First let me say how honored and pleased I am to be your pastor! As we approach the one year anniversary of John and I coming to live among you, I find myself feeling more at home each day. As I your names, where you live, and as you share your lives with me, I remember with gratitude how the Holy Spirit works in the appointive system. Our worship together enriches me and I pray it does you.

Which leads me to a subject I want to lift up before you. Every chapter in out individual lives as followers of Jesus us marked by change and growth. Each new beginning in the history of the church gives us opportunity to stretch and progress into becoming the group of disciples that God wants us to be. But how do we know where we are being led? How can we discern what God's will is for Fayetteville United Methodist Church or Doggett Chapel? By what measures do we gauge where the Lord Jesus is beckoning us into the future?

This past spring, our Team Leadership Council from FUMC has been meeting with JF Lacaria from our Annual Conference office to help us discern a Vision Statement for the future of FUMC. Such a statement helps us as a group of committed Christians to discern together what the diameters of our missional future will look like. It helps us determine what our greatest priorities for service will be, and where the direction for our greatest potential will lead us. As with the appointive system, I believe the Holy Spirit works with us, and has been guiding us as we try with integrity and energy to follow the Spirit's leading.

What does a Vision Statement do? It is a guide for us as congregations to what God is calling us to do. All ideas for mission and programming are help up to the Vision Statement as a template. Together we ask the question, "Is this idea consistent with what we believe to be our Spirit-driven vision of the future? Is this possibility congruent with where we believe God is leading us in the days and years ahead?" If the answer is "yes," then we move ahead with hope and confidence, and the unshakeable knowledge that, even if we fail, we have been faithful as we have understood it.

At the end of May, we completed the first phase of that work and emerged with a Vision Statement for FUMC. Now it's time to introduce it to everyone else and get your thoughts and ideas. This work was done on behalf of us all by the leadership of the church, but it will be of no value without your help, too! Please be watching and listening for more information coming soon. Beginning Sunday, July 15th, we'll be introducing key values in our Vision Statement during worship; and Sunday, August 12th is our kick-off Sunday with a meal to follow. All during this time, we will also be sharing the history and process of how this vision statement was birthed. Please join me and our Team Leadership Council. As we now join together around our Vision Statement, I can hardly wait to see where God will move us, Where Christ will lead us, and where the Holy Spirit will inspire and inform us as we stand on the brink of this next chapter for our beloved churches!