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Introduction
How would you describe the spiritual landscape of Madison? How would you characterize this city as it relates to faith in the true God? Here are some phrases that might come to mind… and the vision of an alternative future that could be:
Confused…. We hope that God can use us to bring clarity about God in the person of Jesus instead of confusion. We long for a day when everyone in Madison would know the love of Christ…..how high, and wide, and deep, and long is His reach!
Distracted… We anticipate that as people are connected to life in Jesus, they will live with greater focus and devotion to follow Him, and, in the process, be more and more unaffected by the temporary interruptions of life that tend to distract us.
Compartmentalized… We envision a day when people will not live compartmentalized lives, but will see how all the pieces of their life fit together, where every small portion of life has a connection to God’s greater purpose.
Largely unproductive in mission…. We believe that God has called every single follower of Jesus to be productive. Together, we are called to make disciples, more and better. Jesus allows us life to bring more and more people to Him. And, we believe that Jesus has called us to do that by going to people, to live incarnationally with them. He has called us to produce!
A conglomerate of varying “opinions”… We declare that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that life is a dead end lived apart from Him. This truth is inclusive, for all people!
Divided… We will celebrate the day when the Christian Church in Madison works together instead of apart, where all spiritual gifts are celebrated and are aligned for greater impact.
What can we do to begin to transform this alternative future into reality? We prepare with confident expectation for leaders to arise to transform scattered and unfocused lifeGroups into powerful, passionate, effective agents of God’s love, reaching out to connect people to life in Jesus right where they are.
We are thrilled that God is allowing us to see a compelling vision. One Church, Regional Impact is gaining momentum. God is moving! God is leading us to see a multi-location church emerge that will transform the spiritual landscape of Greater Madison. This church will convene in hundreds of lifeGroups with lifeWorship Centers strategically located in geographical regions throughout the Madison area.
Take your time to really investigate these pages. Within them are helpful resources that will challenge you, equip you, and hopefully inspire you. You’ll be able to catch up with the communication concerning One Church, Regional Impact on our Communication Archive page. You’ll be able to consider the answers to some of the questions that are being asked as others start to think about the implications of this stirring vision.
Niccolo Machiavelli penned these realistic words in The Prince: “Nothing is more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful to success, nor more dangerous to handle, than achieving a new order of things.” One Church, Regional Impact is nothing less than a new order of things. It reminds me of some other words that ushered in a new order of things: “The time has come. The Kingdom of God is near.” – Jesus (Mark 1:15) This proclamation is Good News! Today is a day of Good News!
We invite you to make this prayer your own as you reflect on the One Church, Regional Impact vision: We praise you, Lord for the emerging vision you have given this congregation. We thank you that we are starting to see that you have been leading us to be One Church, Regional Impact. As the plans become clear, we ask, Lord, that you prepare us. Prepare us for what you will ask of us. Strengthen our resolve to trust you, to seek you, to obey you! Give us courage to embrace our individual responsibility to connect people to life in Jesus. Increase in us a passion to love and serve people. We praise you today, Father, for allowing us the privilege of partnering with you in your mission to love the world. May we be faithful to this high calling. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Impact Leadership Team
Impact Team Leaders
Prayer - Laurie Pinkert
lifeGroup - Amy Meyer and Emily Bremer
Launch Strategy - Pastor Jeff
Administration and Budget - Dan Haupt
Impact Leadership Team (ILT) identifies and addresses questions and issues that arise as the One Church, Regional Impact vision is implemented.
The impact leadership team is made up of sub-teams, each focused on one aspect of the implementation of One Church, Regional Impact. Each sub-team consists of one or two leaders and as many members as necessary to carry out the sub-team’s assignment. It is the responsibility of each sub-team to determine a detailed list of action items, identify milestones, establish timelines, assign owners, and ensure implementation of One Church, Regional Impact within their focus area.
Some ILT focus areas are dependent on the work of other areas before they can be fully engaged. For this reason, the sub-teams will not all be launched simultaneously but as needed over time. The sub-teams and team leaders as of December, 2008 are listed below in the order of anticipated sub-team launch:
1. Prayer (Laurie Pinkert) – Prayer surrounds and supports all other areas. The Prayer team respectfully “meddles” in other team’s business to surface prayer needs. They identify and put into action methods to communicate prayer requests and answered prayers. The prayer team ensures that every other team realizes and lives out the rhythm of “pray and then plan”. This team champions personal prayer to make sure that we don’t rely on the prayer team to pray, but that prayer becomes everyone’s privilege.
2. lifeGroup (Amy Meyer and Emily Bremer) The lifeGroup team assists existing lifeGroups in the process of becoming regionally focused and intentional in their mission to connect others to life in Jesus. It promotes the launch of new regional lifeGroups and facilitates cluster gatherings (that is, multiple lifeGroups meeting together) within a region. This team helps lifeGroups to surface needs in their community and identify how the giftedness and passions within the group can be mobilized to meet those needs. The lifeGroup team also works to identify and remove barriers to lifeGroup participation for all.
3. Launch Strategy (Pastor Jeff Meyer) The Launch Strategy team works to identify reproducible steps to identify, activate, and grow regional worship centers.
4. Administration and Budget (Dan Haupt) This team focuses on the coordination of a central administrative hub responsible for staffing, administration, budget and accounting for all sites.
