Northwest Chapel Future Story Church-Wide Feedback

We praise God for what He is doing in our church through this Spiritual Strategic Journey. The future story is a picture of what we believe God is calling us to BE and BE DOING in the year 2018. There are future statements in the story, but there are not step-by-step instructions of how to get there (those will come later). The future story is a living document that will continue to change and adapt as God leads us into His future. This first edition of the story is not quite done. In order to continue refining the story, we need input from you.

Here is a link to a summary of the future story, which is a good place to start. It gives some background of how God has led us to this point.

Next are links to four articles from a a fictitious magazine printed in 2018 about Northwest Chapel. The 4 stories combined make up the future story.

A Day of Prayer at a House of Prayer

Full Circle Discipleship

Propelled Forward (Missions and Outreach)

Main Campus and Beyond

We value your opinions and are eager to hear from you regarding the story. Please give us your feedback. To do so send an email to ssj@northwestchapel.org or send a letter to the church. In order to help spur your thinking about this feedback, you might consider the following:

• What are up to 5 compelling strengths of the story?

• What are up to 5 areas that need further development or can be removed completely from the story?

• In what areas do you feel God pulling you to help fulfill the story?
  

Thank you in advance for helping us. May God continue to bless you and our church!

The Future Story Writing Team

Addition to Draft 2 - Executive Summary

We have received feedback from some folks that we need some background information and an executive summary to the future story.  The Future Story Writing Team has been able to turn this around very quickly, so we are including it in now.  Here is a link to the executive summary.

SSJ Future Story Draft 2

Draft 2 is now available for download and review. Again, we would like to have as much feedback as possible from this draft. Please remember this is just a draft. There may be changes, adds, deletes, etc. from here. We are getting closer the to the date of release to the congregation (9/7) and the presentation during the service (9/28). These are truly exciting times.

As we mentioned in the last post this draft has a change in style. There are 4 articles and 2 gray boxes we are calling sub-articles. You'll also notice a box of bullet points that we hope shows the main focus of this story.

One story that happened to Jon Baker (me) during this draft. We were struggling to put the small articles together into larger articles to fit the new style. As I sat and pieced together the main titles and sub-points that went together, I reviewed the 11 points of synthesis from the Prayer and Share Triplet input to make sure I didn't miss anything. The articles and sub-articles I had just laid out were in the same order as the synthesis document. I found that interesting.

Please continue to pray for the Future Story Writing Team. There is still much work to do.

God Bless!

Draft 2 Coming Soon

It has been nearly 2 weeks since we released Draft 1 of the Future Story. Draft 2 is well on it's way. In fact we plan to release Draft 2 next Friday 8/22. We had planned to release it tomorrow, but it's just not ready yet. We'd rather add a few important elements rather than release a document with gaping holes.

You might notice from Draft 1 that there were a few key areas missing, specifically something on Communications and Children's Ministries. We are aware they are missing, and we will be including them and more in Draft 2.

Draft 2 is also making a left turn in motif. We had planned to layout the story in newspaper format. Working with Julia (Linda Smith) Harris, we found that the newspaper just doesn't work for 2 reasons. 1) The size and structure do not lend to a 4-5 column multi-section layout and 2) Newspapers will likely not exist in 2018, so it really didn't make sense. Instead of the newspaper, we are working on a magazine layout, which may look more like an online magazine when it's all said and done. So look for that in the next release.

Last but not least, we have received 0 comments on the first draft. If you have tried but have not been able to post a comment, please feel free to email me the comments and I'll pass it on to the team (jon@evergreencco.com). We need feedback from everyone in the Vision Community if possible, so please let us know what you think, good or bad.

SSJ Future Story Draft 1

Please feel free to download the first draft of the Future Story of Northwest Chapel. Please understand, this is a draft, meaning it is a work in progress. Somethings may be cut, other things may be added. The motif we are using for the future story is articles in sections of a newspaper. The articles may not seem cohesive and that is intentional. The idea is that they all describe what NWC will be in 2018.

Also, the future story is a living document that could change in the future as we see God leading us in that direction. It will be updated as the future unfolds.

In order to further shape this draft, we would like feedback from the Vision Community. Please feel free to add a comment to this blog. If you have a comment on a specific article, please add a comment that looks something like the following.

Article Name
Comment

As always we continue to seek what God wants for our church. It has been great to see God working through this "chaortic" process. We have already had a few "God Moments" on the Future Story Writing Team. Different authors writing similar material using the same words without collaborating with one another is an example. The one we'd like to share is about the "Major News" article written by Steve Rand about the Day of Prayer on 9/29/2018. Steve wrote this article as a potential front page news story. Jon Baker was working on the calendar of events without working with Steve. Both put the Day of Prayer on the same date. God is good!

Here are the links to the articles. There are 3 documents - a combined news paper with some light layout, a calendar of events, and a classifieds section.

Thank you to the Vision Community in advance for your feedback. Please continue to pray for the Future Story Writing team through this process!

Northwest Chapel Future Story Writing Team Blog

As part of the Northwest Chapel Spiritual Strategic Journey (SSJ), the Vision Community (People of Passion, Position, and Pastoral Leadership) has been working to develop a future story of the church - what we will be in 2018. This summer, the Vision Community has commissioned us, the Future Story Writing Team to refine the previous work of the Prayer and Share Triplets and the Scenario Writing Teams. Our current goal is to deliver a presentation of the future story on 9/28/2008.

The team consists of
Writing Team
Ted Oakley
Margaret Mokry
Steve Rand
Jon Baker

Editing Team
Kristen Gray
Dave Stucki
Evon Engelhaupt

Presentation Team
Brian Ethridge
Rick Griest
Evon Engelhaupt

We may include others in the Vision Community where special skills are required, but this is the core team at this time. We praise God for how He has brought us together and worked through us.

Our plan is to release drafts of the future story to this blog for the Vision Community for feedback. For all the drafts released, please understand these are drafts. Nothing is yet set in stone. If you see something that is out of place, please tell us. We need feedback. Also, please understand, even after we release the future story, it is a living document that can change over time as God leads and directs the church.

What a blessing it is to serve God and Northwest Chapel in this way. We look forward to releasing draft 1 in the very near future!