November 2023
“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. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
One of the great privileges that we have as a congregation is to develop relationships and share
the love of God with everyone that we can. This requires intentionality and effort. As we seek to
do this to the best of our ability, we utilize all of the resources available to us. At the end of
October, we had the opportunity to participate in a missions assessment with leadership from the
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. This was an exercise to help the church leadership in guiding
the church to discover our mission passions within the church walls and outside the doors.
Our mission portfolio as a church is critical in helping our church develop. Engaging in
meaningful ministry is transformational and therefore a vital part of our discipleship. It is our
hope to help as many people as we can to be actively engaged in the missional activities of the
church.
A healthy congregational mission portfolio encompasses several key components which help
the church see the missional difference we are making in our congregation, community, and
around the world. Creating a healthy mission portfolio leads the congregation through a process
of evaluating all aspects of ministries. In our missions assessment, we were able to see what
relationships might cause more harm than help, what ministries are not engaging the collective
church, weighing both the shallowness and depth of partnerships and to really look with
intentionality at our mission practices.
As we create our mission portfolio we are working with both accountability and transparency as
we seek to engage more people in the active mission activities of the church. As we do this, we
seek to:
Recognize healthy practices
Commit to holistic missions
Commit to long-term mission presence
Engage as many members in mission activities as possible
Engage in mission relationships near and far
Offer continuing education to the congregation
Evaluate our mission partners annually
Give faithfully to mission partners
I want you all to know that the missions committee is hard at work to help lead our church. Pray
for the members of the committee and pray for your own engagement in the opportunities and
ministries.
Faithfully,
Pastor Caroline