Our church has some years ago developed and adopted both a vision and mission statement. I believe that this is a valuable part of focusing on and communicating ‘where we are going’ and ‘what the goals are’. They give us some parameters to guide what we do, and help us pray and strategize.
Yet on their own, without core values and a lived ‘culture of honour’ our capacity to reach for the vision and achieve the mission of the church consistently is diminished.
Four years ago we added to our statements about who we are, a statement about our culture, which is: “to honour God and one another, living faith activated lives everyday, placing a high value on relationships”.
Over the next few weeks we are going to be exploring this culture of ‘honour’. It is not a silver bullet that will set the church on fire overnight, but a ‘way of being’ that requires of us all that we bring our best to the table; to each conversation; to each relationship; to every meeting and activity of the church, so that the people we eat with, talk with, relate to, meet and play with get to ‘shine’. So that ‘they’ and ‘we’ get to live powerful lives, in freedom and without fear.
That sounds like a pretty good way to be God’s people. I hope you might engage in this exploration and be open to the leading of the Spirit in growing us in our capacity and desire to honour God and one another. The resource we are using during this series is “Culture of Honor” by Danny Silk available at Christian bookstores or as an ebook. Grab it and give it a read, join a study group – it will be challenging and life giving.
