness and that these be lived-out realities in our lives and all our ministries.
