Five Circles of Commitment

In chapter seven of The Purpose Driven Church, Rick Warren talks about The Five Circles of Commitment. Personally, I think this provides a great way of thinking about ministry in one's church and community. Warren suggests that churches and pastors need to focus first on their community and drawing members of their community into the church. In other words, we need to focus on outreach and I think this is true. It is the one area of ministry mentioned in Acts 2:42-47 that most churches struggle with.

In the community surrounding Stowe Community Church (Lamoille County), 81.1% of the residents have no religious affiliation whatsoever. The census calls them the "Nones", not to be confused with Catholic Nuns. In 2010, that percentage represented 19, 847 people. What might we be doing as a church to draw the Nones one step closer to Jesus and into the community of our church?

The next Circle of Commitment after the Community, Rick Warren calls the Crowd. I have aligned that Circle with the people we have on our Quest email list. We have 277 individuals that receive our weekly Quest email. These are, for the most part, individuals who have attended a worship service and live in our area. But as you can see in the Congregation Circle, we only have about 100 people that currently attend our Sunday morning worship services regularly. So the $64,000 question is: what would make the 177 others on our Quest list attend a worship service more often? I would love to hear answers to that question.

The smaller circles in the Five Circles of Commitment represent the Committed and the Core. We have many dedicated members of our church who serve in various ministries, but as with all churches, we need to increase the number of attendees who are getting involved in ministry.

Over the past few Sunday nights we have hosted members of the church in our home for what we have called "Dreams & Desserts". These evenings have generated a number of ideas, not only for Outreach, but for the other areas of ministry mentioned in Acts 2:42-47 . . . Teaching, Fellowship, Worship, and Service.

Through our newly formed Strategic Planning Committee, we hope to take many of these ideas and flesh them out through the formation of a new Purpose statement, Vision statement, Strategy, and Goals.

I would appreciate your prayers for our church as we seek God's vision for our future.

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C. S. Lewis on Homosexuality

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A Prayer at Ground Zero

Christmas Day Thought from Henri Nouwen

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Will Vaus

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