The Church of the Good Shepherd

2008 Theme and Goals

THEME = “LEARNING TO OBEY JESUS”

“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20).

“You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:4-6).

PROLOGUE: Learning WHY we obey Jesus. We do not obey in order to earn God’s mercy; we obey because we have received God’s mercy in Christ (Romans 12:1). We do not obey to earn Jesus’ love; we obey in order to express our love (John 14:21).
GOALS: Learning WHAT Jesus taught us to obey. The need of the hour at The Church of the Good Shepherd now leads us to four main goals for 2008.
	1.	We need to learn Jesus’ commands that we are to OBEY (John 14:21), both Old Testament (Matthew 5:17-18; Luke 24:25-26, 44) and New (Mark 13:31; John 14:25-26). We long to grow out as a congregation into this community, but we cannot grow out without also growing up into greater maturity! What good will it be for us as a congregation if we become a mile wide at the cost of becoming an inch deep? We will emphasize the need for all of us to be learning together as a devoted community of worshiping and maturing brothers and sisters. We should expect our Sunday School attendance to increase by 10 to 25% in each flock by the end of the year.
	2.	We need to learn to OBEY Jesus’ command to “make disciples” (Mt. 28:19), which means we need to learn to reach out more boldly. We will therefore offer evangelism training for our whole congregation (“Christianity Explored” seminar with Rico Tice of All Souls Anglican Church in London, England, John Stott’s church, Saturday, April 26 from 9:00 to 4:30) and in each of our flocks, culminating in opportunities in the fall (and throughout the year) for actual outreach, so that God actually uses us to introduce people to living relationships with him. We should expect to see new disciples of Jesus as part of CGS, such that our membership and attendance increase by 10 to 25%.
	3.	We need to learn to OBEY Jesus’ command to show mercy to our neighbor (Luke 10:36-37). We will therefore continue to publicize and recruit for local ministries to the poor and needy so that more of our members get involved with their time and energy, and we will continue to publicize and receive alms offerings each quarter to benefit key local ministries. We should expect to see significant increases in those alms offerings for those agencies over previous years as well as increased members involvement in terms of volunteer time with these agencies as more of us are learning to obey Jesus in this area.
	4.	We need to learn to OBEY Jesus’ command to use the worldly wealth he has entrusted to us for eternal dividends (Luke 16:9). We spend way too much time rationalizing Jesus’ interaction with the rich young ruler and his words about it afterward (Mark 10:17-31). We need to learn the difference between tithes, offerings, and alms and Jesus’ expectations of each of us with respect to each of those categories of giving. We will teach on stewardship in each flock this year and in an elective for the whole congregation this summer. We will develop a plan to reduce the debt we owe on our buildings by one half in the next three years without reducing our tithes to the General Fund of the church. We should expect to reach our budget of $2.2 million this year through our tithes while also gathering alms for the needy and offerings for our missions projects and our sanctuary debt.
EPILOGUE. Learning HOW we are to obey Jesus. We do not obey in our own strength, but in the strength he supplies by the Holy Spirit he has sent to us (Acts 1:4-8). Our obedience flows from our faith; not our faith from our obedience (Romans 1:5; 16:26). We are made into new creatures through Christ (II Corinthians 5:17), and though an old nature remains, at war with our new nature from the Holy Spirit, we grow more and more into that new nature as we learn to put off our old way of life and put on the new (Ephesians 4:22-24; Galatians 5:16-25).