Following more than a year of learning, prayer and discernment, your Board of Directors and staff Leadership Team have affirmed a joint vision statement for our work.

This recent focus on vision began in the fall of 2011, when both the Board and staff team began to consider how we might better assist local congregations to become clearer about their visions. At the same time, we were unsure that our own work was sufficiently vision-driven.

Our hope was to discern a vision that could, first, inspire us, and second, provide a way to determine whether all our work was in alignment. We kept in mind prior Conference-wide work (A Still More Excellent Way in 2007, the Vision for Renewal and Growth in 2000), but tried to focus specifically on where we are called as Board and staff members in the coming period.

As part of this process, seven Board and six staff members attended the 2012 Woodbury Institute Workshop at Andover Newton Theological School, titled Pursuing the Vision, with Dr. Peter Senge and the Rev. Dr. Mary Luti,. The 13 of us shared our learnings at a joint Board/staff retreat later that month (February, 2012).

Then, in May, the combined leaders met for a second retreat, this time with Larry Peers of the Alban Institute.

Out of that retreat, a writing team was assigned to draft a statement, which was further edited in separate and joint Board and staff meetings throughout the fall. The result is a document that reads a bit like liturgy - both groups have already used it in worship. It attempts to reflect our current work, but also to be aspirational - to aim and stretch us toward new manifestations of ministry.

We consider this statement to be perpetually a draft, in the confidence that God will continue to speak! We share it with you in the hope that it might also provide some context or inspiration for your ministry. We welcome conversation about how you see your work and your call relative to ours.

The vision statement may be found at www.macucc.org/vision and comments may be offered below.

NOTE: The work on Vision will continue at our Annual Meeting in June! Our scriptural theme is Habbakuk 2:2-4, and our keynote speaker is the Rev. Dr. Robert Meyers. We hope you will join us!