Dear Friends,

One of the themes God has placed before Calvary Church over the past several years is DISCIPLESHIP. This is expressed in the vision adopted by session in 2015:

Calvary Church: A Christ-centered community living God’s Kingdom through
Loving God, Loving Others, and Making Disciples.

This emphasis has continued through our relationship with ECO. ECO’s stated vision is “Building flourishing churches that make disciples of Jesus Christ.” Discipleship, as understood by ECO, is the practice of ongoing, life-long transformation; of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others. It is more than simply gaining information, but embraces the whole person — head, hands, and heart.

Over the past year, Calvary’s session and staff engaged in a process designed to assist us in discerning where to start in living into the values and vision of our new denomination. It became clear through this process that our effort needs to focus on building an intentional discipleship culture into the life of Calvary Church.

To do this, we will be using a new resource developed by ECO called “Flourishing Disciples.” Through Flourishing Disciples, ECO desires to create the environment, relationships, training opportunities, coaching, and vision that will facilitate the formation of a true disciple-making culture in a church for years to come. This process will take significant time and commitment to become a cultural reality in the life of Calvary Church.

The session has formed a Flourishing Disciples Team made up of elders, staff, and covenant partners. This team will meeting monthly for the next year and a half to equip this initial group to:
1) grow as disciples,
2) begin to disciple others around them, and
3) establish a disciple-making culture in the church as a whole.

You will be hearing more about this process in the months to come. Please be in prayer for our church and those involved in this endeavor, that we may more fully live into the vision which God has given us.

Grace & Peace,
Steve