EDEN PRAIRIE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH GOALS

We commit ourselves to God and to Jesus Christ’s call to be disciples.

         We will:  

·       Celebrate being disciples through worship and fellowship

·       Grow in our understanding and experience of discipleship through spiritual formation for all ages.

·       Live our discipleship through service with outreach and missions and in our daily lives.

·       Invite others to join us in the journey of discipleship through evangelism and welcoming.

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Celebrate being disciples through worship and fellowship

We will embrace our spirituality by naming God in all we do:

• We will include spiritual activities including prayer, devotion, and/or a study when we gather for meetings and fellowship events.

• We will share fellowship time in our gatherings centered on spiritual growth.

• We will boldly embrace the relationship between spirituality and generosity through the giving of our time, talents and financial resources.

Music is especially important to our worship experience and life together:

• We will build on this strength and emphasize flexible programming for all ages.

• We will intentionally make it an important part of our outreach to our community.

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Grow in our understanding and experience of discipleship through 

spiritual formation for all ages

We will strive to meet the spiritual growth needs of each person:

• We will support each individual’s unique gift to be in ministry.

• We will worship, study, and share fellowship across generations.  We will continue to place high value on ministry for children and youth with programming to put this commitment into action. 

• We recognize that strengthening the spiritual lives of adults is essential to providing spiritual growth for children and youth.

• We will place emphasis on developing spiritual growth ministry for adults in small group settings.

   

We believe that a personal relationship with Christ is so important that we are committed to sharing the Good News and our personal faith stories with others while helping them to develop their own relationship with Jesus:

• We will foster discussions and develop ways of naming our own spiritual struggles and growth and allow others to do the same.

• We will nurture and emphasize individual prayer in all our groups.

 

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Live our discipleship through service with outreach and missions and in our daily lives

As a congregation, led by the Holy Spirit, we will become more involved

in helping meet specific current social needs of people living within

our community:

• We will explore the groups and needs of the community.

• We will define options for specific action to be taken by us.

To accept and respond to Jesus’ challenge to love our neighbors, we will:

• Be a congregation that welcomes all people.

• Seek awareness of discrimination and unfairness in the world.

• Educate ourselves and share in prayerful dialogue about social issues and solutions.

• Offer opportunities to move beyond awareness and education into action.

• Pray and work for peace and justice  

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Invite others to join us in the journey of discipleship through evangelism and welcoming  

We will offer clear and specific invitations to discipleship to all members and visitors that extend to all family members, enabling them to engage meaningfully in the life of Prairie Church.  We will develop an ongoing process of communicating our expectations of new and current members that will include:

• Sharing of prayers, presence, gifts and services.

• Financial giving as an act of faith, responding to God’s grace.

• Discovery, development and sharing of spiritual gifts.

• Participation in spiritual growth opportunities.