Vision Sunday

Vision Sunday
Refresh - Invite - Involve
Pastor Stephen "Red" Shumate
Sept 8th, 2019



Listen to full sermon here.

Click here to Download an audio file of the sermon.



Covenant Baptist Church
(AKA – Covenant Baptist Bellevue)
Action Plan


The driving principles behind the next season of life at Covenant are…

1. God is not done with us yet (Philippians 1:6)
2. God has a plan and has given us the next steps (Jeremiah 29:11)
3. We are to be light in our community (Matthew 5:14-16)

How are we going to do this?

The Plan:
Renew – Invite - Involve

1. Renew
We are going to renew and refresh our identity, so that it better represents who we currently are. 

Who are we?
There are 4 things that make us unique or is our greatest appeal to our 5 closest neighbors (Avondale, Boone Trace, Riverwalk, Lexington Pointe, Travis Trace):
1. We are all different and yet we are all friends.
2. We come from many different religious backgrounds and have different tastes, yet we are all united as church family.
3. Our Faith is firmly planted in scripture
4. We are the closest church to these neighborhoods, and that make us their community church.

To put it simply, the message we need to get out to our community is that we are a family of believers who come from all different backgrounds.  When you step through the doors of our church, you feel at home, no matter who you are.  Our blended style of worship brings together the best of traditional hymns with the best of contemporary praise in a way that glorifies God.  And our messages are fresh, relevant and always based in scripture. 

This is who we are and this is what needs to be communicated through our Logo, website and slogan.  Our current logo, website and slogan, do not communicate this and looks as though a pastor designed them (because a pastor did design them).  Plus they feel a little dated… and that is not who we are.  Our worship services are fresh and relevant and are not stuck in the 80’s.  So, we have designed a new logo, website and slogan with the help of professionals.


Our New Logo:  
              
  In this logo you will find our 4 unique appeals.  First, you’ll notice that it Says, Covenant Baptist Bellevue.  We are not changing our name… We are still Covenant Baptist Church, but in order to quickly and effectively distinguish ourselves from the other Covenants in the area, we are going to start calling ourselves, Covenant Baptist Bellevue.  Secondly, the icon in the logo represents our 3 other unique appeals (Friends, Family and Faith).  Friendship is represented by the 2 people.  Family is represented by the heart and our Faith is represented by the cross.   This new logo not only looks fresh, but also effectively communicates our 4 unique appeals.           

New Website: Covenantbaptistbellevue.org (this site is live, but is still under construction and is not currently optimized for mobile viewing…Our goal is to have it complete and push to the public on Sept 22nd)
                Our current website (8201mccrory.org) desperately needed an update.  It was too focused our ourselves and not enough on telling potential visitors why they will enjoy our church.  It was inward focused and not outward focused.  This shift in focus represents a shift in the vision of the church as well.  For the last few years, we have been focused on how we can make the church exactly what we want it to be for us.  And while we can still continue to work on that, we need to shift our primary focus to being how can we invite and encourage people to come worship with us. Our new website is focused on inviting people to come worship with us.

New Slogan – Find Friends, Family and Faith Here
Our current slogan of “God is Good, All the Time,” is great, however, for someone who maybe didn’t grow up in the church or doesn’t go to church, it may not speak to them.  So, this new slogan is a simple invitation that will speak to anyone looking to visit us.  And don’t worry,  we will still affirm that God is good, All the time at the beginning of every service. 

So, the first step to reach out to community and let them know who we are, is to renew and refresh our identity, by creating a New Logo, New Website and New slogan. 

 Invite -
The second Step of the plan is Invite:
It is crucial, if we want to follow God’s plan to be a light in the community, that we actively reach out to the community and invite them to join us.  We cannot expect people to come visit if we don’t invite them to come. Over the last 5 years, we have essentially been inviting people as they pass by.  But now, we want to go to them and into their communities and give them a personal invitation to come worship with us.  So, we as a church are going to invite our neighbors in 5 different ways.  All of which will have the same focus as our website and logo: Inviting people to worship with us by telling them: who we are, where we are, and why they should come.

5 Different Ways we will invite our community to worship with us:
1. Social Media – We have hired Jamie Reeves, Jim Lawson’s daughter to manage our social media.  She will be keeping us up to date and active across multiple platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Next Door with weekly posts and invitations.  She has also already been instrumental in sending out press releases.  She has already sent out a press release about our next Mobile Food Pantry and we hope to have some press there.
2. Welcome Wagon – As a community church, we want to welcome people to our neighborhood with a small Welcome Gift and information packet, so that we are the first church they visit once they are settled.
3. Mailers – Mailers are not that effective in getting people to come visit us, however, they are extremely effective at helping people know we are and keeping us at the front of their minds.  We will send mailers to the 5 closest neighborhoods to us, introducing us as their local community church.
4. TV Ads/Online Videos – We also want to create 4 videos (2 tv ads, 1 website welcome and 1 website video).  The greatest thing about these ads, is that we will be able to have these ads air specifically to the 5 closest neighborhoods mentioned earlier on major channels and at all different times.    
5. Invite Initiative – Personal Invitations with an invite card (You’ll learn more about this on Sept 22nd)

 Involve –
The last step to the plan is doing something for the community that gets us involved with them and gets them involved with us!  So, the final part of this plan is having a Fall Community Festival. 

Our goal for this festival is to have a little something for everyone.  We are hoping to be able to give out pizza, chili dogs and water for free.  And since kids are so important, we are also working on having a ton of stuff for them– bounce houses, popcorn, games, crafts, face painting and prizes. Plus, we are planning on getting in touch with the west police precinct and maybe the national guard to have a thing called “touch a truck,” where kids can see firetrucks, police trucks and hopefully an army truck.  But the center piece of this festival will be an outdoor stage with live worship music. 

In a perfect world, this festival will happen on a Sunday (Nov 10th, or Oct 20th).  That Sunday morning, we hope to have our usual 10:30 am service outside at the stage.  Then starting at 12:00pm and going until 3pm, we would have the festival. 

This is an ambitious plan for two reasons: 
1. We don’t have a lot of time to put it together.  If we wait any longer, we will be getting into cooler weather, holidays and we will lose some of our momentum.  So, we need to put this together and put it together quickly.
2. It’s also ambitious because it’s the most expensive segment of this whole plan.   And in order for us to be able to finish the plan and complete, what I believe is God’s plan for us, we will need everyone to pray, check their budgets, dig deep and decide what they can pledge to help make the festival happen.  Our goal is $8500.  And, in order to be able to confirm booking for everything, we will need this amount pledged by Sept 22nd.  This is money pledged above and beyond our normal tithes and offerings and will need to be donated by Nov. 10th.

Renew – Invite – Involve

If we will do ALL of these things and do them well, I believe we will see growth and activity here unlike we’ve ever seen before. And we will truly begin to be that active little church who has a great impact on their community.  We will be a church that is a light in our community, which I believe is God’s plan for this church.  

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