2025 Vision Meeting

To Our Church Family,

It’s a joy each year to gather for our vision meeting. We have so much to be grateful for! God has blessed our church in ways I could never have imagined, and I believe he’s just getting started. Even as we’re coming to the end of our building project, we know this is just the beginning of all God has in store for this project. Now it’s time for the ministry in these new spaces to begin. We pray that God will take our little mustard seed and grow it for his kingdom.

At this year’s meeting on Sunday June 1 following our worship service, we will share our vision for the upcoming year, give updates on our finances for 2024, the building campaign, and vote to amend our bylaws.

As we prepare for this meeting, I wanted to include a copy of the proposed bylaws for you to review with a short summary of the updates.

• Updating outdated language. Since the church was founded almost a decade ago, we have not updated our bylaws. Over the last year, our elders have worked together to identify and adapt sections of the bylaws that do not reflect the church we have now. For example, when the bylaws were adopted, we did not have a permanent place to meet, a pastor, any staff, or any major assets. Because we are committed to abiding by our stated bylaws, there are several important updates that must be made. The majority of the changes fall into this category. See Articles 7, 8, and 9.
• Addressing membership and voting. We do not have a system of formal membership at CLCC. On one hand, this is good and necessary for our context because we have such a wide range of people coming to church each week. Many people are members or attend somewhere else when they are not in CL, and we do not bar anyone from serving or participating because of membership status. We look at Christian character, maturity, and fit for every position. On the other hand, for those who do consider CLCC their church home, we seek to do all the Bible instructs us to do as a church and an elder team. Because of this unique dynamic, we’ve revised Article 8 on the congregation. This defines the “congregation” and “voting membership” within our church.
• Statement of belief. Though we adopted our current statement of beliefs in 2021, we have not formally included it in our bylaws. See Appendix I.

Thanks to all of you who will gather with us to celebrate what God has done and is doing in our church. Continue to pray for wisdom and guidance as we live out his will in the world. I’m grateful every day to get to serve you in this great church.

Pastor Cole