Strategy

During our last quarterly church conference, I explained briefly to those gathered, that when our new Board of Deacons convenes in January, it is my intention to focus our attention and their significant giftedness on studying how we can develop four strategies that will guide us in our mission of making Montgomery Hills a place where all people can belong, grow, and serve. We will devote a significant segment of our monthly meetings to studying together, using materials from NET RESULT. This is an organization that exists to aid churches in fulfilling their mission. These four strategies include:

1. Invitation: “This strategy is often called evangelism (the dreaded E word). This is really very simple. This church will grow whenever someone new affiliates with us. So, we need to have a robust inviting strategy with specific tactics which will allow us to see a steady stream of first-time visitors.”
2. Connection: “The average church in our nation sees only about 15% of their first-time guests return for a second time. And the number of those guests that return and remain involved 12 months later is typically half of that. The good news is however, that churches that have an effective connecting strategy boost their return and retention rate to well over 50%.”
3. Discipleship: This strategy will highlight the importance of faith development; it will provide high quality Sunday school classes and new and varied small group ministries designed for learning, fellowship, and service. This is where the rubber hits the road!
4. Sending: “In the New Testament Jesus said, “Go” several times. He even gave directions “From Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and beyond.” Growing churches have a strategy for going and making such a difference in the community that it energizes the average person in the pew and compels them to faithful mission action.”

So, in these first few months of 2017, our church leadership will be working on how to put these four strategies into place. Prayerfully, we will learn how to invite people into our church, work to make sure they return, lead them to grow into fully devoted followers of Jesus, and send them out to serve God and those in our community and world.

Somewhere in our sphere of influence, there is someone who needs Jesus, who needs faith, and who needs the church. These persons need to be on our radar screens this year. They are just waiting for you and me to say, “Hey, come on in! The door is open!” If we do not say that, who will?

In Christ, Pastor Joel