VISION BREAKFAST

Vision Breakfast… August 2019

Thank you for coming out! It has been great to see what God has been doing in our community over the past several weeks…with membership and Franks Bible Basics Class.…it really not that basic as you digging into some Theology..

It is always exciting to see what God is doing next chapter in our community...

Vision is about a God preferred Future… It’s about possibilities of what could be and what ought to be happening… Vision is a Desired or Hope fulfilled… where

The opposite of vision is really deferred hope…

Proverbs 13:12 ESV

12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

What we doing today is getting on the same Page of Vision...

One thing about

‘One of the first Marks of the early church was their Unity… For any movement to go forward there has to be a group of people a community that are moving in the same direction and desiring the same outcomes...

Jesus in his priestly prayer in ... prays that “they” us, the Church—may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me… One of the challenges of leadership is building this sense of One purpose… Because everyone has an opinion and agenda… what is need is the mind of God....

Let’s open word prayer..

So this morning I really want to maximize our time together… Just as a matter of overview… of what we are going to try accomplish today..

Here is a quick overview of our plan for today…

First of all..This is going not going to be a one way discussion or teaching it’s going collaborative effort…

I am going to start by sharing some concepts and ideas… that will hopefully fuel vision and some creative ideas here...

The we are going to be Brain Storming session

Lastly, we are going have a time of Action plan.

One of the challenges of vision is that we tend to to evaluate new ideas and concepts in light of what they already know and experience.

There is a significant problem when we evaluate the present context by what we experienced in the past..

There is a significant problem when we evaluate the present context by what we experienced in the...

Here is the problem that things are always changing… we living in a different world than we lived in five years ago… Have you recently looked at an old picture of yourself? Maybe an old year book picture...… I recently saw a picture of myself when I was eighteen years old.. I just arrived at Bible college… and I am waring a baggy sweater that my aunt had knitted.. I would never be found dead in that today… Why did a ware that? The world changed...

Sometimes we need to see something that is a little outside of our normal thinking…

John Maxwell in the The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership” - Gives the law of the Lid.

Sometimes we need to see something that is a little outside of our normal thinking… John Maxwell in the The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership” - Gives the law of the Lid.

The law of the lid says.. “leadership ability is the lid that determines a person’s level of effectiveness.”

In other words if we are going to get different results we need the lid to be lifted.... lids are lifted by exposure and our response to new information.... So one of the advantages of collaborating with other churches within the Free Church we get to continue to learn from one another,...

I believe that God did something significant in my heart when Pam and I went to Chicago to the EFCA One Conference....we both attended the deep learning track on discipleship …

then I got to do a tour of three satellite campuses of the Compass Church that’s located in the Suburb of Naperville… The main campus seats 1500 or so… but these satellite campuses… run a couple of hundred people…The tour that I did was the executive leadership of Compass… It was unique opportunity to both hear and then see and experience their vision… and seeing some of the things they are doing on these campuses..

What I learned from them is the need of Outside of the Box thinking… Creative approach might be the things that we haven’t been thinking about..

Now obviously, they are dealing with different demographics in the Suburbs of Chicago… I want to share with you some concepts that I gleaned from this time....

Transferable Principles...

Now obviously, they are dealing with different demographics in the Suburbs of Chicago… I want to share with you some concepts that I gleaned from this time.... Transferable Principles...

Values Community/gospel Impact more than filling sea

Most churches want to grow there ministries… Growing the church becomes the value… but what happens when we change the value… to gospel impact… I have head it said that the churches effectiveness is not its seating capacity but its sending capacity. The goal should be more than filling seats on a Sunday.

Instead of viewing ministry through the lense of the local Church… they view ministry through the lense of Gospel impact…

Instead of asking the question of how can we grow our local church…The question becomes How can spread the net out wider… How can we increase our influence and impact our community.

What can we do in our community that brings people to Jesus?

Isnt that the great commission..

Matthew 28:19 ESV

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Matthew 28:18–19 ESV

18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

We need to lower the bar that we have set on discipleship… this really has been eye opening or me… Because I always saw discipleship… as bringing someone to full maturity… from Sunday School to board member… The Goal of Discipleship is basically to help someone in the journey with Christ… Discipleship…

Read the way that Jesus made disciples...Jesus modeled this..

Matthew 4:18–20 ESV

18 While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

First of all Jesus didn’t hang out only at the synagogue… He engaged with people…then he invited them to follow him…

DISCIPlESHIP is making Jesus known and inviting others on this journey to follow Him

Let me give you some examples how the Compass -- focuses on Gospel impact..

They have Decentralized their ministries

a. Opperations

b. Organized resources around Opportunities

1. Buildings

2. Resources

2.

3. People

They have done this by the way they Identify themselves to the Community..

-The changed their Name from Naperville EFCA church.. to the Compass Church… simple reason is that they relating to a broader community...

The changed their Name from Naperville EFCA church.. to the Compass Church… simple reason is that they relating to a broader community...

