Thanks, Dave. Good Evening. Thank you for coming out tonight. Many of you attended the 4-day meeting in April where we drafted the MP with the guidance of our consultant bob Gilliam. As such you know that the first and most important part of that process was to reach consensus on the biblical purpose for FCCO. What is that purpose?

Yes, to make disciples of Jesus Christ…. As you know, this is the “Great Commission” that Jesus gave to the Church. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the HS, and teaching them to do everything I have commanded you.” It includes the two major steps of (1) bringing people to Jesus (“baptizing them”) and (2) bringing them to maturity (“teaching them to obey everything I have commanded”). And it includes Missions (“of all nations”).

This Purpose could have been expanded to include many other details such as glorifying God, worshiping Him, loving Him, loving one another, preaching the gospel, etc. But we realized that biblical “disciples” will do all these things with the result that God will be glorified.

The Great Commission is wrapped in Jesus – In Mt. 28 it starts out with “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore go..”. If we are about making disciples, we are commissioned with His authority. And the GC ends with “And surely I am with you always”. This is so critical. We cannot make this MP happen. But if we abide in Christ He will empower us “to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.”

So having settled on the Biblical Purpose, each ministry area of the church then drafted a 5-year plan with strategic goals. The composite of these plans and goals is the draft MP for the church.

Some of you were with us in the second hour over recent weeks as Holly and Rick and Dave Kemper and Pete and Sandy and Don reviewed their plans for Worship and Technical Arts, our ministries to youth, adults and kids, and missions. We held these meetings to hear from you and to get your input to this MP. And tonight is another opportunity for that. We don’t have time to recount everything said in those meetings or review everything written in the MP, but to prime the pump for your thoughts, it might be helpful to mention just a few highlights.

Our worship and technical arts teams have grown so significantly under the leadership of Holly and Rick. In the meeting with them, some of you told Holly and Rick how much you appreciate the mix of music and video that has been so moving and potentially life changing in our worship services. Holly’s strategic goals include more use of choir and drama and involvement of our young people. One of the exciting things that Rick plans involves a more strategic use of video not only in-house but on local cable as an outreach to our Region. We are so blessed by these two teams who do such a wonderful job each week of helping us to connect to God.

It’s hard to believe that it’s only been 3 months since Dave Kemper came on staff. I’m sure you’ve noticed that our youth programs are on the move. Our kids just got back from a wonderful week at Moose River. Their meetings here at the church have been totally reconfigured to include Sunday worship in the Youth Chapel and meetings on Wednesday nights so that families can come out together. The youth are taking over the Parish Hall as well as the traditional church - we’d better hold on to the FLC with a firm grip!

Dave Kemper’s plan outlines strategic goals to get the right mix of worship, bible study, fun & fellowship, camp and retreats, small group accountability, and Missions involvement, to disciple our youth for Christ. As our young people grow as disciples of Jesus, and others are reached through them and through our Life Bridge outreach, these young people will have a huge part to play in reaching this Lakes Region for Christ.

In our meeting to review the 5-year vision for adult ministry here at FCCO, Pete described our goal to be what’s called a “high impact church”. This type of church conducts adult ministry on 3 levels: (1) in the large worship services, (2) in adult fellowships which are small enough to allow people to get to know one another, experience fellowship and have biblical teaching, and (3) in a structure of small groups that encourages life change and obedience to Christ through accountability in a more intimate relationship with a small group of Christians. Pete also described the changes we plan to bring to the adult fellowships. They are to be equipped with additional leaders for outreach, and prayer and caring, as well as teaching. The outreach leaders for example will be instrumental in bringing a Missions-focus to the AF and to encourage the AF to reach out to newcomers who may feel more a part of FCCO if they get involved in an AF.

Sandy painted an exciting picture for us of Kingdom Kids reorganized into activity centers and with shepherds whose prime responsibility is to come along side of their small group of kids to lovingly help them grow in their relationship with Jesus. And as we think of VBS about to get underway, I hope we all praying for God to move in a powerful way to penetrate many young hearts and their families in this area with the gospel.

Finally, in our discussion of the 5-year plan for Missions, Don brought us back to the global focus of the Great Commission (Go and make disciples of all nations). Our plan is to be a Missional church, where Missions will not just be the work of the GO Team but will be integrated into everything we do. Our financial giving to Missions was integrated into our operating budget this year, and each area of church ministry will be assuming some responsibility for integrating local and global outreach into their programs.

As we read through the detailed strategic goals for each ministry area we do see an “800 pound gorilla”. The “gorilla” is all the new volunteers and leaders that will be needed to carry out these plans. We quickly come back to the realization that we cannot do this without God. But we believe that as we pray and take one step forward, and then another, and another, that God will help us. After all we are trying to be the church Jesus has commanded us to be – so of course He will help us, just as He has done up to now.

I’ve talked long enough – now its your turn: what comes to your mind in the way of thoughts or questions? We have members of the Management team here as well as the Council and we would be delighted to take your input or respond to any question you may have.