One of the things I loved about working at Mission Hills is that our vision is clear and concise:

Transformed Lives.

But as the Discipleship Pastor, my role demanded that I accurately define what it means for a life to be transformed by Christ. Our values clarify why this type of change is important, but we had never really defined what it looks like; I thought we still needed to have a somewhat measurable idea of what a life looks like that has been changed by Christ completely.

A transformed life simply looks like Christ-likeness.

I took months (literally) to wrestle with scripture and read some of the best thoughts behind discipleship. In the end, I found that the fruit of a transformed life came down to eight main measurable definitions, simply put as the following:

I then took those statements and further defined them. These definitions yield greater clarity as to what we must be focused on as a church staff:

• Biblical Understanding: To see an ever increasing number of people engaging in passionate discovery of God’s Truth for their life with the Bible as their authority
• Worship Environments: To develop and sustain excellent opportunities for Christ-centered worship that is accessible to all ages and genders
• Authentic Community: Provide opportunities for those who attend MHC to be a part of a small group or medium groups, as well as foster life-stage specific ongoing intentional mentoring
• Gospel-Living Opportunities: To see a growing number of maturing believers engaging their gifts, strengths and passion to serve at MHC, locally and globally and give without reservation.
• Continuous Prayer: To see people believe deeply in the power of prayer by them asking for it and engaging in it on a consistent basis
• Crisis, Care and Counseling: Provide authentic and consistent pastoral care for preventive and reactive situations in people’s lives

Let me be Honest

Working day-in-and-day-out to see lives transformed is hard work. But the load is not mind to bear. Christ promised that His yoke would be light. This doesn’t mean the the work is easy or the intensity is low, but rather that the weight of the responsibility is not mine to shoulder. He does the true work, I just steward my life to be a conduit of His power poured into the lives of others.