Where People Discover the Love of God, the Power to Love Others, and the Ability to Love Ourselves

Stephen Ministry Core Values and Vision

 Values, vision, system, plan – these four elements are like the four corners of a building.  Placed on the solid foundation of Christ, these four corners connect the walls, hold up the roof, and give shape to your congregation’s Stephen Ministry.

Core Values

What things are truly important to us?  What are nonnegotiable, bottom-line convictions that we hold.  What are the driving forces behind everything we think, say, or do?  The answers to all three of these questions are our value.

Strong beliefs make for strong leaders, and strong leaders make for strong ministry organizations.

The process begins by developing a listing of core words or word combinations that give partial answers to the three questions.  At a team meeting held August 30, 2010, the following prioritized combinations of core words were adopted by the Leadership Team:

1. Christ Centered/Loving
2. Compassion/Empathy
3. Listening/Confidentiality
4. Open/Non-Judgmental
5. Non-Anxious Presence/Patience
6. Discernment
7. Supportive/Encouraging
8. Servants
9. Trustworthy/Respectful
10. Forgiveness/Hope

Establishing Core Value statements from the core words is the next step in the process.  The following statements were also established at the same meeting:

1. Every person is a child of God.  All God’s people have been blessed with spiritual gifts and God calls all of us to active ministry.
2. Every person shall have the opportunity to achieve wholeness and healing.  We want our church to be a place where hurting people can receive compassion, care, and Christ’s healing love.
3. Every care receiver will be honored and confidentiality will be kept.
4. Every care giver will be given the necessary training and resources so that their ministry will be reflective of Jesus’ ministry of love and healing.  We believe strongly in Ephesians 4:12, that the role of the pastor and other church leaders is to “prepare God’s people” for works of service.
5. God calls everyone to be his servant.  God does not want any of us to suffer alone, but wants us to love, encourage, and care for one another.

Vision

The second step in the process is to establish our vision.  Vision answers the question, “Now that we know what is important to us, what are we going to do about it?”  Our Vision was also established at this meeting and is as follows:

Jesus Christ taught us to love each other as we love ourselves; and, that if we serve those who are hurting, troubled, and in need, we are serving God himself.

We at First Reformed United Church of Christ demonstrate these values by caring, loving, and encouraging members of our congregation and our community through the Stephen Ministry.

Stephen Ministry will not and should not be the only vision for our congregation.  However, it can be a powerful tool to help carry out God’s larger vision for our congregation.  That vision is as follows:

Where people discover – - -

The Love of God

The Power to Love Others

The Ability to Love Ourselves

The process being used to implement Stephen Ministry in our church is called the Stephen Series.  It consists of ten steps that will be followed in the order they are listed in the table below.  The table also shows the current status of each step and will be updated periodically every time something in the status column changes.

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