What Values Are Moving You and God's Church
Knowing what we value can be a helpful thing in charting a course for the future. For instance if you are working on a question like “Where shall I live?”, you’ll answer that question differently depending on what you value. If you value solitude and open spaces, you might pick a place in the country. If you value quick access to services like groceries or the hospital, you might pick a place in town. Golfers might want a house right by the course and someone who values fishing might pay a little more for a place with access to the lake in their backyard. All of this depends on what you value.
Below is a listing of the values thought to be at work at First Lutheran.
In early April a group of leaders from First Lutheran gathered together to look at our vision, to see what principles are guiding us, and to begin creating a new image that we will work toward fulfilling in the next decade or so of our life together. One of the things we did in this work was make a list of the functional values we see in operation at First.
We can sometimes just say "This is what I value." and then act on it, but we often get a more accurate picture of what values are really at play by looking at how we act and what choices we make and through that deducing what our values are. Values that we can see in this way are called functional values. They are the values, known or unknown to us, that we base our decisions on. The more aware we can be of these values, the more consciously we can act on them, and the more consciously we can work to raise up new or aspirational values in the future.
Our next task when it comes to visioning is to better define these values and narrow down the list to 3-5 that we see being most helpful in encapsulating who we are and who we want to be in the community of North Platte. You are invited to participate in this work as well. You can do so by reflecting and sharing your thoughts and stories. Some questions that can be helpful are found below:
How do you see these values being lived out in a concrete way by what we do in the church or community?
Are there values you are not sure about on this list, what do you need to know about those values before you can say “Yes, that’s a value of our church!”?
Are there values you see at work that are not on this list? What actions do you see us taking that makes you believe the value belongs
You can invite conversation with Neal or Heidi C, Betty K-H, Jody H, Keith K, or Pr. Patrick or drop any of us a note or simply comment below as we continue with this important work.
