The John Wesley United Methodist Church ReVision Plan

Index: Beliefs, Context, Vision, Mission Statement, The Plan, Three-Year Initiatives, First Year Plan, Definitions, Acknowledgements, (Return to Home Page)

The VISION of John Wesley UMC

A shared Vision must be at the center of everything we believe and do as a community of faith. Clear vision will keep us from becoming fragmented and from straying from God's will for our church. The following pages set forth the vision that has emerged from the ReVision process, a vision that is uniquely suited to John Wesley as a church because of "who we are" and "whose we are." We believe that this vision is from the Holy Spirit. It has the power to guide and direct John Wesley United Methodist Church in its mission and ministry into the 21^st century.

Vision includes "what ought to be" when God is done with us and the world in which we live, and the "what is" of where we are today. In our lives, what "ought to be" and "what is" are always in tension. While we will never see the gap between them completely close, the hope of this closure, and all that closure means, drives us forward in mission. God has given us the desire to close the gap between "what is" and "what ought to be" in meaningful ways.

Both our beliefs and the "what is," our mission context, are reflected below in the sections "Our Beliefs" and "Our Mission Context." The focus of "what ought to be," emerges from these two sections in the section we call Our Vision. The call to close the gap between "what is" and "what ought to be" is "Our Mission."

In three to five years, our congregation will narrow the gaps identified through the ReVision process, and will find that the Holy Spirit has set more challenges before us. Through the work that God has laid before us, a ground swell of grass roots enthusiasm will emerge as the members of John Wesley United Methodist Church celebrate the glory of God. (Back to top)

Our Beliefs

The prophet Isaiah said,

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion -- to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory. -- Isaiah 61:1-3 We believe that our faith must express itself in actions that correspond to Isaiah's great vision.

God in Christ has blessed our world with the hope of full life. In the prayer Jesus Christ taught his disciples we ask thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. While there is a great gap between what "one day will be" and current conditions in our congregation, community, and world, we believe that we are called by God to narrow the gap.

We believe that we can narrow the gap because God reached out to us through Jesus Christ. We narrow the gap when we:

• Accept all people as God's children;
• Understand that God desires all humankind to know and love God;
• Structure our world so that everyone's basic needs can be met;
• Create an environment of hospitality, including the stranger at our door who may be an angel "without our knowing it" (Hebrews 13:2) and caring for one another with respect and acceptance; and
• Live our faith actively, positively and enthusiastically in both our church family and in our community.

We believe that, as Christ's church, we have been called to live as active members of our church, community and world: to be ministers for Jesus Christ. The joys and sorrows, hopes and challenges of our church, community and world are part of our own lives and the life of John Wesley church.

We believe that, as people of Christ in our church, our community and our world, we must work as God's hands and feet for the health and wholeness of all. (Back to top)

Our Mission Context

The Percept Company provided John Wesley with several sources of information on our congregation and our community. In the Context Report used by the ReVision groups, data from the U.S. Census, consumer surveys and from the questionnaire completed by John Wesley members during worship in October, 1997, were combined to provide the following insights:

Our community is home, and we take great pride in it. We realize that it faces many challenges. The number of households in our community concerned about meeting basic needs is well above the national average. Our community's level of education is well below the national average. Our population is growing slowly and the percentage of single-parent families is somewhat above the national average.

Receptivity to issues of faith is somewhat high, when compared to national averages. This challenges John Wesley UMC to reach out to our community. The community also prefers traditional forms of church worship, music and architecture.

Our congregation has less diversity than our community. Our congregation is also much better educated than our community. While our community is concerned about meeting basic needs, our congregation is primarily concerned with spiritual and personal development. We are like the surrounding community in our taste in church programing, our preference for recreational approaches and in our resistance to change.

While the congregation is very satisfied with their relationship with God and family life, there is less satisfaction with interpersonal relationships within the church, personal study and prayer life, and actual ministry involvement.

Our church's ministry is actively supported by our congregation. The music program at John Wesley and SummerThing were highly regarded by respondents. Both the 9:30 and the 11:00 worship services, U.M.M., U.M.W., children's Sunday school, and the Cold Weather Shelter were also viewed in a very positive light. But church members expressed concern for our evangelism, attendance, stewardship and communications efforts. Finally, while the congregation considers Bible studies such as Disciple important, participation in adult Sunday school is not strong.

In several cases the programs we offer diverge from what the community and/or congregation desires. The congregation expressed a desire for spiritual retreats and sports or camping which our church does not offer.

We share with our community a common concern for its overall health. This is especially evident in the concern we express for the lack of employment opportunities in this community and our involvement in supporting programs for meeting basic needs. (For a complete view of our mission context, please refer to the Context Report.)

We live in a community in need of rebuilding and spiritual renewal. Many of the programs and ministries we currently offer address some of these needs. The REACH program is doing very well, and is meeting many basic needs. However, we also must recognize that there are barriers, including some we have built, which keep us from effectively engaging our community. We must continually evaluate our existing programs to be sure that the needs of our congregation and community are being met. We need to strengthen the presentation of ourselves as a worshiping body that loves and cares for the community. (Back to top)

Our Vision

Our vision, our "what ought to be," has two major parts:

First, ultimately we seek to live in the presence of God, seeing God's face and knowing God's will. As Paul says in the following excerpts from Colossians 1:25-28, ...the word of God fully known, ...this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. ...everyone mature in Christ. We want to be able to present ourselves and all others to God whole and fully alive.

