What drives our fellowship?
We were privileged to have Noel and Mary Ann Castellanos visiting our fellowship the weekend before Thanksgiving. Noel is CEO of CCDA (Christian Community Development Association), an organization which has influenced New Covenant Fellowship in various ways for a number of years, so we were excited to have Noel come speak directly to us for the first time.
Noel’s Sunday morning teaching was a blessing and a challenge. He challenged us to think more about how to individually and corporately be incarnations of the life of Jesus in pursuing God’s justice in our world.
Below is a slightly adapted version of Noel’s summary of the different driving forces of churches, as well as his closing challenge to us—to be a fellowship that is vision-driven, rather than primarily leader driven or congregationally driven.
– When churches are leader-driven, the people just look to the leaders to tell them what to do (and sometimes how to think!).
– When churches are congregation-driven, they believe it’s the job of the leaders to keep them happy and served (after all, they’re paying the leaders’ salaries!).
– When churches are vision-driven, as Noel challenges us to be, our biblical vision drives the fellowship. The job of the leaders is to help in equipping all for using our gifts to pursue the vision of furthering God’s Kingdom, expressed when heaven and earth meet. This meeting of heaven and earth occurs when Jesus shares his incarnation with and through us (Ephesians 4:11-16).
Is thinking about our fellowship in this way helpful and hopeful? I certainly think so, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Blessings,
Pastor Ron