Church Unique Co::Labs - ABC-NW Churches Clarify Their Vision Frame

ABC of the Northwest continues to celebrate the progress that many of our churches are making as they've journeyed through the Church Unique process. Seven churches in Washington have completed a Co::Lab and are in various stages of working through their Vision Frame. Five more churches in Montana are engaged in the process. Churches in Southern Idaho are invited to sign up for a Boise Co::Lab which starts on February 6th and continues for five more sessions. (For more details contact our point person, Dr. Worth Wilson, at pastordad2@gmail.com)

The Region also has five trained Navigators who can lead your individual church through the Church Unique process. Please contact the Region office at office@abcnw.org if you would like to explore this option.

Florence-Carlton Community Church in Montana is working to finalize their Vision Frame. Here is a progress report from Pastor David Blackwell that will encourage you to consider going through the Church Unique process for yourself:

To our fellow churches!

We would highly recommend the Church Unique experience for focusing any congregation on accomplishing God's purpose. This process is preparing our congregation to clearly hear God's voice for us by leading us to define ACTIONABLE steps for the Kingdom based on our church's unique abilities, personality and context. Key points that have helped us:

• It is a representative process that encourages buy-in
• It develops a CLEAR sense of identity, mission, values, and strategy, which becomes an easily applicable decision making template.
• It uses the God-given gifts of the individual church as a basis, rather than a statistical model (I.e., "10,000 churches have done this with 45% effectiveness, so you should too")
• It ends up leading to mission actions that match the church's strengths with community needs. That means successful ministry and a sense of "winning" and purpose for the body.

Full disclosure - the process is WORK. It requires a commitment of prayer, time, and energy. We began two a month meetings (about 2 1/2 hours each) in June 2014 and will finish sometime in March 2015. But it's exciting work, and some of the best used time you will put into your ministry. We are still going through the final steps of the process, but already are seeing the fruit of the investment. We have already saved more than the cost of the fee by avoiding expenditures on ineffective programs and saving precious volunteer hours for efforts that produce fruit. If your church is willing to go WHEREVER God will take you and will truly commit to the process , then this is an opportunity you can't afford to pass up.