Behind the Spiritual Growth Assessment
It’s been the summer custom of our pastoral team to do a deep-dive evaluation of our church’s mission and vision. Going back a few years, we’ve alternated between looking closely at our mission effectiveness and then our vision. In other words:
Are we multiplying and maturing disciples? (mission)
Are we planting churches? (vision)
The connection between the two is that if we are making disciples (including the number of disciples increasing and leaders being developed) then it leads to starting new churches throughout the metro. This is what we want to do — because we believe this magnifies the glory of Jesus, which is what it’s all about. Really, give me a minute here —
It all comes back to the glory of Jesus.
Our dream behind church planting started with an awakening to Jesus’s supremacy. Everything that exists is for God’s glory, and Jesus is the face of God’s glory, and so the question is: How do we magnify him? How do we get his name out there? How can Jesus be impossible to ignore in the Twin Cities?
Well, our conviction is that one really important way to do this is by local churches multiplying more local churches. So there you go. When it comes to vision, a decade from now we’re aiming to be …
… a healthy, vibrant church with a high priority and capacity to multiply more churches like ours. This is demonstrated by a known network identity of several healthy churches in the Twin Cities that share the same mission, vision, and values. Our health and vibrancy is seen in the ways our church follows Jesus and understands his realness in the three spheres of the church, the home, and the world, including, in particular, strong marriages and faithful children. Our people deeply understand, increasingly live, and winsomely communicate the gospel of Jesus. We are led by pastors who are as Christlike as forgiven sinners can be. (2018 Vision Storyline)
You’ll see that discipleship is inseparable from the vision. What good is it to multiply churches unless those churches are doing what Jesus tells them to do? Which is: make disciples.
Which means: multiplying and maturing worshipers, servants, and missionaries of Jesus who live faithfully in the church, the family, and the world.
Which we try to do mainly through faithful Bible teaching in a thick relational context. Another way to say it: we preach the gospel through the whole counsel of God for disciples who are purposely connected to one another.
This is the bread and butter of how we hope to “present everyone mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:28) (see inaugural sermon).
So then how’s that going? What are some ways that we could even track that?
Cue the Spiritual Growth Assessment.
We’d like to hear from you on how you assess your own spiritual health. Truly, only God knows how we’re really doing, but there are some informative metrics out there. And I mean “informative,” not “determinative.” There’s not an answer you could give on this assessment that will determine the state of your soul, but, taken together, there are some things that could provide the pastors a view into facts and trends within our membership. That’s the main purpose here.
If you haven’t taken the assessment yet, check it out. It should take you five minutes or less:
Meanwhile, it’s never been clearer to our pastoral team of what our church is trying to do, and how. And the goal must always stay the same. It’s Jesus. Jesus, more real than anything else. Jesus, who rules over all and is coming again.
