When I asked our congregation at a recent meeting if they could tell me the vision of our church not a single soul raised a hand. Now I’m sure that many were just a little nervous about declaring the vision of the church in front of so many people. Others exercised their humility and did not want to impress others with their obvious grasp of the vision. No, those are not correct. The stark, sad reality is no one knew the vision of the church.

Wow! That told me a lot. It told me that I was not doing my job as primary vision caster of the church. It told me that our vision was too complex, too simple, or too confusing. It told me that our church was floundering for lack of vision. Those are hard things to admit when the responsibility lies right in my lap.

Fortunately, our leadership at RMPC recognized that this was the case going into that meeting. We were prepared to launch a new, challenging and exciting vision for our church: EQUIP TO ENGAGE. We are excited about how this simple phrase captures what we have been good at to this point, EQUIPing, and moves us forward in where we need to grow and flourish, ENGAGing.

I will share with you some of the ideas we talked about in the congregational meeting on Oct. 25 and, in the coming weeks, continue to outline what this vision means for our church. Also, I will be taking the month of January 2010 to preach on the vision of the church.

Here is some of what we talked about on October 25:

Former Vision statement: to develop a community in Tucson that knows Jesus Christ and makes him known for the purpose of building up godly families. We have done well at the first part ‘knows Jesus Christ‘ and admit that we struggle at doing the second half ‘makes him known‘ at all.

Rincon Mountain Presbyterian Church is not a destination. Our body is a catalyst for transformation through the gospel. Our body catapults people out into the community to practice gospel transformation. We have lived up to our name: Rincon or ‘corner’. Now it is time to get out of the corner and into the community.

The new and exciting vision of RMPC is summed up in three words:

EQUIP TO ENGAGE

RMPC is committed to Gospel transformation through living as:

  • His Voice – the strong ministry of proclamation and instruction in the word of God
  • His Body – the intimate ministry of connection, fellowship, and care
  • His Hands – the active ministry of service and mercy to the city of Tucson through word and deed ministry; and
  • His Feet – the sending ministry of mission & outreach both locally and globally

Some of our commitments:

  • We are committed to gospel transformation through gospel proclamation and gospel saturation.
  • We are committed to increasingly intimate expressions of fellowship and care within our body.
  • We are committed to collaborative work in the city and globally.
  • We are committed to being a church of open doors. We want no closed doors.

The sermon series in January 2010 will focus on the four ways we are called to live out gospel transformation: His voice, His body, His hands, and His feet.