The Vision

“Core values drive and thus guide the church.  Like a ship out on the high seas sailing toward some port, churches are on a journey toward some ministry port that is their mission and vision.  The church’s mission determines its port, and the vision is a picture of what it will look like when it arrives at that port.”

Helped by the Core Values Audit, eight values immerged as being of major importance to St Jude’s:

 o    Preaching and teaching scripture – communicating God’s word to people

  o    Bible knowledge – a familiarity with truths of scripture

  o    Community – caring about and addressing the needs of others

  o    Fellowship – relating to and enjoying one another

  o    Prayer – communicating with God

  o    Evangelism – telling others the good news about Christ

  o    Worship – attributing worth to God

  o    Obedience – a willingness to do what God and others ask

We connsidered if these were of equal importance.

Several folk felt Prayer was key.  However, we acknowledged this may not appear so because of poor attendance at the church Sunday evening prayer gatherings, but the time and form of these evenings may go some way towards explaining the discrepancy between the desire for prayer and the lack of actually gathering together to pray.  Prayer does take place at other times and in other venues. 

We went on to start considering possible Mission Statements – a short phrase or couple of sentences – which sum up these eight core values.  It was suggested that one or two scripture verses might form a good summary.  The meeting concluded in a time of open prayer as we began our search for verses that might be suitable. The PCC reconvenes on 9th January.