Steps to becoming a Pupose Driven Church
Updated September 2005

1. Organize our church around the five Purposes — Completed August 2003:

Completed 8/3/03 — new organization chart and committee reassignment into W'FED'M format.

Revisited 9/11/03 — changed each from “committee” to “team.”

Consider separating nurture from evangelism and relocating nurture to Fellowship Team. Approved 9/25/03 by the Administrative Board.

2. Define our Purposes — Completed August 2005:
1. What is currently driving our church i.e., traditions, personalities, finances, programs, building, events, seekers?

Determined at 9/11/03 COM Meeting that First Church is currently driven by programs and education. We are a church of believers and apostolic ministers to send out into the world throughout the week.

2. Are we doing what God intends for us to do? How well are we doing it?

Begin to look at every thing the church does through the lens of five New Testament purposes and see how God intends for the church to balance all five purposes.

In order to accomplish this we undertook a church-wide Purpose Driven Life Study from September to November 2004.

The goals of this campaign were established at the 8/19/04 COM meeting as:

1. personal growth;
2. change to the 20%/80% work balance;
3. increase in membership.

Now that the church members understand the five purposes better and have applied them to their lives, it is time to apply them to our church.

3. From these insights, determine a purpose statement.

A special strategic planning meeting was held 2/5/05 with all five team chairs present as well as chairs from Finance, Trustees, Communications, Technology, and Staff Parish (Stewardship was invited). At this meeting a draft purpose statement was derived, drawing from draft purpose statements prepared by each COM Team. The foundation of our church as well as all five purposes as found in Purpose Driven Life and Purpose Driven Church were intentionally included. The statement was distributed, prayed upon, reconsidered, reviewed, revised and formally adopted at the 2/17/05 COM meeting (and revised in August 2005) as follows:

First United Methodist Church
Purpose Statement

As believers in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and the Bible as the inspired word of God, we:

• glorify God through worship,.
• build strong relationships in the church family,.
• grow in the knowledge of the truth as revealed through Jesus Christ,.
• serve people as a reflection of the love of Jesus Christ, and.
• spread the Good News of the Gospel so that others may come to salvation through grace.

Subsequently, each of the five teams re-reviewed their draft purpose statement against the church-wide statement and made changes accordingly, resulting in the adoption of the following purpose statements for each of the five teams in August 2005:

Worship Team Purpose Statement:

To create an environment which enables and encourages people to glorify God through praise and prayer and through hearing and applying the Word of God.

Fellowship Team Purpose Statement:

To encourage development and strengthening of relationships in the church family through planned “fun” activities that help facilitate personal sharing.

Discipleship Team Purpose Statement:

To teach everyone about God and the fulfillment of promises through our Savior, Jesus Christ, we will provide a foundation for faith through Christ-centered and Biblically-based materials and methods, so that future generations will know and serve Christ. We seek to meet all people wherever they are on their personal faith journey and help them reach a deeper understanding of Salvation.

Ministries Team Purpose Statement:

To act as the hands and feet of Christ in a loving outreach to both the church family and the greater community, we will serve: as a natural reflection of God's love, which we share through various works; as ministers of projects that strengthen faith in Christ through activities and outreach; as agents of renewal in our culture; as Christ working through us to redeem Laurel, Maryland, the United States, and the World.

Evangelism Team Purpose Statement:

To spread the good news of the gospel throughout our community. We will show nonbelievers the compassion and forgiveness of God and tell them the promise of His Son, Jesus the Christ with the hope that all nonbelievers will enter into a personal relationship with Christ and accept the gift of salvation. We will emphasize reaching out to those in a physical, emotional, or spiritual crisis. We will actively encourage inactive members to become more completely involved in the work of the church.

3. Communicate our purposes to everyone, regularly

Began within Council on Ministries upon adoption 2/17/05. Communicating our purpose to the congregation, and all other Administrative Board line item chairs and teams is a goal for 2006.

4. Apply our purposes to every part of our church

The application of purposes takes months or years of praying, planning, preparation and experimenting and includes:

1. Program around your purposes - choose or design a program to fulfill each. Organize around purposes — focus work areas on the target group for those purposes. Help every member find a meaningful place of service that best expresses his or her gifts and abilities.

From March through August 2005 the COM Team re-evaluated each existing work area from the Council on Ministries Organizational Chart adopted at the October 2004 Charge Conference against the adopted purpose statements. A revised chart was adopted at the 8/18/05 Council meeting. This new chart will be presented at the October 2005 Charge Conference as the organizational chart for COM for 2006.

Team members are being recommended by the Lay Leadership Development Team to fill the appropriate opening and serve as additional team members for the 2006 calendar year.

2. Budget on purpose — Every line item should be identified with one of the purposes. The way we spend our time and money shows what is really important to us.

Began this effort in Nov. 2004, to be re-evaluated against the purpose statements for guidance for balancing future budgets. For 2006, the budget for the Council on Ministries will need to be adjusted to reflect the reassignment of work areas between teams.

3. Calendar on purpose — giving special emphasis to each purpose during certain times of the year.

Calendar activities to be re-evaluated against the purpose statements and five purposes for health and balance in the future.

Goal for 2006.

4. Evaluate on purpose — Continually evaluate what we are doing. The purposes are the standards for evaluation.

The purpose statements will be utilized to evaluate future opportunities and suggestions. Balance in the 5 purposes leads to church health. Need to determine what our target balance should be in all aspects of the church (may not be equal for all five in each area).

Balancing all five purposes to achieve church health is the goal for 2006. Now that all existing work areas have been re-evaluated against the purpose statement, and after the new team members are put in place in 2006, we will begin seeking out what else God would have First Church do to achieve an “appropriate” (not necessarily equal) balance in all five purposes to serve members in all circles of commitment.