Almost three years ago to the day, we invited everyone from our church to gather for a ‘Vision Day’ to consider our mission, vision, and values.

As a result, we identified six values that have defined who we are and, most significantly, what we consider to be important.

We decided that we were orthodox, Anglican, missional, intergenerational, village and heritage.

Using these values, we have explained to people what our church is like and why we do things the way we do.

It’s also helped us as we’ve considered change, so that we could work hard to do things that were ‘us’ and not things that went against our grain.

Since that day three years ago, God has kindly lead us through lots of change, and we’ve grown in many ways, especially as we’ve welcomed so many of you to be new members of our church.

And so it seems wise to have a fresh look at our values so we can consider whether these values are still the best six words to sum us up… and we’d love to hear from every current member of our church so we can consider your thoughts.

So, to help us review things, we’d love it if you could take just a few minutes to write down what you think is important and special for our church… and even to consider what might make you unhappy if we changed it.

Please email your thoughts (or write them down) so we can draft some refreshed values to help redefine who we are, so we might grow and change in a way that’s consistent with how God has formed our church.

It’s such a joy to be a part of our church at this time, and we pray that the Lord might continue to lead us to glorify him, as we keep loving each other.

JODIE McNEILL

(photo credit: Mike Cohen via Flickr)

Over the past few weeks some of our staff and senior leaders have been giving prayerful consideration to the best way to help support our growing church through refreshing and defining how leadership works in our church.

One of the things we talked about was whether it might be better to call each of us ‘partners’ rather than ‘members?’

Now, they’re both useful names to use to describe each of us who are actively involved in the ministry of our church.

And, as we’ll see in this weekend’s sermon from 1 Corinthians 12, the idea of ‘member’ actually makes sense when you think of each of us being a part (or a ’member’) of a body.

But in our common speak, we sometimes can think of a member as someone who pays their membership fees and seeks to get the benefits of being a member… which feels more of a consumeristic way of thinking.

Yet, that’s not how  our ‘members’ act in our church, for we all participate as partners who work together with servant hearts to sacrificially share our lives and resources with our fellow parishioners as we seek to see each person in our village, valley and region know how to follow Jesus and why it matters.

So, in that sense, the idea of being ‘partners’ is a more an active way of describing us, and perhaps , it better describes the depth and joy of our rich fellowship.

So, what do you think? Should we speak of each other as ‘partners’ of Jamberoo Anglican, or is the name ‘member’ still the more user-friendly way of describing all of us as parts of the body of Christ in Jamberoo?

Either way, the Lord has blessed with a wonderful team of disciples, who love to serve him as he has served us… no matter what we’re called!

JODIE McNEILL

(photo credit: ajusticenetwork via Flickr)