From Pastor Steve
December, 2008
  Last month I began a series exploring our recently adopted statements of vision, mission, and core values.  This month I’ll reflect on the second part of our statement of vision:
  We are a community of Hope, inviting all people into God’s transformative embrace of love for the World Through Jesus Christ.
  We proclaim the gospel in several ways.  We give testimony to God’s grace in our lives, by loving service, by generosity, by acts of compassion and care expressed in our daily lives.  God puts people in to our lives every day.  We should think of these people – family, neighbors, friends, co-workers, anyone we encounter as we go about our daily business, as our mission field.  And then, there are those we might have to go out of our way to invite.  Let’s not forget them!  We invite people to a relationship with Jesus as we act as the presence of Jesus to them.  We are the body of Christ.
  At the heart of our vision for this congregation is the beauty of invitation and hospitality. In my last article I defined radical hospitality as “embrace”, and “intentional vulnerability”.  We dream of having the kind of life in a community that is open to the stranger.  We dream of a kind of community that exists for the sake of helping the world to know the reconciliation of relationship with God, through knowing Jesus the Messiah.
  When we invite people to join our church, we are really intending to invite them to join us on a journey – a journey into an intimate and immediate relationship with Jesus that transforms our lives.  The transformative embrace of God happens through the gospel, proclaimed in mere human words, mere bread and wine and water, and mere human fellowship. These are means used by God to communicate love and grace that truly transforms us.  
  What is your passion?  What is your God given desire to make a difference in a particular ministry?  How can you extend the embrace of God through Jesus Christ?
   It has pleased God to reconcile the sinful world to himself by entering the mess of the world in person.  Jesus is that personal approach of God who takes upon himself the sin of the world and calls us to follow him in the way of service.  God has been pleased to make us the “body of Christ” in the world today.  We are the arms of Jesus reaching out to embrace the world that God loves.  That is the heart of our vision.
Next month I will start to unpack our mission statement. 
God’s blessings to you all in the new year,
                                                                                                                             Pastor Steve