Focus Area #1 - The Call to Serve our Neighbors

Jesus calls us to love God through serving the neighbor.  In Martin Luther's use of the term, "neighbor" means simply "the other."  We do not choose the neighbor to serve, rather the neighbor is given to us by God.  The Spirit leads us out of ourselves to serve the neighbor in need.  Another way to get at this concept for us as a congregation is to sharpen the popular question "What would Jesus do?"  If Jesus were to walk around the neighborhood in which WHLC is located, what would he see and what would he do?

WHLC is committed to serving our neighbors locally and globally.

Focus Area #2 - Faith Formation and Spiritual Practices

As a growing segment of our society consists of those who have little or not exposure to or background in the Christian faith, unhelpful and inaccurate stereotypes of religion dominate the media and popular culture, and a "spiritual but not religious" sub-population has little idea of what it actually means to be religious, there is an urgent need for faith formation.  We have discussed how faith formation is different from education.  Formation is not only about learning content, but it is also about being immersed in spiritual practices that shape how one lives, indeed, shape one's very being.

Two quotes from Phyllis Tickle that we have considered sum up this need well:

"Young men and women of faith, especially, are crying everywhere, 'Give us a faith that costs something!  We want to feel the passion of those who knew and know Christianity is worth dying for!  Teach us the things that will mark us as children of God!'"

- and -

"That is why the entire church is being forced to prayerfully reexamine the character and practices of our ancient forefathers and foremothers in the faith.  We must begin again, as once our forebears did, to live not as culturally safe Christians, but as observant ones, the markings of our faith becoming so inherent in each of us as to be the faith incarnated in us.  We must, in other words, find our way again..."

WHLC is committed to nourishing spiritual practices that form Christian character and identity.

Focus Area #3 - Daily Discipleship

We have come to see the difference in "doing church" between maintaining the institution and equipping believers to follow Jesus in life.  God calls the church into being not for its own sake but for the sake of the world.  In baptism every follower of Jesus is given a life-long mission: to let his or her light shine in the world.  Everything we do as church needs to focus in some way on empowering believers to take up their baptismal mission in daily life.

WHLC is committed to helping believers make a clear connection between faith and daily life.

Focus Area #4 - Facilities Needs

Our facilities must adequately support our mission and ministry.  We need space that facilitates the gathering of the faith community for worship, fellowship, and other activities.  An openness to the needs of the larger community, "the neighbor" (as defined in Focus Area #1) also shapes how we think about our facilities needs.  

WHLC is committed to evaluating and improving our facilities to support our life together and our service in the world.