"Mission" and "Vision:" Part II
Friends, this week's post will dive right into the work this parish has engaged in since I arrived on these shores. Starting with parish council retreats, a "world cafe," congregational retreats, and meetings, we've been on the adventure of tracing our parish identity, in the hope that the ensuing conversations have left "breadcrumbs" pointing in a direction that makes sense for our present and future flourishing.
I am convinced that none of the work we do "in the Lord" is in vain, so it has been with a particular "edge-of-my-seat" anticipation that I've waited for these many different conversations to coalesce in a sense of "mission" aiming at a desired/hoped for "vision" for our common life and ministry.
Over the last while, there has been a particularly intense flurry of activity as we've recognized that it is a sense of parish identity, as that is evidenced in our sense of mission and vision, that needs to inform everything from what we focus on as a parish council, to how we make budget plans, to whether moving to a different location with its corresponding challenges and opportunities or staying in our present space with its own corresponding challenges and opportunities would be the wise way forward.
Florie Varga (given what I said about the flurry of activity above, I was tempted to call her "Flurry Varga" ) has worked very hard to pull together all the "data points" from the different levels of our congregational engagement over the last 3 years; she has drawn on my work as your priest and other input from wardens. Finally, she has workshopped this with our Parish Council and helped us wrestle with sorting the difference between our "preferences" (things we've come to know and love about St. Philip) and "the Call" (the way(s) God may be asking us to embrace new possibilities). The best-case scenario is that our "preferences" reflect God's good work in the past and positively influence our future direction, but together we recognize that genuine change is also required if St. Philip is to thrive going forward.
At the bottom of this post, you will find a diagram of a picture we are using as a visual metaphor to draws our mission and vision together. It riffs off of one of Jesus' favourite metaphors: the tree, particularly that of the mustard seed which starts as one of the smallest of seeds but grows into a large tree in which many different kinds of birds (diversity and harmony) find places to nest.
The Mission of St. Philip is pictured as the tree trunk, the conduit of the life sap that builds the main limbs that support the forming of fruit. The trunk becomes this conduit of life as the nutrients are gathered by and fed upwards by the trunk's roots, here pictured as our guiding principles. The Mission answers the question "What is ours to do?" "What is St. Philip called to do?" We might even ask, "What is uniquely ours to do?" Not in the sense of "unlike anyone else," but what does it mean for this community to participate in God's Reign in a way that fits us.
What will guide us as we make day-to-day, year-by-year decisions? How will we live our lives together and share the Gospel, above all else? These are the sorts of questions that determine "mission." If we call to mind a biblical example, we may remember what is commonly called "the Great Commision," Jesus' charge to the 12 (then 11) disciples "Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations..." For the rest of their lives they could always ask themselves, "This is the thing that is uniquely ours to do; are we doing it?"
One last thing about a mission before the big reveal: it should be short and memorable, even as it contains within it all that is essential - no easy task!
After all the sorting, thinking, and praying, here it is: St. Philip exists to share and live the love of Jesus. At first blush, it sounds as if any church might claim something similar as their mission; it's so simple, but a search of Anglican Churches shows that's not the case. It contains enough of our past and charts a clear path for how we make decisions moving forward. It contains two verbs, "share" and "live," verbs that focus on actions. Knowing things can be very helpful; doing the essential things is even more important! People who join our community may believe slightly different things, but we join together in a sense of "common prayer" and "lived love." The choice of the word "Jesus" over "Christ" draws us to Jesus' table ministry, his inclusion of the outsider, his sense that the marginalized, the sinner, and the forsaken were not forgotten by God. "Live the love of Jesus" reminds us that Jesus is a present-moment possibility; you can remember the love of someone dead and gone, but you can only "live the love" of someone alive! When I think about what makes St. Philip so special, I think about how in so many different, practical ways members of this congregation share their lives and goods with each other and with people who are in need; you "live the love of Jesus!"
We needed to pick a short sentence for the Mission Statement but there is a descriptive sentence that goes along with it: St. Philip exists to be a community where people can come as they are to build meaningful connections and grow in faith, and live the love of Jesus. Upon reflection, we felt that the first part of this sentence was captured in "live the love of Jesus" but that, for some, the first part of this descriptive sentence would help inform the particular "flavour" of St. Philip's mission statement.
Next week I will go a bit deeper into our chosen Vision statement, which you can see on the diagram attached here. For now I will say that our Vision statement answers the question, "what do we hope to achieve if we live our mission?" It is a picture of our preferred future together, and like our mission statement, every word is loaded! That's enough for now.
Just to let you know that sometime next week Florie will be sending out a survey in which she asks for your help and input as we seek to clarify our guiding principles, principles that will further enhance what we mean by our mission and vision sentences.
Right click and open in new tab to view larger image
header photo by Mike Holford on Unsplash