Our Vision Statement

Effective Structures require that "we know what we're building" (to quote Scott Thompson at the NCD presentation on April 9). That's another way of saying that we need to have a vision.

I had forgotten we had a Vision Statement for our church. Maybe you had too. So here it is. The statement was made in May 2005. You will be hearing a lot more about this.

Vision Statement

The Vision Statement of the Toronto Seventh-day Adventist Church is to represent Christ to all members of our community.

The Mission Statement of the Toronto Seventh-day Adventist Church is to be a community of committed members, who will foster spiritual growth in a vibrant Church, embracing all age groups.

Core Values

1. Reach every person living between Rathmines and Fennell Bay with the good news about Jesus.
2. Promote passionate spirituality through prayer and Bible study.
3. All members to be involved in small group ministry.
4. Preachers to be relevant to all age groups.
5. Demonstrate honesty in beliefs and opinions.
6. Encourage each person to recognise and develop his/her Spiritual Gifts.
7. Recognise and nurture our youth to take an active part in the mission of the Church.

Some questions:
Do you like this vision?
Can you see where you fit in the vision?
Does it help you set priorities?
Does it provide guidelines for making decisions?
Is it exciting and motivating?
Have we left anything out?
Should we delete anything?

First Steps

Now that we know our Minimum Factors (Effective Structures and Empowering Leadership) what are we going to do about them?

We have decided to start by:

1. Emphasising that we are all ministers
2. Helping you find your ministry
3. Supporting you in your ministry

We are all Ministers

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 1 Peter 2:9

If you are a member of Toronto church then you are a Minister, a priest of God. You have been called out of darkness to proclaim the excellence of Christ.

Finding your Ministry

We plan to run several "Find your Spiritual Gifts" Sabbath afternoons, but this is only the beginning of your finding your ministry.

To truly find the SHAPE of your ministry you need to know your:

• Spiritual Gifts
• Heart
• Abilities
• Personality
• Experience

This will take longer than one Sabbath afternoon so we propose that once you find your Spiritual Gifts you will meet in small groups during the week for about four weeks to determine your SHAPE and have a clear idea of why God chose to give you to Toronto and what sort of ministry you should be doing.

If you want to continue to meet in small groups, that is wonderful. We would love to have more 'holistic' small groups.

Supporting you in your Ministry

We will do this by Coaching and Small Groups. Where will all the needed Coaches and Small Group Leaders come from?

From the results of the SHAPE-finding small groups we will invite people whose ministries and gifts indicate they would be good Coaches or Group Leaders to training for these tasks.

The youth have already done basic Group Leader training in just 4 hours. There is similar Coaching training available.

What is coaching? Put simply, "Helping people succeed".

Coaching is achieved by:

• Finding out what God wants you to do,
• Helping you do it

A coach will help you succeed in your ministry by:

• Helping you refine your goals. Set your focus
• Helping you set priorities and take action, Keep your focus
• Helping to anticipate and overcome problems. Refine the focus
• Providing support and encouragement
• Helping you evaluate and celebrate progress
• Helping you revise your plans when needed.

2011 Survey Results

Summary of Toronto SDA church's progress and life (January 2011)

	Our Maximum Factors	Our Minimum Factors
Overall Tendency	Faith	Service
Health Characteristics	Need-oriented Evangelism	Effective Structures, Empowering Leadership
Themes	reconciliation prayer welcoming	intimacy vision learning (discipling)

Explanation:

Our Overall Tendency (in terms of Fellowship, Service and Faith, the 3 main domains of church life) is towards Faith rather than Service, with Fellowship in between. This means that we enjoy our own experience with God in prayer, Bible and worship. We are introverted and keep our experience of the living God to ourselves. We don't share it much within fellowship and rarely share it evangelistically outside the church.
Our Maximum Health Characteristic, like most SDA churches, is Need-oriented Evangelism. Our evangelism meets people's needs. This is good.

Our Minimum Health Characteristics are Effective Structures and Empowering Leadership. This means that leaders at Toronto are not so good at:

• Explaining our goals
• Concern for member's experience and journey with Jesus
• Strengthening fellowship
• Training and equipping members for service and ministry
• Helping people find their ministry
• Encouraging people in their service and ministry
• Supporting and collaborating with members as they carry out their ministry to the Toronto community

To summarise our Health Characteristics:

• Our structures are less effective at supporting the members' ministries
• We are no better at empowering members for ministry

However, this is not all bad! It presents a tremendous challenge because these are just the area where:

• The SDA church in NNSW is weakest - so needs the most help
• The area where the Holy Spirit is working most strongly, TODAY
• We have the tools (through Ellen White's writings) to meet this challenge
• We have the power (through Jesus' presence) to meet this challenge
• We have the people (our members) to meet this challenge
• The Themes tell us what comes naturally to Toronto church, and what doesn't.
  

We are naturally:

Reconciling

we don't have many disagreements and when we do we resolve them quickly. We trust our Bible and each other.

Prayerful

usually by ourselves

Welcoming

to new people

We are NOT naturally good at:

Intimacy

sharing our experiences within church or finding support from the church to get through our personal problems

Vision

goals are unclear. As individuals, as leaders and as a church we seem to be drifting comfortably along.

