We are excited to present a new vision for our church family!
You may recall that our consistory and various other leaders met with Doug McClintic over two days in February to discern what we believe is God’s vision or dream for us as we seek his kingdom in the greater Rockford area. At that time, we well agreed that our vision should include saturating our community with the gospel and it should include adopting some need that we will seek to address in our community. We also started working toward some short-term and longer-term goals so that there is real progress.
In much the same way that God holds out a vision of his coming kingdom, we have developed a picture or vivid description of what our sliver of the kingdom coming in our community will look like for us.
The 2028 vision (which coincides with RRC’s 70th anniversary) is the result.
We are all well acquainted with how easy it is—in life and in the church—to settle in to a comfortable status quo with little progress in faith, mission, or risk. I want to change and yet I don’t. And so our overall focus is summarized with “
Someday through every day.” We will keep holding up the bold “someday” of this vision and relentlessly, every day, focus on taking some steps of progress.
And so for example, we have a goal of training 150 people in Organic Outreach (OO) by early next year and will be hosting an OO training weekend in early February. I am starting a sermon series tomorrow (October 27) that will weekly hold up both the “someday” and the “every day” ways that we can make real progress. Raising up 300 gospel guides over the next 8 years means that 300 people will have been equipped, through a specific discipleship/training pathway, to be gospel-equipped disciples who are actively making disciples. And we think in terms of planting churches because it is shown to be one of the most productive ways to saturate a community with the gospel.
All of this may seem to be a bit audacious but we are also convinced that this vision needs to be God-sized—meaning that he will continue to amazingly work in and through us to make this all happen. This all needs to be much bigger than what we can do by ourselves. More details and explanation will follow in the weeks ahead.
This is a kingdom vision and countercultural rebel movement that is worthy of our sacrifice! I am giving my life to this vision and hope that you will as well. I look forward to continuing to hold up the “someday” and equip us for the “every day” so that Jesus is glorified.
Pastor Tim
