Church merger: Values

The second question we asked ourselves related to values. What would the characteristics of the new united church be? If you like, what would it's personality be? Every church has a personality - some churches are friendly others are not. Some are committed to excellence and professionalism, others are laid back and scruffy round the edges.

We asked ourselves, what would we change about our current churches and what we continue? Again, it seemed that in many ways, though our demographics are miles apart, our intentions and hopes were pretty similar.

• We want to be a church on a mission to the community around us, so we want to continue to be welcoming, friendly and warm towards the guest and newcomer.
• Our community and our world is full of need and brokenness. We see it every day. We want to be full of the compassion of Christ for the broken and the lost. 
• We want to love one another and truly be God's new people. Here we had different words for the same thing: fellowship, family, community.We want the world to see that we are His disciples by the way we love one another (John 13:35). 

These are things that express the grace of God to us - He reached out to us (Rom 5:8), He showed compassion to us (Micah 7:18-19) and he adopted us into His family (Ephesians 1:3-7).

So far, so good. We feel comfortable with our vision and with our values. Next up: theology!

1. How do you merge a church? 
2. Why merge?
3. Church merger: Questions we're asking
4. Church merger: Vision