Fourth Vision Team Report:
            A Mission and a Vision

Since late spring when we started working with Church Development Systems (CDS), a team of St. Paul's folks have been wrestling both with what St. Paul's is, and what God is calling our community to be and do. You may recall that in an earlier Epistle, and subsequent Sunday bulletins, we told you about the core values we had determined that gave St. Paul's its unique identity. These core values are Spiritual Growth, Helping, Integrity, and Fairness. (Please see the August Epistle or the Team's Second Report on the Website for the meaning of these terms and how we see them being implemented.) These values, rooted in St. Paul's history, continue with us today.

This last month has been an extremely busy one for your Vision Team. It is difficult to know where and how to begin to share with you all we have accomplished these last few weeks. As a summary, we have looked at our mission, developed a vision, looked at how that vision might be implemented at St. Paul's, and defined some concrete goals, objectives, and recommendations for the vestry. (Now you know why so many of us have been looking a bit weary of late!) Here are some details about the results of our work together to give you an idea of the scope of our work.

We looked at how these values related to our mission as a parish. After taking a critical look at each word and phrase, we decided that our present mission statement described it pretty well, but we tidied it up and made it a bit less wordy, so that it looks like this:

We are called to be a diverse and inclusive community of Christians in the Anglican tradition. We offer a compassionate haven for reconciliation, spiritual growth, and commitment to social justice.

Then we took an in depth look at what we meant with these words. It sounds good, but what does it mean and how do we make the offer effective? Since the Vision Team is a group which is representative of the parish as a whole, you should not be surprised to learn that we had many different ideas. However, we persevered and were able to write a Vision Statement which describes the community of St. Paul's that we feel would be able to carry out that mission. Here is that Vision Statement:

We seek Christ through providing a compassionate haven as:

- a community dedicated to intentional spiritual growth and discipleship through the support and discovery of such ministries as will aid us in seeking and finding the Christ in each other;

- a community committed to the rich heritage of Anglican liturgy, while seeking to meet our diverse spiritual needs, and those of future generations, through innovative worship;

- a community dedicated to peace, justice, and compassion for all people, that endeavors to glorify God and relieve suffering by understanding injustice and addressing it;

- a community that honors those who came before by maintaining and renewing the parish facilities their good stewardship gave us, and by dedicating our own time, talent, and treasure to passing on inviting facilities to those in times far different than our own;

- a community that seeks to live its life as a people reconciled and reconciling, dedicated to welcoming newcomers, sharing our gifts, listening to and learning from each other, recognizing our common frailties through mutual forgiveness and encouraging, supporting and nourishing each other to meet the challenges of our lives in faith.

So where do we go from here? Well, we are trying to specifically identify those whom we are called to serve, and to confirm that we have the gifts that will allow us to serve these people in a quality way. We are preparing our "Strategic Map" report to the vestry, which we hope will give St. Paul's what it needs to grow both numerically and into the unique Christian community that God has always called it to become. We will be presenting this report to the vestry at their October 10 meeting, and plan to present the entire program to the Parish on Sunday, October 29.

Until then, please carefully consider the proposed core values, vision statement and revised mission statement. Roll them over in your hearts and minds and see how they fit with your lives of faith and your dreams for St. Paul's. Please let us know if you feel we have missed something, or if there is something you especially like-- or don't like-- about them.

Also, please keep these priorities in mind: "God is First, My Congregation is Second, and I am Third." While we develop new ministries and expand and support existing ones, we may find some that we, as individuals, aren't excited about or don't want to participate in personally, but if they are ministries to which God has called St. Paul's (as reflected by our core values and mission statement), we should approve of the St. Paul's community supporting them, even if we would not individually join up. It's OK. It means we know that we each have one another's support for our own God-given ministries, even if each and every ministry isn't our "cup of tea." We are a congregation of unique individuals, each of us having special gifts from God. How dull a group we would be if we all had the same gifts and all liked the same things -- and one thing that St. Paul's has never been is boring.

We're about to start having a lot of fun being the wonderful spirit-filled people God has made us to be!! And we are going to be truly awesome!! Just ask any member of the Vision Team!

St. Paul's Vision Team Members

Parish Representatives:

Rachel Henry (Team Facilitator)
Maggie Baxter
Marion Cedarblade
Helenclare Cox
Nancy Dods
Tom Faulk
Ann Hanson
Nancy Hughes
Jonn Lavinnder
Michael Barbara Lavinnder
Chris Olson
Ryan Robinett
Joan Robinson
Laurie Rosa
Mandy Wick

Vestry Officers:

Jay Luther, Senior Warden
Jean Hicks, Junior Warden

Clergy and Staff:

The Rev. Bruce Bramlett
The Rev. Lynn Robinett
The Rev. Eliezer Risco
The Rev. Harold Weicker
Judy Felton
Medora Gordon

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