Dear Friends,

In late May, the Administrative Council gave final approval to our Four-Year Ministry Plan.  This plan will guide our efforts over the next four years, as we seek to make Faith Church’s ministry more effective in helping all people become God’s children and grow through faith in Jesus Christ.

The first part of the plan has already been completed, with a review and revision of our church purpose, core values, and vision statement.  The biggest change was completely reworking our vision statement, so that it now reads:

Faith Community United Methodist Church seeks to continually:

• Show unconditional love and care to all
• Intentionally reach out to welcome and incorporate others into relationship with Christ and his church
• Become increasingly more Christ-like through active learning, relationships, and living our faith
• Actively worship God and serve others for the transformation of the world

To guide our efforts in enhancing our ministry over the next four years, we decided to use Robert Schnase’s book, Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations.  I preached through these practices during Lent this year.  The five practices are: radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risk-taking mission and service, and extravagant generosity.

During the next four years, we are going to take nine months on each of the five practices to study its Biblical foundation, look at our church’s ministry in that light, suggest ways we can upgrade what we are doing, and implement suggested changes.  We will be looking for ways to continually monitor how we are doing in each area and try new ideas as we go along.

The first area of emphasis is radical hospitality (see point 2 in our vision statement above).  We will be putting together a team of people who are passionate about offering hospitality to “outsiders” and helping them to become “insiders” to our Faith Church family.  We will begin the week of June 21 to meet three times for study and to begin planning.  We will follow that with several monthly meetings to oversee implementation of our new ideas.  Then we will reduce to a quarterly meeting to monitor progress and assess results.

I would like you to consider being part of our hospitality team.  Are you passionate about welcoming new people and helping them become integrated into the Faith Church family?  Do you like meeting and talking to new people?  Do you have a servant’s heart?  Are you thoughtful and considerate of others?  If some or all of these statements are true of you, please ask God whether he would have you join our hospitality team.  You may or may not have another volunteer position in the church, but if hospitality is your passion, this is where you belong!  If you are uncertain, I invite you to participate in the three study/planning sessions, and then see whether you want to remain a part of the team.

Please let me know as soon as possible if you are interested in joining our hospitality team.  A signup sheet is on the white board in the narthex.  You may also call the church office (757-5101) or email me (revtom5@sbcglobal.net) of your interest.  I look forward to working with you and our entire congregation, as we seek to become more faithful to God’s vision for us as people of radical hospitality.

See you in church,

Pastor Tom Lambrecht