Making Life-Giving Connections

I am the vine, you are the branches.

Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit,

because apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5

Dear Friends,

A couple of years ago at our Annual General Meeting, we did a Values Card exercise to begin to identify the Core Values of First Lutheran Church. The assumption is that God has brought this congregation together and that it is animated by a particular manifestation of God’s Holy Spirit here. The Values Card exercise was an attempt to begin to name the values that have been a part of FLC and that continue to be. At their retreat 2 years ago, the Council contemplated the results from that exercise and discerned that our core values are: Uplifting, Connecting, Inviting and Dynamic. Almost every Sunday, I begin our worship by saying these values and I have the ongoing experience that this is who we are!

A couple of weekends ago (Feb. 27-28), your church council met in retreat. With the Core Values in our pocket, our primary goal was to discern the Core Purpose of First Lutheran Church. In these times when many congregations are struggling amidst rapidly changing everything, wise church leaders are doing the work of getting very clear about why their congregation exists! For many of us, we have grown up in the Church and never really asked some of these basic questions. It is especially critical now because the context and circumstances in which congregations find themselves are very different that they were 50 or 10  or even 5 years ago. Just think about how technology, demographics, economies, secularism, diversity, population density, language, education… (you name it) has changed. In this time of great changes and transitions, faithfully adapting to our context is necessary. Clarity about our core values and core purpose give us a place to stand as we discern God’s will for us here and now.

Soooo… For the retreat, your council members prepared by reading the book, How to Lead When You Don't Know Where You're Going: Leading in a Liminal Season by Susan Beaumont. At the retreat, we then took the data from the 2025 AGM (where you identified the most important activities and ministries) along with our Core Values, and worked to discern the core purpose that God has given First Lutheran Church. What emerged was this purpose:

Making Life-Giving Connections

Having discerned this as our Core Purpose, then we began asking the question, If this is our core purpose, then what are this year’s priorities that will most faithfully help us fulfil on this purpose? We identified four general priorities (my phrasing):

·         Life-giving volunteering

·         Life-giving worship

·         Life-giving youth and young adult ministry

·         Life-giving relationships with our tenants and their families

There will be more information and specific goals and activities within each of these priorities that the Council will be sharing with you in the coming weeks. As we begin “trying on” this core purpose and have it be a guiding criteria for our activities, I invite YOU to also try it on. Does it resonate with you regarding what you have experienced in your participation at FLC? What are connections that you have or have experienced that have been life-giving? What are the connections—with members, youth, God, the Bible, seniors, neighbourhood, other faiths—that you feel a “tug” to make more life-giving?

Stay tuned and get connected…

Pastor Phil