{"id":243,"date":"2014-04-11T21:52:19","date_gmt":"2014-04-12T01:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/75.103.85.86\/?page_id=243"},"modified":"2014-04-13T09:09:51","modified_gmt":"2014-04-13T13:09:51","slug":"vision-update-3-4-2014","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/emburyumc.org\/?page_id=243","title":{"rendered":"Visioning Update &#8211; March, 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"The Vision Team has had 2 meetings to date, one in mid January and a second in March. \u00a0In January, members received copies of the Greater New Jersey Conference Strategic Ministry Plan Summary article and the book Kicking Habits: Welcome Relief for Addicted Churches by Thomas Bandy. \u00a0An additional article, Implementing the 16 Drivers of Vital Congregations, was emailed to team members. \u00a0Members would be prepared for discussion regarding the readings at our next meeting so that we could begin to evaluate where our church ministry is and determine where our church ministry should strive to be in the future.[break][break]\r\n\r\nOn March 6, 2014 the 7 Vision Team members met to discuss their research. Like most projects, the \u201cwho, what, when, and how\u201d must be brought to the forefront. First, our discussion led us to the conclusion that the Church is compiled of people who believe in and become disciples of Jesus Christ and thus pattern their lives after Jesus Christ or the \u201cwho\u201d.\u00a0 We determined that the purpose of the Church is to grow believers who proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to expand the kingdom of God or the \u201cwhat\u201d.\u00a0 Finally, the research indicated that by growing disciples through nurturing and mission the church encourages people to go out and make a difference in the community and world or the \u201chow\u201d.\u00a0 The \u201cwhen\u201d is to still be determined![break][break]\r\n\r\nSecondly, by reviewing many of our characteristics, we assessed the focus of the ministry at Embury UMC. We determined that we have a membership-focused church. Based on this conclusion, the Vision Team will be reviewing the possibility of Embury changing its focus from a membership mold to a disciple of Jesus Christ mold. Therefore, we would work toward growing disciples who will live out their faith everyday through daily scripture readings, prayer, and mission out in the community and world.[break][break]\r\n\r\nIf you have any questions, we invite you to ask any member of the vision team about the readings or to get a copy of the articles from Lynn Scott. A loan of the book Kicking Habits can be requested from any member of the team. The Vision Team will meet again in April. Thank you for your support of this ongoing process.[break][break]\r\n\r\nGrace Pak[break]\r\n\r\nDan Pak[break]\r\n\r\nJoan Cichalski[break]\r\n\r\nWendy Turnock[break]\r\n\r\nDiane Lowing[break]\r\n\r\nBarbara Mason[break]\r\n\r\nLynn Scott","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Vision Team has had 2 meetings to date, one in mid January and a second in March. \u00a0In January, members received copies of the Greater New Jersey Conference Strategic Ministry Plan Summary article and the book Kicking Habits: Welcome Relief for Addicted Churches by Thomas Bandy. \u00a0An additional article, Implementing the 16 Drivers of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":147,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-243","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/emburyumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/emburyumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/emburyumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/emburyumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/emburyumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/emburyumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":387,"href":"http:\/\/emburyumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/243\/revisions\/387"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/emburyumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/emburyumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}