Our goal through Fanning the Flame is to attend to our health as a church. We want to be a healthy, vibrant body of Christ that brings glory to the Lord. Our mission points toward what that looks like for us. Our Effective Structures task force set out to discern the best way for us to structure ourselves to effectively work toward that mission. They considered our current approach as well as that of a couple of other churches and their work was instrumental in adopting the acronym “WELL” as a way of capturing the 4 emphases that we believe are needed to be a healthy church. Those 4 ministry emphases are these (more details on the website):

• Worship (public, private)
• Extending Grace (reaching out to our community and world in word and deed)
• Living in Community (becoming family)
• Learning to Follow Jesus (discipleship)

These 4 emphases provide us the structure to move forward in ministry. Our goal this month is to launch a strategy-forming ministry team for each of these emphases. Through prayer, meditation, and brainstorming they will identify a specific “mission” statement for their emphases (that flows from our overall vision statement), identify particular strategies to take us toward that mission, evaluate our current set of ministries that might relate with their emphases, and then select a strategy to tackle first. The chosen strategy may focus on developing something we are already doing or it may be something entirely new, depending on the team’s evaluation and findings. In order to tackle these new strategies, new ministry teams will form and one of the team members will lead that new team.

Every Member a Minister

Eventually, every member of Cornerstone will be on a ministry team according to their spiritual gifts, passions, and availability.  That’s our goal so that “everyone’s on a team and everyone has a team.”

Getting Involved

There are a number of ways you can be involved. One is in prayer. We’ve asked everyone to pray for our leaders on a regular basis. We are in a spiritual battle and desperately need it. Another is to join a team. Right now we have these 4 that are forming. Obviously not everyone will be on one of these teams.  That’s good because new teams for ministry will be formed. These new teams will often be more hands on.  In terms of the emphases teams, here are my suggestions for the qualifications:

• mature in their faith
• passionate about the emphasis;
• strategic thinker,
• willing to invest the time to research,
• teachable,
• desiring to grow leadership skills.

After prayer, if you feel the Lord leading you to one of these initial 4 teams, please contact Jonathan Tucker or Pastor Carter.

For the glory of Christ and His Church,

Carter