The 2020 Vision provides the pathway to ensuring a legacy of faith today, tomorrow & forever in all NALC congregations through four primary objectives:
To ensure long-term vitality and fruitfulness for our congregations, we must constantly adapt and expand the reach of Jesus Christ by carrying out Christ’s Great Commission. GROW places importance on our ability to expand and mature as congregations of the NALC.
We recognize the fundamental role that strong theological formation plays in the capacity of our congregations to carry out faithful mission work as we thrive and live out God’s word. SERVE — one of the four main components of this vision — lays out the pathway for empowering all NALC congregations to form healthy, authentic Christian communities that serve our world.
Even with the best congregational strategies, our community needs the periodic opportunity to reaffirm its roots while looking ahead to the future. RENEW — one of the four main components of this vision — provides opportunities for all NALC congregations to be renewed by the Holy Spirit.
Our calling as Christians and congregations in the North American Lutheran Church is much larger than ourselves. We belong to a legacy of faith. Through the 2020 Vision, our congregations devote themselves to join God in His work to FULFILL His promises, taking with them our call to discipleship and our core values as we continue the legacy of faith.
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
–Ephesians 3:20-21
Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we thank you and praise you for the abundance of your mercy and the faithfulness of your grace revealed and given to us in Jesus Christ. We thank you for the calling we have in Him and for the way in which we have been brought together by You in the body of the North American Lutheran Church.
We pray for your Holy Spirit to guide us as we consider the opportunities we have to serve in ways that will honor You and as we share in the work entrusted to us by our Lord. We ask for open hearts to be attentive to Your leading, for open minds to be challenged and transformed by Your love, and for generous and faith-filled spirits to respond to the calling we share.
Lord, we pray for the 2020 Vision of our church, asking for You to continue to work through us to carry out Your will. We pray that our individual gifts will be used in collective ways to offer a witness to the world of the salvation found only in the cross and resurrection of our Lord Jesus.
Strengthen our faith. Bless our work. Use our lives, that the life-giving message of Jesus would be proclaimed and heard, today, tomorrow & forever. Amen.