Forward in Mission: Always Forward
Vision is always about what we can see even, if only in our imagination,
but Mission is defined by Jesus:
The Great Commandment
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)
The Great Commission
“Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20)
The Mission of the church does not change but the application of human wills in submission to His will permits of infinite variety and tremendous creativity!
Teaching people how to love God and people is a life-long learning experiment, one generation at a time. This is God’s plan for us. In our time together, we will always be deepening our love life as we incline our hearts toward Him and others. Learning how to ‘go and make disciples of Jesus’ will require us to orient away from maintaining what we have learned how to do, allowing Him to draw us into our utter dependence upon Him while He uses us to reach others with good news. We should expect that we will be moving one step at a time from Maintenance to Mission and from Mission to Reproduction (Multiplication). In this, there are 3 Primary Areas of development:
- Forming Missional Leaders
- Multiplying Missional Communities
- Disciples Making Disciples
Forming-----Multiplying-----Discipling
Forming Missional Leaders
- Support Bonhoeffer Project for Clergy, a training process to strengthen vision and action planning for the formation of disciple-makers in the local church
- Bishop's Congregation-based Leader Workshops
- Launch DWA Deacons' School and Retreat
- Initiate Lay Licensing for Catechists, Pastors and Evangelists
- Strengthen Deanery Ministry Development Teams
Multiplying Missional Communities
- Establish New Hispanic Congregation and several congregation-based Hispanic missions
- Initiate University Mission groups in every Deanery
- Identify congregations that are ready for reproduction (multiplication); explore multi-site
- Develop Urban Ministry Strategy and build a coalition
- Implement a Planting Strategy in every Deanery
Disciples Making Disciples
- Initiate Breakfast with Bonhoeffer for Laity
- Mobilize laity for Deanery Ministry
- Develop and apply methods for family-based disciple-making
- Encourage gifts and mobilize lay people for externally-focused mission
- Launch Bishop’s Task Force on Disciple-Making