April - Pastor's Newsletter Article

Very soon Atonement Lutheran Church will be considering together as a parish the adoption of a proposed strategic plan for its future ministry. The vision team has composed a plan that will emphasize three general areas where it thinks the congregation should strategically focus its efforts for ministry in the next one to three years. At the meeting the congregation will have a chance to view the plan and ask questions before considering adoption. The parts of the plan that the congregation will consider adopting are a newly proposed mission statement, set of core values, vision statement, and set of ministry targets.

In order to assist you in your efforts I have dedicated this article to defining the parts of the strategic plan and then showing how all of those parts fit together. The specific details of the proposed plan will be unveiled in a PowerPoint presentation at a future Sunday morning voters’ meeting.

The questions that each of the various parts of the strategic plan answers are as follows:

Mission Statement—Why do we exist?
Core Values—Who are we?
Vision Statement—What will we look like in 3 years?
Ministry Targets—Where will we target our efforts to get there?

These four parts fit together in the following way:

Through much thought and discussion the vision team is prepared to propose a plan that takes into account the current state of Atonement Lutheran as well as the makeup and demographics of the community that immediately surrounds the Parish. Please consider attending this meeting. Come equipped with your questions. It involves the immediate future of our Congregation and a path that we will collectively decide to take. When we come together and are united and aligned in these ways our Lord can do great things through us! I, for one, am excited about Atonement’s future. For, in Christ there is always reason to be hopeful and optimistic about the future.

In Christ the best is always yet to come!

Pastor Josh