"Going Deeper, Reaching Farther" A 5-Year Vision for Guiding Ministry at Mountain View Community Church

Download 5-Year Vision Brochure

Mountain View Community Church exists "to glorify God by calling people to know God genuinely, love Him passionately, and serve Him faithfully." This drives our ministries and activities as a church family. Every year the pastors, small group shepherds, and ministry leaders prayerfully evaluate the past year and seek God's direction for the year ahead. Every few years we take a look further into the future and ask the Lord to give us clarity concerning where He is calling us so that He will be most glorified through MVC. As we discussed the next five years, there was a clear sense that God is calling us to Go Deeper and to Reach Farther...

Going Deeper (Acts 2:42-47)
Since Mountain View was launched nearly 13 years ago, God has been uniquely shaping the "DNA", or makeup of this church. We are a church that values authenticity, practical and life-changing input from God's word, relationships and community, purposeful living, and impacting the world around us. Many of these values are what drew most of us to be a part of this church family. As we look prayerfully to the future, we do not sense that God is calling us to change who we are, but to simply Go Deeper. Our desire is that this church body be the most loved, best fed, and most practically equipped people on the planet. We desire MVC to be a place where lives are continually transformed and every person is encouraged to live their lives for the glory of God. We desire to be a place where each person is marked by the "Defining Marks" of the Christian life: encountering Jesus daily, experiencing dynamic community within the body of Christ, growing as stewards of all that God has entrusted to them, and engaging the world around them with the life-changing message of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Reaching Farther (Acts 1:8)
As we seek to Go Deeper, we believe the Lord will enable us to Reach Farther in impacting the world around us. We long to be a church where each person is actively engaging their sphere of influence with the message of the gospel. As a church, we believe God is glorified when each one of us reaches out into our community (our families, our neighborhoods, the workplace) as His ambassadors. God is also glorified when we take what He is doing in our midst and multiply it through the planting of new churches. We long to be a church where people are equipped and sent out in support of this endeavor. We desire to be used in seeing God's kingdom expanded, not only along the Front Range, but throughout Colorado, across the U.S., and around the world. We strive to be a church that prioritizes its resources toward this end.

Vision Steps
In order to Go Deeper and Reach Farther over the next 5-years, there are four key areas where we feel the Lord is calling us to focus our energy.

Caring for the Needs of and Equipping the Church Family
In order to Go Deeper, we will need to prioritize that which will enable us to care for the needs of our own church family and equip each person for the life of purpose God has called them to. This will include taking the following steps...

• Enhance our practical "life-equipping" forums for marriage, parenting, finances, etc.
• Continue to prioritize the "Biblical Distinctives" class to facilitate a unified church family.
• Seek to minimize unhealthy church growth from Christians just transferring from other churches. We will keep our distinctives up front for people to evaluate, ensuring that those coming from other churches have a resonating with who we are and what we believe.
• Prioritize ministries that reach into the heart of Fort Collins with the life-changing message of the gospel (a focus on conversion growth).
• Develop a transferable "Foundations" material to ground people in the basics of the Christian life and equip them to help others do the same
• Strengthen the Life Group ministry by providing better equipping and support for Life Group leaders
• Continue to raise up leaders from within for the shepherding and counseling needs of the church family
• Add staff as the Lord leads for growing ministries and areas of need
• Prepare youth leaders for the influx of kids who will be moving up into youth ministry over the next 5 years

Moving to a New Facility
We believe that a church building is simply a tool that helps our church family accomplish the vision for ministry that God has given us. It is perhaps one of our most effective tools enabling us to gather and equip God's people. For the past few years we have been taking steps to secure a new facility. With the purchase of land in 2005, we are ready to take the next steps in moving forward...

• Raise the funds needed for construction
• Finalize the design
• Construct the new building
• Secure an interim facility if necessary so that our growth and effectiveness will not be hindered

Expanding our Current Training and Sending Capacity
Ever since the birth of MVC, God has given us a focus on raising-up leaders and sending them out into our community or to start new churches. We will take purposeful steps in the following areas in order to multiply new churches and reach people with the gospel...

• Continue and enhance our Pastors Institute
• Re-launch and expand our School of Ministry for anyone (men and women) in the body interested in having a stronger foundation in God's word and using it in ministry

Sharpening our Focus for World Missions
As God enables us to Reach Farther, we desire to see our heart for world missions grow and to have a greater focus for where the Lord desires to use us. Missions would be in each person's DNA as a prayer intercessor, a sender, or one who is sent out. This will include the following purposeful steps…

• Partner with others to help see churches planted in Czech Republic and other places overseas by equipping national leaders, sending people, and investing resources
• Expand our leadership training forums (Pastor's Institute and School of Ministry) to train and prepare men and women for ministering overseas
• Continue and enhance the forums in our church body for praying for the nations and the persecuted church around the world
• Continue to invest in the expansion of the Gospel by pursuing opportunities to take the Gospel to "unreached people groups" throughout the world

So Come and Join Us for the Journey!
Over the next five years, we will be prayerfully evaluating our ministries and decisions in light of this vision. We will also be prayerfully asking Him for refinement of this vision and greater clarity as we move forward in the mission He has given us. This is an exciting season for us as a church family and we can anticipate much growth in our lives as we take this journey of faith together!