Second, more immediately, by observing our current mission context, we see where improvements can be made that carry us forward on our journey to God. Based on the work done by the reflection groups, our vision is that:

• The spiritual needs of our community are being met. Our worship of God is the center of our life of faith. We envision providing a variety of appropriate worship opportunities so that people from throughout our diverse community find our church to be a place to worship God.

There is also a great longing for theological reflection, both in the community and in the church. We envision using a variety of settings for discussion of spiritual matters.

• The educational needs of our community are being met. Our children are the future of our community and our church. Our congregation's educational wealth can be mobilized to improve the schooling of our community's youth. We envision using both local resources and the broader church resources, such as our Conference Retreat and Camping programs to help youth grow intellectually, socially and spiritually.
• The basic human needs of our community are being met. We envision effective ministries to the homeless and others that do not have adequate food, shelter, health care or personal safety. These ministries should include adult education ministries that meet identified needs.

• The economic needs of our community are being met. Economic disruption and hardship can create the hard ground on which the seeds of God's word have a difficult time growing. We envision an economic environment which grows and sustains our community in ways that encourage healthy family life and development of full human potential.
• The human relationship needs of our community are being met. Where there are problems in relating to others, there is the loss of safety and the increase of fear and threats, both real and perceived. We envision groups and neighborhoods and communities that are peopled by individuals who know and respect their fellow human beings. We envision effective communication among people of good will.
• Our church and our community are alive with renewed enthusiasm. As we seek God's will and put it into action, the successful development of ministries requires effective communication with each other and with the community. Enthusiasm encourages growth. We envision the enthusiasm that enables more effective communication of our beliefs to the community. Furthermore, we alone cannot do all that is to be done. We envision our enthusiasm creating opportunities to partner with other churches and community groups as we seek to do God's work in our time and place.

This is our vision. (Back to top)

Our Mission Statement

God has given John Wesley UMC a vision of the future. Our vision shows us how things ought to be in our community and in our church life. We intend to engage in intentional mission activities to close the gap between "how things are" today and the way God has shown us that things "ought to be."

God has called John Wesley UMC to be Christ

• To one another by:
• Having meaningful worship of our God together, whose triune nature we call Father, Son and Holy Spirit;
• Advancing spiritual development;
• Drawing on the power of the Holy Spirit to energize us; and
• Sustaining vibrant fellowship.

• To the Hagerstown community by:
• Proclaiming the Good News in word and deed; and
• Working together for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of our community. (Back to top)

The Plan of John Wesley UMC

Our Mission Statement in Action

We will translate our Mission Statement by first using it to evaluate everything we do. When we set our current ministries and programs against it, we will ask if they help us fulfill our mission. Every existing program and ministry must undergo this test, and new initiatives must grow out of our vision and be shaped by our Statement of Mission.

Three-Year Initiatives:

The next three years will be a time of intentional redirection where we follow the guidance provided John Wesley UMC by the Holy Spirit through this ReVision process. In the face of huge needs in the community and in the church family, we must be careful to target the areas where we can be most effective, given our strengths and abilities. The four Three-Year Mission Initiatives have been selected with this challenge in mind.

1. Provide an educational environment that supports spiritual and economic growth and development.

This initiative builds on the gift of good education that so many of John Wesley's members have. Recognizing the community's need for spiritual and economic development, work in the area of education is a "natural" way for this congregation to be in ministry to our community.

• Discover and respond to unmet basic needs in our community.

With so many in our community unable to adequately meet the need for shelter, food, safety and health we must devote a portion of our effort to meeting basic human needs. John Wesley must continue its tradition of working with community resources to identify and fill gaps in the service delivery network, maintaining the appropriate balance between the energy devoted to short term versus longer range solutions.

• Offer multiple worship experiences and schedules to meet the needs of our diverse community.

We affirm that worship of God that maintains Biblical integrity and fundamental Christian values is the center of our faith and that everything that we do has its origin in our acts of worship. Our worship is very traditional, matching the style preferred by our community. Yet, because of its importance and centrality, we must devote significant ongoing lay and clergy planning energies to insure that there are no gaps between what we are doing and what God is calling us to do in worship.

• Develop our staff and membership into a smoothly functioning, enthusiastic team with common goals based on our beliefs, mission context and vision statement.

Clergy appointed to serve this church, our support employees and our members together make up the human resources we have available to carry forth our mission plans. The ReVision process has given us a shared Vision and focused us on specific mission directions. We must do everything in our power to improve our communication, coordination and teamwork so that we do not make our efforts in other areas ineffective. (Back to top)

First Year Plan:

In the first year of John Wesley's ReVision plan we will:

• Develop an active involvement in tutoring and in other youth ministries, working closely with neighboring churches.