Learning

we aren't being trained for our present church duties or led to find what God wants us to do. The church is not encouraging spiritual growth or discipleship.

Other good things compared to last survey (not in the table above):

• Our church growth in health and numbers is much more sustainable.
• We are as healthy as an average Australian church.
• We are much more healthy than we were 3 years ago
• Our church services are more inspiring
• Our relationships are more loving

Thus ends our Summary of Survey Results - 2011.

Some definitions:

Natural Church Development

a long-term strategic process to progressively improve the health of our church, with the most effective use of our limited time, energy and resources.

NCD Survey

of 30 involved church members that gives an accurate, up-to-date snapshot of our church's health by revealing trends, deep issues and a clear overview of the church. The survey measures the quality characteristics.

Quality Characteristics

the 8 critical characteristics found in every healthy, growing church:

Empowering Leadership - are the leaders focused on equipping believers for ministry?

Gift-based Ministry - are tasks distributed according to gifting?

Passionate Spirituality - Is the spiritual life of members characterised by passion?

Effective (Functional) Structures - Do the various structures support church growth?

Inspiring Worship Services - Is worship service helping us experience God?

Holistic Small Groups - Do small groups address the life issues of members?

Need-oriented Evangelism - Are evangelistic activities related to actual needs?

Loving Relationships - Are relationships in the church Christ-like?

The adjective is the vital ingredient, not the noun. The NCD survey measures the adjective, so, for example, it looks at how well leaders "empower" members, not at their leadership skills.
Measured by points standardised by country (our score is compared to all other Australian churches of all denominations).
It is possible to score less than 0 and greater than 100.

Empowering Leadership

1. Explains what needs to be done
   
2. Motivates people to find the role Jesus wants them to fulfill in His body.
3. Liberates people to fulfill that role

Effective Structures:

1. Help people Experience Jesus
2. Strengthen Fellowship of believers
3. Support members as they Minister to their church and community

NCD Average

the average of the point score of all the Quality Characteristics. The 'average church' has an NCD average of 50 points. (Ours is 48.6. It was 48.7 in 2010 and 31.9 in 2008)

Minimum Factor

the lowest (ie. the weakest, least developed) Quality Characteristics. (Ours are Empowering Leadership and Effective Structures. Last year was Inspiring Worship Service and Empowering Leadership in 2008).
It shows where the church:

• Cannot see Christ clearly
• Is blocking the Holy Spirit
• Needs help

NCD Strategy

Improve church health by focusing on improving the Minimum Factor. This:

• Maximises potential growth
• Uses energy and resources most effectively
• Liberates leaders by simplifying what they need to do for growth
• Gives solid input into developing values and vision.

Min-Max difference

the difference between the highest and lowest point score. Less than 15 is good, 15-30 is concerning. A lower differences mean that growth in health and numbers is more sustainable. (Ours is 11, down from 17 in 2010 and 18 in 2008)

Red Sea Worship

This Australia Day morning, I read the beginnings of another nation, Israel, at the Red Sea. It's found in Exodus 14-16
The part I liked was in chapter 15: (NLT)

1 Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord:

"I will sing to the Lord,

for he has triumphed gloriously;

he has hurled both horse and rider
into the sea.

2 The Lord is my strength and my song;

he has given me victory.

This is my God, and I will praise him -

my father's God, and I will exalt him!

3 The Lord is a warrior;

Yahweh is his name!..."

and later...

20 Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine and led all the women as they played their tambourines and danced. 21 And Miriam sang this song:

"Sing to the Lord,

for he has triumphed gloriously;

he has hurled both horse and rider

into the sea."

These people knew how to worship! And they had good reason to worship as well.

But what about you? What areas of your life have you seen God at work in? What have you got to sing and dance about?

In her excellent book, Silent Savior: Daring to Believe He's Still There, A.J. Gregory quotes Frederick Buechner's wisdom... Asked what he'd say to someone searching for God, he responds: 'Pay attention. Listen to your life, and what's going on around you.' And above all this: 'What brings tears to your eyes?'

What brings tears to your eyes? Are you paying attention? We have lots to worship God for.

What Bothers You About Toronto?

The Vincent brother's have already started filming for a documentary about the NCD process at Toronto. The 28 minute video will be used to promote NCD at a NNSW Conference Minister's Meeting in mid-February 2011 and eventually be shown world-wide on Hope Channel.

As we look back over 2010, this documentary is just one of the many unexpected blessings for Toronto church this year. At the church board meeting last week we were challenged to list changes at Toronto. Here is the list the board members came up with:

• Youth are empowered and organised


• Youth breakfast on Sabbath morning. Sometimes even a hot breakfast!


• New earliteen Sabbath School


• Children's Ministry has grown


• Children's Story time has kids filling the whole area in the front of the church most Sabbaths


• Kid's Clubs successful


• More cohesion in the church - people work together


• Luncheons very successful each Sabbath increasing fellowship


• New small groups


• FAST course enjoyed by even more people


• Sincerity


• Attendance is staying high - we aren't scaring people away


• Lots of visitors


• Women's Ministry has grown and so have the number of people helping


• Worship services and sermons are more inspiring

I'm sure you could come up with even more good things to go on that list. Send anything we have missed along to me and I will put it in the next edition.

