Most churches are planted with the Gospel in focus.

The church where I pastor has a rich Gospel history, beginning back in 1946. Our founding pastor, Rev. H. Lee, was on his way to Alaska, when God called him to stop in the Yukon, eventually planting the first evangelical church in Whitehorse.

As time moved on, our church maintained a vision for Gospel impact. Even the church building was dedicated under a declaration of our Gospel mandate in 1961.

“The pastor announced…This church is built and maintained by free will gifts of a people who love the Saviour who gave His life to redeem a lost humanity, remarked Rev. Laing. ‘Your only indebtedness now, is to get the Gospel to all the world.'”

Whitehorse Star, Apr. 13, 1961

This continued through the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, with a number of Gospel-centre projects and programs, including a vibrant camp ministry, bringing Jesus to local children and teens.

Eventually the church life-cycle kicks in.

In the Western church, a life-cycle has been witnessed across all denominations. At around 60-70 years old, many churches enter retirement (for lack of a better word). All Gospel initiatives have ceased and the church has become insulated from the world, instead of reaching the world.

Little do they know, their church is in serious decline.

The writing is on the wall. In another decade or less, the lights will be turned out, the doors will be locked and the building will be sold. That local church will have died.

The common thread? Gospel-centred vision has been lost.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since beginning my recent course with ACTS Seminaries titled, “Vision, Strategic Planning and Organizational Leadership“. It also became the central discussion in my scholastic mentor meeting this past week.

We unpacked the past 5 years in our church.

In 2015, the president of our fellowship of churches, conducted a Church Life-Cycles Assessment within our church. His interviews and group discussions determined that we were in fact moving into retirement.

His results determined that our church leadership had two choices if we were to prevent our church from experiencing further decline:

An Intervention or Fresh Vision.

Later that day, he explained that casting fresh vision must have an outward focus. If the vision is centred on internal focused ministry, that insulates the church from the world, it will not be enough to revitalize the church.

More importantly, it’s not the vision that Jesus called the church to. The fresh vision must be gospel focused!

Not long after that assessment, the Pastor-Elder Team took a retreat to cast our fresh vision. It was a lot of work and a lot of rabbit trails, but eventually the Spirit centred us around a common vision.

“To be an authentic, vibrant church, serving and reaching our city.”

Vision2020, Mountainview Church

Fresh vision changed everything!

Since casting Vision2020, our church has been completely revitalized and continues to grow. In everything, we’re constantly reminding ourselves of the why, we do what we do, found in the last 3 words of our vision, “…reaching our city.“

Our city is over 50% atheist and agnostic, with no faith position whatsoever. Add in the Muslim, Sikh, Mormon, First Nations Spiritism and other religions, and we have a huge mission field! Our fresh vision has caused us to stay focused on on the Gospel, which calls us to reach our city for Jesus.

Fresh vision has made all the difference!

I believe that casting this Gospel-centred vision saved us from continuing down the church life-cycle, and becoming a dying church. If your church has moved into retirement, it’s time to get back to your Gospel roots and cast fresh vision!

It might just save your church from dying!