MISSIONAL STRATEGY

First Congregational U.C.C.
Appleton, Wisconsin
 

The Missional Strategy of First Congregational UCC was developed through a process of discovery and discernment involving many individuals and groups in our congregation during the period from October 2001 through May of 2003. The missional strategy presented here was endorsed by the congregation at its January 2003 Annual Meeting. The strategy consists of the following items:

• Mission Statement
• Guiding Vision
• Shared Values
• Key Result Areas and Goals

Celebrating the blessing of God’s love, sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ, and trusting the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we strive to grow as disciples in Christian faith and service — building a world fit for all God’s children.

“I was glad when they said, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”

Welcome to our Home of Homes. Our door is open to you at whatever point you are in your journey of faith.  From the center of our home, the love of God, revealed in Jesus the Christ and present in the Holy Spirit, radiates to all.  In this home, we are neither young nor old, rich nor poor: we are all valued children of God, bonded together as disciples of Christ.  We have been called to this home and to one another as our family, the Body of Christ, defined by the tradition of scripture and centered in the worship of God.

God calls us to fellowship.

We are the fellowship of the open door.  When we enter this home, we aim to greet each other with a warm embrace and compassionate understanding.  We seek to really get to know one another.  We strive to become the authentic family God wants us to be.

God calls us to trust.

People listen, both to our words and to our innermost silence.  We shelter each other’s vulnerable selves in kindness.  We are comfortable in sharing our diverse ideas with open hearts to discern God’s will for our lives.

God calls us to value acceptance.

We are an inclusive community of faith.  For those who have been spiritually distant, we welcome you as the father welcomed the prodigal son.  For those who seek the affirmation of a loving church family, we reach out our hands, as did Jesus to the woman at the well.  Bring us your pain and your joys, your needs and your gifts.  Even as we take the next steps in our individual pilgrimages, we will walk together, with God.

God calls us to grow spiritually.

We pray for and with each other.  We support, challenge, and inspire each other to move more intentionally along our own journeys within the Christian community.  We help each other to discover our God-given gifts and the commitment to use them in service.  We are receptive to the gentle prodding of the Holy Spirit as we encourage one another to follow the living God.

God calls us to embrace responsibility.

As a family, we participate in both the joys and the obligations of this community of faith.  In sharing ourselves, our time, our talents and our possessions, we express also the abundance of God’s love and support that flow from our contributions.

God calls us to a pathway in the world.

We practice the grace and mercy Jesus spoke of by reaching out to the wider community to help those in need.  We accept the charge to be witnesses against injustice as we truly seek to build a world fit for all God’s children.

Welcome!  Let us be glad in the House of the Lord.

These are the core beliefs that define our Christian faith and shape the ministry of our church.

We believe in:

• God the Creator, revealed in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and present in the Holy Spirit
• The Bible, which contains the Word of God as interpreted by the prophets and apostles
• Praising the Lord through worship, preaching the Word, and celebrating the sacraments
• Serving Christ by helping one another and the world
• Nurturing the gifts and resources entrusted to our care
• Making a financial commitment with tithing as a goal
• Sharing our spiritual gifts with the community of faith
• Welcoming and affirming the diversity of all God’s children
• Practicing Christian disciplines to help us fulfill the image of God
• Seeking new and more faithful ways to serve God and neighbor

The “Key Result Areas” describe five essential dimensions of our life together as a church.  For each of these dimensions we outline a “Goal.”  This goal represents a two to three year “mile marker” on our longer journey towards our Guiding Vision.

Worship

Goal:  To become a community in which central, pervasive worship draws us more strongly and more completely into relationship with each other and with God.

Fellowship

Goal:  To become a community so suffused with Christ’s love that strangers are welcomed, the barriers that separate us from others are overcome, and those different from us become our friends.

Spiritual Growth and Education

Goal:  To become a people who are reaching toward transformation, seeking together to build patterns of teaching, study, self-discipline, and prayer that will allow us in God’s grace to become more faithful as persons and more authentically a community of Christ’s disciples.

Service and Mission

Goal:  Remembering the emphasis Jesus placed on loving our neighbors, to become a community that wholeheartedly assists the poor, the downtrodden, and the oppressed and that resists with them the forces that entrap them.

Stewardship and Responsibility

Goal:  As a community of faith and as individuals, to help each other become faithful and creative stewards of all that God has entrusted to us.