You may have noticed that everything listed was positive. That is good, but there are negatives at the church as well. I'm sure you can see things that should be improved around the church. Please send those in to me as well.

What bothers you about Toronto? Let me know so it can go in next time, anonymously of course.

Just to help focus your mind here are the NCD quality characteristics:

• Empowering Leadership


• Gift-based Ministry


• Passionate Spirituality


• Effective Structures


• Inspiring Worship Service


• Holistic Small Groups


• Need-oriented Evangelism


• Loving Relationships

The board members were also asked to guess which would be our Minimum factor from this list in next year's survey. Currently it is Inspiring Worship Service (which is why I'm glad the last item was on the "Changes List above - we are making progress). What do you think will be the minimum factor? Let me know.

I have asked you three questions today:

1. What positive changes have occurred in Toronto in 2010?


2. What bugs you about Toronto? What can we do better?


3. Which of the health characteristic do you think will be our minimum in the next survey (due the end of January)

I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Fresh Springs of Happiness

In Education pages 15 and 16, Mrs White writes:

When Adam came from the Creator's hand, he bore, in his physical, mental, and spiritual nature, a likeness to his Maker. "God created man in His own image" (Genesis 1:27), and it was His purpose that the longer man lived the more fully he should reveal this image--the more fully reflect the glory of the Creator. All his faculties were capable of development; their capacity and vigor were continually to increase. Vast was the scope offered for their exercise, glorious the field opened to their research. The mysteries of the visible universe--the "wondrous works of Him which is perfect in knowledge" (Job 37:16)--invited man's study. Face-to-face, heart-to-heart communion with his Maker was his high privilege. Had he remained loyal to God, all this would have been his forever. Throughout eternal ages he would have continued to gain new treasures of knowledge, to discover fresh springs of happiness, and to obtain clearer and yet clearer conceptions of the wisdom, the power, and the love of God. More and more fully would he have fulfilled the object of his creation, more and more fully have reflected the Creator's glory.

But by disobedience this was forfeited. Through sin the divine likeness was marred, and well-nigh obliterated. Man's physical powers were weakened, his mental capacity was lessened, his spiritual vision dimmed. He had become subject to death. Yet the race was not left without hope. By infinite love and mercy the plan of salvation had been devised, and a life of probation was granted. To restore in man the image of his Maker, to bring him back to the perfection in which he was created, to promote the development of body, mind, and soul, that the divine purpose in his creation might be realized--this was to be the work of redemption. This is the object of education, the great object of life.

Today I wanted to "undim" our spiritual vision a little bit. Re-read the first paragraph again and wonder at God's purpose in your creation.

You are designed to reflect glory on our Creator. An amazing thought in itself, but even more amazing is that you were designed to do this "more and more fully". "Face-to-face, heart-to-heart communion with (our) Maker (was our) high privilege".

The work of redemption is to develop your "body, mind and soul" until this privilege is fully restored.

That's inspiring! But do you feel inadequate for this task? As Pr. Aaron told us last Sabbath, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for their's is the kingdom of heaven." He emphasised that Jesus was making this promise to those who acknowledge their need.

God wants to restore His image in you, He has a purpose for your life and He will not stop short of anything less than complete restoration of all your faculties and privileges.

To summarise Jesus' Beatitude promise in Mrs White's words:

"Discover fresh springs of happiness because when you realise that you are marred and your goodness is well-nigh obliterated, then I will work to restore you to full communion with Me, until you own My kingdom's wisdom, power and love, until your physical, mental and spiritual nature reflects Me."

Let's worship!

Pastor Appreciation Day

We missed it!... And I'm upset!

The fourth Sabbath of October (last Sabbath) was Pastor Appreciation Day and we all missed it, especially Pastor Aaron. The General Conference Ministerial Association suggests,

...This is a wonderful time to let pastors know, in various ways, how much their spiritual guidance, encouragement, and leadership mean to the congregation.

... Hebrews 13:7 says, Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you," and we are encouraged to remember our pastor both in prayer and with our appreciation.

The Ministerial Association has some ideas on how we should do this not just for one day, but throughout the year, here is their list:

1. Express gratitude for the pastor's sermons


2. Support the pastor in unexpected ways


3. Celebrate the pastor's birthday


4. Recognise the pastor's accomplishments


5. Organise a prayer team to pray for your pastor


6. Always speak well of your pastor.

This fits in with NCD because one of the three parts of Inspiring Worship Service is that the sermon brings us closer to God. Pastor Aaron has a big job every time he preaches and prepares his sermons. He needs our prayers, public and private, and our gratitude when we are drawn closer to God by his sermons.

Homework: (because we all missed the big day)

Support the pastor in unexpected ways. No... I am not going to tell you how, then it would be expected, but if each of us used our imagination and sometime soon began this support... well who knows how "inspiring" it would be.