Revisiting Our Simple Strategy

Over the past months I've been kind of quiet on the "strategy front" for SummitView. With all of the challenges and transitions of the past year I've just felt the need to hit pause and spend some extended time reviewing, reflecting and renewing. I recently finished a book that came highly recommended from another pastor. The beauty of this book is that it's not another new method, not some cutting edge technology, not a complex new system being suggested to implement in our church. In fact, it was just the opposite. The name of the book pretty much says it all - "Simple Church".

The conclusion and main point of the book is that the most effective churches are basically "simple" churches. They have a simple and clear strategy for accomplishing their mission -- it's easy to visualize and easy to understand. Here's how the authors define it:

A simple church is a congregation designed around a straightforward and strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual growth. The leadership and the church are clear about the process (clarity) and are committed to executing it. The process flows logically (movement) and is implemented in each area of the church (alignment). The church abandons everything that is not in the process (focus).

What struck me most is that the idea they champion (as a result of overwhelming evidence from their extensive studies) is an idea we have in place already at SummitView --- REACH, CONNECT, BUILD. That's our mission. That's been our strategy.

So here are some questions for us:

• What do we need to do so we can better EXECUTE that simple plan?


• Are we looking at numbers of people across the process or just "nickels and noses" on Sunday morning?


• Given that the hardest part of the simple strategy is movement between steps, what can we do to help people transition from one step to the next? Are the "next steps" clear?


• How does our simple strategy translate to Bedrock? to Student Ministry? --- so that the entire church is aligned?

eBible Study Hosea 1:10 - 2:1

I have found that MBI is running a study on Hosea duing this month, so I am going to borrow from it to help us out.
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. - Galatians 3:26

On Christmas Day 1989, Leonard Bernstein conducted a concert in Berlin to celebrate the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. In tribute to the spirit of unity, Bernstein assembled an orchestra and chorus that included members from East and West Germany, the Soviet Union, France, and the United States. They performed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with lyrics modified to suit the occasion: “Ode to Joy” was changed to “Ode to Freedom.”

Hosea pointed ahead to a similar celebration of unity that had much grander importance. Using a slight change to the names of his children (2:1), Hosea was predicting the restoration of Israel and Judah under the reign of Messiah! The tone of these two verses contrasts sharply with the beginning of the chapter. Hosea transitioned from recording God's judgment against Israel's infidelity to promising that their descendants would be called “sons of the living God” (v. 10). The phrase “sons of God” or “children of God” is extremely rare in the Old Testament. It is used primarily to describe angels (e.g., Job 1:6). The only other Old Testament reference to humans as God's children comes in Deuteronomy 14:1 when Moses explained the importance of remaining pure. How fascinating that God would reserve such a title for a people so unfaithful!

Hosea also alluded to God's promises to Abraham of both a large number of descendants and their control of the land (Gen. 22:17). Those promises were made immediately following Abraham's dramatic display of faith in his willingness to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. God was reminding His people of an age-old promise that could not be undone. It was as if Hosea was reading to Israel the vows that Abraham had originally exchanged with God.
After looking back at God's promise, Hosea cast his eyes forward to the fulfillment of that promise, including the prediction of a leader who would bring Israel back under one throne. Because of God's rich mercy, the land and the people would be redeemed!