Pilgrim Place

Many churches don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing. Some others have strayed, choosing maintenance over mission. I think that churches, have a tendency to so stray unless they work extra hard to stay focused on the mission.

To fight against these tendencies we need to keep this simple, yet profound, question ever before us: what are we supposed to be doing? Our vision and mission answer this question. The vision is to paint a portrait of what God for our church to accomplish.

The basic mission of the church is pretty well defined in the Great Commission Jesus gave us. You can find it in Matthew 28:19-20 or Mark 16:15.

Yet there must be differences in how each church seeks to fulfill that mission.

For example, I’m currently serving of as Pastor here at Pilgrim Lutheran in Bethesda, Maryland. We’re located in the first suburb out from Washington, D.C. It is a gigantic metropolitan area. Previously I had served as the Pastor at St. John Lutheran in Rochester, Indiana. The entire county has around 20,000 residents. Bethesda alone has over 55,000 residents. There’s no way we could expect these churches to function or go about their mission in the same way.

Yet the basic mission is the same. Each church does it differently, in part because of the area in which it finds itself but also because its people gift mix is different.

A good vision can help our church here in Bethesda picture just how we can do this in the world in which we now find ourselves, which is so vastly different from that of even ten years ago.

Regards, in Christ,
PJKreft