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Five-Year Ministry Plan Update

FIVE YEAR PLAN(S)

Shiloh Church first developed a Five Year Plan in dialogue with its then new Senior Pastor, Carl Robinson, in late 2000. Having arrived at Shiloh in August of that year, Rev. Robinson heard from as many members and friends of the church as wanted to attend a series of ‘town hall’ meetings. The purposes of the town hall meetings were two-fold. Firstly, the new Pastor wanted to know where Shiloh Church understood itself to be and where the congregation wanted to go. Secondly, Rev. Robinson wanted to share a theological vision with the members and friends of Shiloh Church. The combination of congregational vision with a theological framework resulted in Shiloh’s initial Five Year Plan. The first Five Year Plan marked a theological transition from being a ‘bureaucratic model’ to following a “Servant Theology.” The transition consisted of nine component parts:

1. Adoption of a younger orientation,

2. Establishment of Servant Theology,

3. Instill a mission orientation,

4. Small Group process,

 5. Configure staff to better equip the congregation for ministry,

6. Strengthen Christian Education for all ages,

7. Build strong, spiritually-based youth groups,

8. Create young adult programs, projects and ministries and

9. Design evangelism plan.

Shiloh Church was tremendously successful in following through with the intentional accomplishment of the plan. The congregation made swift theological transition, mainly because it had already said that such was the direction desired by its membership. New and different programs, projects and ministries began to be created. The congregation opened itself to its community, shifting, within the five years, from two outside entities utilizing the facility on a regular basis to more than forty groups doing so. Shiloh formed small groups, based on spiritual gift assessments, built thriving youth organizations, and constructed a staff model around assisting persons to engage in personal calling and God’s empowerment. These five years were remarkably successful.

The second five years have and will focus on issues of spirituality. Now that the direction, aim and purpose of the congregation have been established, the church can work at establishing an ever more profound relationship with God. Pastor Robinson likens this process to jacking up a house, building a new, solid foundation under it, and setting the house back on it – all without breaking any of the good china. Spirituality is unlike the theological transition of the first five years of Shiloh’s plan. It is impossible to innumerate or measure. Instead, spirituality is sensed and felt. There are earmarks, however, that Shiloh can attempt to identify:

1.     Ownership of personal sense of calling: Following the Great Reformation notion of the “Priesthood of all believers,” members and friends of Shiloh Church might embrace a personal sense of God’s calling to be practitioners of God’s will in the world.

2.     Participation in the process and goal of Grace: Since the practice of God’s will in the world is aim, goal and process, the definition of what we do reflects the grace of Jesus Christ. Grace is the congregation’s job description.

3.     Action-based mission and ministry: Ministry and mission do not happen if God’s will remains at the level of potential. The church task is to be the catalyst that turns God’s will from potential to kinetics. The church puts into action what is otherwise dormant, possible, or potential.

4.     Outward, Communal focus:  None of this is for the Church. It is for the community and the world, through the Church. Being in the Church does not set us apart from the world, but calls us to responsibility for it, as we partner with it in creating ways of life that reflect God’s will.

5.     Ownership of Congregational Ministries: Everything that the Church says and does results from an effort to embody God’s will in our community. Therefore, everything that the Church does is crucial to the process. Every member and friend of the Church is in the effort together.

6.     Stewardship: The process by which the congregation acts to bring God’s will to life in its community is stewardship, the intentional use of time, talent and treasure in establishment of God’s household.

7.     Evangelism: The congregational process can be measured by how well, and to what extent, it shares the good news in the community. The issue of Evangelism is not who we bring in but how we go out.

8.     Consistency: A spiritually sound congregation acts consistently from the foundation of its relationship with God to serve its community toward establishment of God’s will as a way of life.

On the heels of the first nine years of ministry with its Senior Pastor, Shiloh Church has progressed admirably in its spiritual development. There is still room to grow. Shiloh is moving toward being the kind of congregation that it envisioned in those initial sessions in 2000. With establishment of Ministry Teams, and with a full course of hands-on missions and ministries, Shiloh is indeed “Living the Word by Serving the World.”  Come and join us, as we move nearer to establishment of God’s will in, with, to, and for our community.