By Pastor Stephen Hess –
This fall we celebrated Highview’s 25th Anniversary, and during our anniversary weekend we introduced a new vision statement for Highview. Our church exists “To glorify God and make disciples who are completely transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.” As the Session worked on articulating a new vision, we also discussed what concrete goals or dreams we might want to explore that grow out of that vision. As we prayed about this, we kept coming back to two big ideas. Interestingly enough, both of these ideas connect back to Highview’s founding vision.
The first big idea is church planting. From the time that Highview began as a church, there was always a vision that one day Highview would grow to a certain size, become an established church, and then seek to multiply the kingdom by helping plant another church. There has been a great deal of discussion about church planting within our denomination in the last decade. More and more people are recognizing that church planting is not only important but is also the most effective way to reach new people with the gospel. As our congregation moves into the future, we would like to explore what it might look like to be involved with church planting.
The second big idea is building expansion. From the earliest days at Highview there was a vision to have more space to disciple people of all ages. During the original building campaign there was even discussion about additional classrooms and meeting space. While this did not end up fitting into our original campaign budget, we feel that it is worth revisiting. Anyone who has been around Highview in the past few years knows that we are often cramped for meeting space. This is wonderful problem to have, because it means we are an active, healthy, and growing church. But we feel it would be worth exploring what it might look like to expand our space to fit our ministry needs moving forward.
As of right now these two big ideas are just ideas and no concrete plans have been made. However, we do believe that these concepts are consistent with our larger vision and therefore we are committed to exploring them as we move into the future. To this end, the Session has set aside two evenings in December to host “exploration meetings” and we are encouraging every person in the congregation to attend one of these meetings.
The meetings will take place on December 6th and December 12th. During the meetings some of our elders will present more information about church planting and building expansion and explain what has brought us to this place. This will also be an opportunity for you to ask questions and provide feedback as we discern where God is leading us in the future. We value everyone’s input and want the whole congregation to be involved in this process.
One thing is for certain: God has exciting things in store for Highview! The people of Highview have always been a people of faith. We are not content with the status quo but want to step forward and climb new mountains by God’s power. God has done mighty things over the past twenty-five years. We invite you to join us to see what mountains he is inviting us to climb as we move into the next twenty-five years!
Thursday, December 6th Wednesday, December 12th
6:30pm – Exploring Facility Expansion 6:30pm – Exploring Church Planting
7:45pm – Exploring Church Planting 7:45pm – Exploring Facility Expansion