A focus group accepted the challenge of narrowing the core values after receiving input from over 100 people at Wesley Chapel. It was easy to reduce the list of 35 to 12 but it was really hard to go to four. We quickly started out of the gate with the first two: godly and biblical. After much debate we began to take a second look at godly and realized that the Pharisees would have also considered themselves godly and biblical. We asked the question, “What did Jesus have that the Pharisees did not?” Compassion, kindness, gentleness, and patience were some of the answers that were also on the list of possible core values. Then someone said, “Christ-like” and we knew that this core value was all of the other values that we had been wrestling with.

We soon decided on Christ-like, Biblical, Loving, and Community.

We introduced them to the congregation in January of 2018. Core values keep us grounded on what is important and describe the type of church we hope to be. I share them with you again this month as a reminder.