They have purposely decentralized there office and operations on purpose… to widen the net of their reach…

Gospel Impact means they have organized their resources around being ready to move when the opportunity arises...

An example of this is that they have set aside $300 000 so that if the right opportunity comes up … property… they will be in a position to move fast..

In our context we talk about Community impact… We need define what we mean by our community.… because even though we meet in Richvale… Where is our church.. we are coming from Gridley -- Oroville -- Biggs...

Principe 2..Ask what God is Going to Do Next…Expect that God wants to do something in our Community.

DEVELOPED A MISSIONAL CULTURE...

They actually said that when pastors and churches become content they stop growing…

Pray for what God is going to do next.

Compass Church is missional in that they are always looking for in roads into their community for the sake of the Gospel…

For example they celebrate wins but there is this hunger to be part of what God is about to do next… For example in their office they have this sign with the word Praying for what God is doing next… One of the troubles with vision is settling - or becoming comfortable with 50 -- 100 -- 1000…

They actually said that when pastors and churches become content they stop growing… Pray for what God is going to do next.

Principle 3 Use the resources that you already have for community engagement...

Resources come in the form of people - skill sets.

Come in the form of building

Community Engagement...

Now this is something that I got really excited about -- because these Churches were involved in the community… These churches becoming the center of the life of their communities… Not everything was a bible study… rather -- there were activities through the week that involved community...

-- This Included Soccer Camps

-- Food banks

-- Church had a clinic that was staffed with a nurse.

— Auitistic program

What is God doing in Our Church?

What I believe is that what we doing today is really building on the same foundation that we have over the past several years...

Our mission Statement that we established a number years ago -- Connect -- Grow --Serve…

Then a few years ago --- our overseer team went through a book called Sticky Church by Larry Osbourne… the premise is that he

that the church grows from a community outwards.. we serve the local church well… people get involved invite friends.... organic slow and steady kind of Growth..

The idea is to stop this revolving door that often happens in churches.. people come and go… building strong community through sermon based small groups… We started in the church and moved core groups to community groups…. I believe that we are at another point of adding another building block.. and that is community engagement… or community outreach…

That is part of what we going to be focusing on as we think about what resources we have in within our community ----

Start with thinking through Community Engagement… lense of Gospel Engagement… So let me just take a moment to share creative process in Preaching… I am always looking for the tension in the Text… looking at the the incompetion… There is always Subject and predicate… The scripture always presents us with a problem and a solution… they way that you resolve the tension.... is by asking the right questions...

Before we can get to the what we are to do… we have to understand who are we engaging with...

What we doing with Vision is we are Exegeting… our Community… we are not reading into it… we are looking for real needs.. and real solutions to those needs....

First we need KNOW our CONTEXT.. Then we need to know the where IDENTIFY THE NEEDS… then discover how we going to meet these needs.

KNOW

Who is our community? (Demographics)

What is needs in our community? (surrounding Communities?

What

W

Where are the Needs? IDENTIFY THE NEEDS…

What resources are available and accessable?

IDENTIFY THE NEEDS…

Where are the real needs in our community?

What Do we have to offer

What do we have within our congregation/ community? People, Skill sets, talents.

How are we going to make this happen?

Action Items: Faith with out works is dead.

I

How can we engage our Community in Fall?

Action Items: How can we engage our Community in Fall?

longer ranger plans into 2020.

We are going to look at 2010 and just observe something about those numbers that jump out at us...

2010 Census

Richvale, Population - 244

89 households,

29 households with children

under 18

Average Household 2.74

60% Couples living together

21 % Single or Widowers

18 % 65 and older

My observations…

-- No more that 30 young people -- under the age of 18

-- Lots of singles and widowers

-- Aging Population.

Biggs. Population of 1707

There were 444 families (78.6% of all households); the average family size was 3.37.).

43.5% Households had children under the age of 18 living in them

55.8% households married couples living together.

15.9%households with no husband present,

6.9% householder with no wife present.

8.5% unmarried opposite-sex partnerships,

0.4% same-sex married couples or partnerships.

7.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

Gridley

Gridley, population of 6,558 The median age in Gridley is 32 In Gridley,

56% of the population are married,

58% speak English and 39% speak Spanish.

23% were foreign born.

Oroville population -15,506

7% had children under the age of 18 living in them,

33.5% living together,

20.8% no husband present,

7.6% no wife present.

37.7% had children under the age of 18 living in them,

7.6% no wife present.

33.5% were opposite-sex married couples living together, 20.8%had a female householder with no husband present,

0.6% same-sex married couples or partnerships.

7.6% had a male householder with no wife present.

10.9% unmarried opposite-sex partnerships,

10.9% unmarried

0.6% same-sex married couples or partnerships.

30.1% were made up of individuals

12.7% alone who was 65 plus

VISION BREAKFAST

Think Tank...

b. Outlying Communities