Working with youth is one of the best ways to insure the future of our church and our community. Through youth, we may reach families that do not have a current church family or who have other unmet basic needs. We know from the context report that there are many families in our community struggling to make ends meet, and we know that John Wesley is rich in educational resources. We also learned that this church prefers to get behind community ministries rather than duplicate existing services. Asbury UMC has a tutoring program that is bursting at the seams. As their program grows it will need expansion space and willing volunteers. This is something we have skills to do together in ministry to our immediate community.

• Identify and develop appropriate personal mission opportunities and programs that meet gaps in basic needs, using the strengths and abilities of John Wesley members.

Studies and statistics on the needs of this community abound, as do the number of church and community-based programs to meet these needs. John Wesley has a reputation as a "mission-giving" church, but we have not educated ourselves about the needs and available programs so that we might make the "best" match between unmet needs and John Wesley's human resources. Prioritizing our giving of time, talent and financial resources in this arena is good stewardship.

• Study the traditions and principles of worship, evaluate our worship practices, and develop plans for future worship directions with the pastor.

We believe that our shared Vision will provide energy for our mission outreach which will inevitably be reflected in our worship of God. Our exploration of worship styles must include education on the traditional divisions of the worship service, the role of each emphasis, and the resources available to worship leaders. We need to enhance and strengthen worship practices that are currently good and embraced by our congregation while enhancing our worship offerings to allow God to speak to an even broader congregation including younger families.

• Provide training in conflict management techniques to help John Wesley members deal with change in the most positive manner possible.

Our Vision calls us to make changes in how we do things. We recognize that "how we interact with each other in this congregation" needs to be improved. Therefore, we need to take advantage of every tool available to assist us in this challenging process. Often the outcomes of our human interactions may depend on our perspective, on whether we choose to look for the positive rather than the negative implications of our communication. Conflict can be healthy in our congregational life if we are able to unlock the potential benefits of different views and insights and use them to the glory of God.

• Evaluate every existing John Wesley program and ministry using the ReVision Plan, making appropriate recommendations and changes in the organizational structures including the allocation of resources and staffing efforts.

We do not know whether John Wesley's ministry will be best served by an Administrative Board and Council of Ministries or some other form of church structure. We do know that the current committee structure, from the Board of Trustees, the Staff Parish Relations Committee, to the multiple committees that serve under the Council of Ministries, has gifted individuals in place who are able to carry out programs and know the value of the work they currently do. One of the first orders of business for the year must therefore become an evaluation of ongoing programs and ministries using the framework provided by the Vision and John Wesley's Three-Year Initiatives. As committees report their findings through the existing structure, ultimately presenting evaluation results to the Administrative Board, we pray that the Holy Spirit will give us the wisdom to make any indicated changes in program and ministry in an orderly manner. The need for some changes may be obvious and immediate, while others will be worked out with some deliberation. However all will be done to the glory of God, as John Wesley seeks to be Christ's church in the Hagerstown community. (Back to top)

Definitions of ReVision Terms

Developmental emphases New or re-directed efforts

Strategic thinking Big picture, general direction (not day-to-day)

Context report Seven areas of demographic data analysis and survey opinions on the Hagerstown Community and our church compiled by "Percept," also referred to as "our Mission Context"

Community of faith The congregation, John Wesley United Methodist Church.

Community The geographic area within five miles of John Wesley UMC.

Congregation The members of John Wesley UMC.

Tactical thinking Day-to-day decisions

Vision Where we are now plus what ought to be when God is done with us (the kingdom of God), both for our church and our community

Mission Activities that move our church from where we are now to where God wants us to be

Initiatives Three-year goals for mission that identify developmental emphases

The Gap Difference between "what is" now and "what ought to be" in the kingdom of God

Justifications Why a particular initiative or strategy is important

Consensus A process of discussion, review of facts, compromise and deliberation through which a group arrives at a position that everyone can support 100%

Beliefs The tenets held to be true by the members of the congregation. A statement of faith. Creed. (Back to top)

Acknowledgements

In presenting this ReVision Plan to the Administrative Board for official adoption, we want to acknowledge the work of the eleven ReVision study groups that met in April through July 1998. Special thanks go to the leaders of these groups who met weekly over the summer and into the fall to put the feedback from these groups into one document. And finally, the ReVision Plan could not have come to its final form without the participation of the twenty-eight members that gave Saturday, September 26, 1998, to struggle with John Wesley's call and language choices, as they opened themselves to the will of the Holy Spirit:

Patti Staley, Richard Willson, , Margaret Grimm, Audrey Grimm, Sadie Tate, Clyde Tate, Babs Hull, Judy Conner, Betty Heck, Bob Murdock, Linda Stouffer, Iris Kresge, Esther Lee Ginny Fitzwater, Mark Holmes, Linda Sappington, Mary Keedy, Robert Keedy, Marilyn Smith, Patrick, Ricker, Carolyn Simpson, Richard Simpson, Pat Drake (ReVision consultant), Betty Willson, Bob Bell, Mary Licht, and John Clatterbaugh.Sincerely,

Rev. Richard Simpson John Clatterbaugh, ReVision Chair (Back to top)