Dear GCI Family and Friends,
In February 2020 I wrote an article explaining the concept of health related to the life of a congregation. You have heard me and other denominational leaders expressing our desire to seek Healthy Church through the three Avenues of Hope, Love, and Faith.
- Hope Avenue – Worship: A congregation where all who attend find Christ-centered worship and inspiration.
- Love Avenue – Witness: A congregation devoted to getting outside the walls of the church to demonstrate the love of Jesus to their neighbors and to proclaim the good news when neighbors ask.
- The Faith Avenue – Discipleship: A congregation where members, young and old, are growing in relationship with Jesus and deepening their bonds with each other.
We want to see these ministries flow from teams of believers and be guided by the careful leadership of Christlike pastoral leadership. These vibrant expressions are the pathway toward congregational health.
Our U.S. leadership team is continually asking the question, “How do we become a more vibrant expression of denominational health?” This is the right question as we work through the difficult stage of reclassification of congregations and determine how we need to shift to provide meaningful oversight.
Read MoreI applaud our U.S. Regional Directors (R.D.) for their commitment to meet with so many of our scattered small group leaders, to listen to their concerns, and then do their best to explain why we are shifting. These R.D.s have shared their lives with you and love you deeply. They truly are “helpers of your joy.” This is true even when tough decisions are necessary. As hard as it may be, we are in this together, and we must resist the arrows of the enemy that are intended to divide us and put us at odds. Through the power of the Spirit, unity can be maintained.
We who serve as denominational leaders are aware that we have a strong body of congregations to serve as we focus on our various jobs and responsibilities. Because of this broad collection of congregations whom we oversee and serve, we continually pray for guidance as we ask, “How can we serve more intentionally and more effectively?”
Our philosophy of service is High Support, High Challenge – Grace Always. This statement is a core value that helps us at each step of the journey and continues to govern the process. It keeps us following in the steps of Jesus.
In the past several years we have focused our efforts on the consistent vision of Healthy Church, and our high support is evident in our writing, media tools and training. We have stayed on track, and this vision is just as important today as it was when I wrote about it three years ago.
Our congregations are learning as they make efforts to move from concepts to practice, and our denominational leaders are making discoveries, too. Our Team Based – Pastor Led training sessions, and the subsequent teachings around the Faith, Hope, and Love Avenues, have been wonderfully designed and backed up with useful material that is clear and comprehensible, and being used by many of our congregations. The follow-up coaching resource has also been built out and has proven to be quite helpful. I am pleased to say that we have a strong team of able coaches. The “aha moment” for our denominational leaders is that we have observed that we have attempted to move from training to practice at a pace that is not reasonable.
Learning new concepts and transferring these into new practices takes longer than we originally calculated. We must add a stage for consulting and deeper learning as new practices are being tried and refined. We are also learning that we need to reconsider how the services of training, consulting, coaching, and supervising flow and how the denominational leaders interact to bring the highest level of support possible. This is causing us to enter a season of new design on how our U.S. team is configured, and then to have a follow-up season of experimentation to test-drive the new design. These seasons will run the course of 2024, and we solicit your prayers during this period of adjusting and learning.
I am seeing how the Spirit is already out in front of us, and I am confident as the U.S. team is prayerfully and cautiously moving through these seasons of adjustments and refitting, that we will ultimately become a healthier denomination.
The Lord is gracefully supporting and challenging us as we yield to his leadership.
Following God’s lead,
Greg Williams
