Value Meal

Word from Wiese

31 January 2024

What’s the value of “value”? When I hear “value meal,” I think of some pretty cheap, unhealthy, perhaps greasy food (of which I must admit I’ve partaken too much in my younger years). The store “Value City” doesn’t elicit for me images of products that will serve well my household for decades to come, which can be passed on to next generations.

But the simple term “values” is a game-changer. Values convey what we’re all about. Values get our blood pumping, exude why we’re in the game, and for what we want to be known.

At our church council kick-off retreat this past Saturday—welcome new members Katie Snyder, Ellen Pfundt, and Ben McCumber!—new president Bill Grabill led a very engaging conversation. Bill invited council to give examples of how our six Christ Our Shepherd Values, established in our Vision 2020 process, are being exemplified in 2024. If you were at the table with us this past Saturday, what would YOU have said? How do you see our congregation embodying what we say we’re all about?

Two quick notes before you read the six values. First, we’ve been pleasantly surprised with how many visitors tell us, “we checked out your website before we visited, and what you describe sounds like a faith community we want to check out.” Secondly, when we prayerfully discerned these values, Tom Gordy, the bishop’s brother and our project guide, challenged us to express our faith convictions in “non-churchy language.” So here you go:

We are an open and inclusive community that welcomes everyone. Our openness allows us to see God reflected in every living being, respect each person regardless of life choices and experiences, love the variety of people that join our community, and embrace people regardless of faith.

We are an evolving spiritual community. We encourage and support each person’s evolving spiritual journey—regardless of faith—because it enriches our spiritual community. Being curious and learning from others deepens our own understanding of God.

We believe in God’s grace and unconditional love. Through grace and unconditional love, God provides us complete forgiveness, gives us life abundantly, and restores us forever.

We share our gifts generously. As individuals and together, we reach out to serve people within our community and the world, freely sharing God’s abundant gifts and unconditional love.

We strive for excellence in all we do. In our dealings within the church and with our community, we are honest in all interactions. We strive to be competent, adaptable, relevant, purposeful, and resourceful.

We are a renewing, growing, spiritual community. We direct our individual talents and material resources with the intention to expand the size and impact of our spiritual community.

Well, what do you think? Do specific COS activities pop to mind when you read each value? Are there certain values that need attention in your opinion? Of which ones are you proud, even if they are still aspirational and not fully yet attained? Do you seem to gravitate especially to one or two of the values for some reason? As always, hit “reply” and share with me your thoughts if you’re so moved.

I praise God for YOUR partnership in the COS Value System! Thanks for seeing the work we do for and with Jesus at COS as not just a series of activities, but an expression of a Holy Spirit-inspired value system which is both glue and goal of our very existence.

In Christ’s hope,

Pastor Fritz

Let us pray.

Dear heavenly Father, thanks for the deep value of life. Too often it’s too easy to lose sight of the purpose you have for our lives. We go adrift and lose passion. Thanks for the chance to articulate the beauty, meaning and value inherent in each of us and who we are together, through your Spirit’s gathering. Keep watch over us. Keep whispering to us what you want us to believe in you, ourselves, and each other. And then help us put those values into motion, for the benefit of all. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

‘In (those) days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young will see visions, and your old will dream dreams. Acts 2.17