So, as is often the case, the words of another become so inspiring that what began as note-taking turns into journalling. It was this way recently as I was preparing some materials for a leadership retreat that we were holding for Northview's leaders and read a quote by a guy named Darrell Gruder. At the leadership retreat, we would be looking at Northview's 'Big10' (one mission statement + six core values + three missional themes that had emerged from the LifePlan dialogue of 2010-11) and trying to figure out what to do with it all.

Northview's mission statement reads this way:  
to be a missionally active
church of growing worshipers
who bring hope and fellowship
to the spiritually disconnected in Regina and beyond. 

It became obvious in the planning stages that there were some key phrases in this that might warrant some exploration or, at the very least, addressing some FAQ's.

1) What does missional mean? (here's where the ideas started to flow)
"Mission is the result of God's initiative, rooted in God's purposes to restore and heal creation. Mission means 'sending' and it is the central biblical theme describing the purpose of God's action through history."
(Darrell Gruder, as cited in Alan Hirsch's book The Forgotten Ways)

2) What is a worshiper and how does one grow?
Worship is an action- although it's not just singing or playing an instrument or dancing like David, the acknowledgement of God's goodness and the celebration of life and hope in Christ through the stewardship of the gifts entrusted to our care has got to be part of the deal. It is something we intentionally do and I would contend that worshiping is doing things on purpose to give God glory. I like to use the words worshiper and disciple interchangeably because a disciple is more than simply one who believes- a disciple is one who acts upon this belief and seeks to mature in this belief and the actions that are the expression of it.

3) How do we bring hope and fellowship?
By knowing people and loving them, not just in word but also in deed; by seeing them the way God sees them and working with them to see God's redemption dream for them realized. We need to offer fellowship and with it communicate hope to regular folks- both those in our midst and those not yet known to nor knowing us collectively.

These were my responses to the FAQ's. After the smoke had cleared, I realized that answering the FAQ's for oneself was a far better exercise for a group of leaders than having one leader hand them his response to the prompts. We did this and then spent the next hour riffing off of one another as the words of the group synthesized together, directing and informing where the conversation would go next.

Working with leaders is like idea pinball...  
I love pinball.