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Whole Church, Whole Gospel, Whole City
On April 21, 40 people gathered for an Externally Focused Briefing led by Vision San Diego’s Sam Williams and Eric Swanson, author of The Externally Focused Church. Beginning this month, pastors and lay leaders will launch a Community Transformation Peer Learning Group, dedicated to cultivating an externally-focused mindset in San Diego churches. Over the next 18 months, that original group of 40 and many others will build on the principles shared in the April 21 briefing, and learn about what it means for the whole church to take the whole Gospel to the whole city.
• What would it take for your church to be viewed as a valued part of the community?
• What if your community came to believe that its biggest problems couldn’t be solved without your involvement?
• What if the leaders of your city invited you to help meet the deepest needs of people in your community?
In San Diego, those are the questions local pastors and leaders are asking as they look for new ways to work together toward the transformation of America’s eighth-largest urban area. Over the past several months, they’ve heard from city and county officials who are asking for help; several of those officials have even said that the faith community is a necessary source of support to San Diegans. So what’s the next step? How do we extend the favor we’re experiencing?
The Community Transformation group coincides with Faith in Action Xtreme, an effort to answer questions like, “What if the leaders of your city invited you to help meet the deepest needs of people in your community?” In San Diego, those needs have been identified as: Tutoring, Foster Care, Mentoring, Military and Elder Care. As leaders work together within the Peer Learning Group, the hope is that they’ll form relationships within geographic regions that enable them to ask those same questions (and identify needs) in their specific communities within San Diego County.
For more information on Faith in Action Xtreme or the San Diego’s Peer Learning Groups, visit www.visionsandiego.com or call 1.877.817.4777.
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