We are blessed to be a blessing

             As you are aware, the Connected in Christ team has been working for over a year to discern the things that are important to this congregation in term of values.  In determining what our core values are as a congregation, the team was then able develop a vision statement and a new mission statement for the church.  This week at the Church Council, these new statements were adopted and I want to share them with you.

             In 1907, an article was written in the local newspaper about the founding of Dodson Avenue Methodist-Episcopal Church, South – which is Goddard United Methodist Church today.  In that article, the church was referred to as “a sign of hope in south Fort Smith.”  A sign of hope.  That phrase struck the CIC team as exactly what the church is supposed to be.  So our vision for the church – how the church should begin to see itself is this:  Our vision is to be a sign of hope in the Spirit of Christ.  A sign of hope is something that is still needed in our world today – perhaps even more now than in 1907.  If you look at the world, there are not many signs of hope.  But if we begin to see ourselves in this way, then perhaps it will make a difference in how we relate to our community and with each other.  Perhaps it will make a difference in how we do ministry and the ministries we do.

             Our new mission statement came from the desire to be a sign of hope.  How do we become that sign of hope?  The CIC team developed this as the mission statement of Goddard:  Our mission is to reflect Christ’s love by striving to meet the spiritual, emotional and physical needs of all people.  If we meet the needs of people as they present themselves to us or as we meet them in our everyday interactions, then we can indeed be a sign of hope.  We realize that we cannot interact with or meet the needs of all 6,644,275,479 people in the world.  But we can begin where we are – right here in Fort Smith, Arkansas, reach out to our community and participate in global ministries through all the opportunities The United Methodist Church offers us locally and globally.

             Now that we have these statements in place, the CIC team will begin looking at all the current ministries of the church to make sure the things we are doing fit into the mission of our church.  As new ministries are developed they will be measured against the mission statement – how will this ministry do what our mission is?  In this way we will all be pulling in the same direction.  We will be working together to be a sign of hope in the Spirit of Christ.

             Oh yeah, one other thing has come from the CIC team and was adopted by the Church Council.  A motto for the church.  Something we can put on a t-shirt and we can all remember.  You hear it every week in worship.  We are blessed to be a blessing.  That’s who we are what we’re called to do.

             You will be seeing these new statements on the bulletins and in the newsletter.  You will hear them in worship.   I hope you will use them and make them a part of who you are.  We are blessed to be a blessing.  See you in church as we seek to be a sign of hope in the Spirit of Christ.

                                                                

                                                                                                        Shalom,

                                                                                                               Wade W