5. lifeWorship This team evaluates and recommends how worship should look at a regional location including issues such as worship time, venue, format and style.
6. lifeServe The lifeServe team identifies volunteer opportunities and works to match needs with the gifts and passions of those willing to serve, especially to provide internal support for the ongoing operation of a site. (The lifeGroup sub-team coordinates externally-focused service opportunities.)
7. Fundraising This group will manage a capital campaign to meet the financial requirements of One Church, Regional Impact.
8. Marketing When a regional site has reached a sufficient level of maturity to “go public”, the marketing team will be responsible for media and communication to promote and publicize the site.
Why One Church, Regional Impact?
We asked for a response to the question: “Why should Christ Memorial implement ‘One Church, Regional Impact’?”. The answers we received are below. How would you answer? Share your response. Let us know if you would be willing to have your thoughts posted, and if so whether we can use your name.
Our world is changing. We are already living in the future, and as Yogi Berra so poignantly put it: "The future ain't what it used to be." Our recent market instability gives us but a brief glimpse of the difficult times to come. We have sought after security through materialism and in the process have become a society without appreciation for Satan or his evil intentions. For the western world, the allure of stock and home prices that continually rise made us content and complacent. It perpetuated an American egocentric ethos that has permeated our culture. Although it is a bitter pill to swallow, much of our prosperity over the past decades has been an illusion made possible by mortgages on the future and the exploitation of others. It is fascinating how connected this economic and political situation is to the current state of the church in America. The western Christian is in general a consumer Christian. We go to church to receive a spiritual product; be this entertainment, self-help or a general mental construct that lets us think that we are upstanding moral people. Absent from most churches has been the urgency of the missional calling of Jesus Christ. While we as a church and nation have been basking in the riches of previous and future generation's prosperity, the devil has been tirelessly working to ensnare us all in his evil devices and draw us away from the true faith. As we begin to realize the enormity of the situation we find ourselves in, we must begin to act. We must turn to God in repentance and seek his guidance for our future. We must die to the old and begin anew. We must not allow our calls for "change" in our nation blunt the demand for even more "change" in ourselves. Gandhi said that we must "be the change we wish to see in the world." If we are to be successful in our calling to connect people to life in Jesus, we must approach "church" in a radically different way than in the past. We must begin to move beyond limited hierarchical structures and strive to meet people where they are. I am extremely excited about one church regional impact and am praying daily that God will work powerfully through this effort. We are in need of revival politically, socially and most of all spiritually and I pray that it might begin with us. As Winston says in Ghostbusters: "We got the tools! We got the talent!" Thankfully we also have the message and the love that comes from our Savior Jesus. The renewed ministry to our community begins now.
Philip Zimmermann
It's the logical next step in the vision of Christ Memorial. We're currently working on Building Spiritual Friendships, and want to "Connect People to Life in Jesus." We've talked about reaching our neighbors, and about the vision for lifeGroups to eventually be neighborhood lifeGroups. We want to raise up new leaders and plant Churches. And we want to reach people where they are at. The logical progression of this vision would be to have Churches across the landscape of Madison, worshipping our Lord together as they live their lives together. One Church, Regional Impact aims to provide a structure under which planting a new Church would be much easier. Opening a worship center would eliminate many of the needs of a new Church, and would allow different locations to share many of the resources God has entrusted us with. This all serves to bring places of Worship closer to our neighbors, allows us to invite them "just down the street", and allows us to more easily and visibly serve our local community through the collection of Life Groups worshipping together, close to home. Finally, I'm excited about a plan that keeps us in motion, and follows God's will.
Luke 10:2-3 He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.
- Matt Wipperman
Christ Memorial should implement One Church, Regional Impact because God has laid upon our hearts to do so. It will allow the body of Christ to appear more united, spreading the Good News more effectively and modeling servant leadership and Christian community more strategically in Madison. It will allow us to more easily meet people where they are by "being" where they are, a part of their immediate community, striving to meet the needs of the community, all the while giving the glory to God.
- Adam Wisner
We feel it is the best way for us to connect people to life in Jesus.
- Richard Frohmader
Reaching out to our friends and neighbors to be part of a "lifeCommunity" together (lifeGroup, lifeWorship, & lifeServe . . . and just living together as a real community) is made easier with more localized worship centers.
- Kate Wipperman
If we want to keep our present facility and keep Christ Memorial in its Fitchburg neighborhood, we need to implement OCRI in order to continue growing and reaching those that God brings us into contact with. Once Church, Regional Impact allows us to reach others where they are, both geographically and spiritually, without making traveling to Fitchburg a requirement.
- Wayne Maki
o Because it’s where God is leading us
o So we can be more effective in connecting people to life in Jesus (our purpose and mission)
o To be more in step with the missional heartbeat of God
o It frees people up to love and serve where they live and work.
- Dan Haupt
I believe lifeGroup is the most effective way to meet unconnected and unchurched people. We have heard so many stories about people being involved in lifeGroup where they wouldn't have come to a church, the number of people in groups that are unchurched, and the way that needs are being met to cause real change. It eliminates so many of the barriers that people may have regarding traditional church. We are called to reach out to those around us and to live a life of service because Jesus was the ultimate servant. An expanded, coordinated, intentional movement can do this by creating opportunities for the Holy Spirit to transform lives in ways only He can.
- Pete Jaeger
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