Dave Weiss’ Evaluation

How will you personally measure the outcomes named in your learning
objectives? I remember very clearly the first time I heard someone refer to “building
missional communities of faith.” My first thought was, “ Oh great. some new
buzzwords, but what do they mean?” I have been trying to get a handle on
post-modern and emergent ministry and what that means to me here in suburban
Pennsylvania. What really helped was really disecting the phrase. Missional (which
still trips most spell checks), the idea of the fact that we are surrounded
by a mission field and that God has a mission for our lives. This is a two
fold issue, dealing with two very important relationships, my relationship to God
(internal mission) and my relationship to my fellow man (external mission).
Community, the idea that the people in the church are interdependent, and of
course the faith that holds the whole thing together.

1. Where am I now in relation to the critical question? My honest answer to
this question is I don’t know. I want to be a leader that leads his
congregation toward being disciples of Christ, fulfilling both their internal and
external missions, but I am not sure that I am there yet, and even if I am getting
there, I sense that I have a long way to go. How would I describe my own
baseline of understanding? What are my assumptions related to the question? I have
really outlined my basic understanding above. The assumption is that
missional is what I need to be to fulfill God’s mission for my life and for the church
that He has called me to pastor.

2. Where would I like to be at the end of two years? What are my hoped for
outcomes? By the end of two years, I would like to be a lot more informed about
what it takes to be a missional leader. I would like to have spent serious
time in self examination and in community with my brothers in this cohort, so
that I can better understand what being a missional leader looks like when
manifested in me. I hope to also spend time being inspired by people who have
already accomplished what I am setting out to achieve. Out of this experience,
and my own self discovery of mission, I hope to help the people in my
congregation to discover their God given gifts, talents and mission and resource them
to carry it out to the glory of God.

3. What are some of the indicators (markers along the way) that will tell me
I am moving toward my outcomes? 1. My brothers in the cohort and I will build
real community, challenging each other to live out God’s mission for our lives
and for our churches. 2. Out of that community will develop opportunities to
serve and help each other. 3. Some of these opportunities will involve
members of our congregations, building unity and community among our congregations,
modeling the body of Christ working together to fulfill God’s mission. 4. I
will have a better understanding of being missional, my mission, and that I
will model missional leadership to my congregation, and that they in turn will be
inspired to step out into God’s mission for their lives.