Ecosystem

During our all-church family meeting last month, someone asked, “What is our vision for growth as a church?” Our vision is to help people become passionate, devoted followers of Christ. One dimension of that vision is outreach. 93% of people living in Denver are not connected to a faith community. Many people are neither experiencing God’s great love for them nor God’s purpose for their lives. We hope to respond to that need by intentionally reaching out to more people in our 30-minute footprint with God’s love. We love because He first loved us. We pray God will fill and flood your life, your neighbor’s life, and your families’ lives with His light and love until no seat is left empty when we gather in worship.

Alongside reaching out, our vision is that God would transform you and I into his likeness and form us in community. Transformation happens as we understand and embrace in ever-increasing ways that we are God’s beloved, precious in His eyes. Community happens as we respect, honor, and enjoy each other. Our vision is that God would so knit us together that no one in this city would be alone. Our vision is for little groups of friendship to form all over Denver where love and laughter and friendship would spontaneously spring up, and everyone would know that they are never alone.

Our vision is that when we run out of seats in our sanctuary, we start planting churches, rather than building a bigger building, which furthers the vision of helping more people become passionate, devoted followers of Christ. Here is why we care about this vision: 1) People matter to God, 2) We exist to represent Christ in this world and convey to others that they matter to God. 3) We see our church as an eco-system, similar to a river. Every eco-system has a carrying capacity. If a river has a carrying capacity for 500 fish, that means the river is designed to care for 500 fish. 500 fish can thrive there. But if that river suddenly has far fewer or far more fish than it is designed to carry, the fish will begin to die. Churches, like eco-systems, have a carrying capacity. The carrying capacity of a church is determined by the number of worship services, the number of staff and volunteers, the size of the sanctuary, etc. The carrying capacity of Platt Park Church is about 500-600. Last Sunday we had 225. Platt Park church could double in size today with our exact same facility, staff and programing! Whatever our size, our mission will always be to help people become passionate, devoted followers of Christ. This vision is compatible with growth, and we’re excited to live into it boldly, exercising our responsibility to be good stewards of what God has entrusted to us to continue to reach out to people in Denver.