By "City Change Strategy" we don’t mean to sound "moralistic". As in, "Greeley has problems and we have the solutions." We mean to communicate something of our vision and how we plan to make our vision reality. St. Patrick is a church in the center of Greeley that will be wholly structured to evangelize and equip secular professionals through the gospel with a vision to serve the entire city. St. Patrick’s vision is not just for a great church, but also for a great city. We exist to help the city of Greeley become more like the city of God.
Picture of a Renewed City
Reneighbor: Reconnect people so they live and work together with a renewed sense of the importance of community and one another. Parks and picnics.
Rebuild: Rebuild the family through the de-mystification of sex and stress upon holistic relationships. Affirm and support single lifestyle. Dads, moms, and children in the park at the picnic with their single friends.
Reconcile: Reconcile classes and races so we glory in one another’s diversity. Dads, moms, and children in the park at the picnic with friends from varying degrees of social and racial diversity.
Reweave: Redirect economic, social, and spiritual capital back into the city. Dads, moms, and children in the park at the picnic with friends from varying degrees of social and racial diversity enjoying surroundings they helped create.
Renew: Effect the quality of art, scholarship, literature, theater, being produced. Dads, moms, and children in the park at the picnic with friends from varying degrees of social and racial diversity enjoying their surroundings with a heightened sense of the importance of beauty.
Means to a Renewed City
Understanding the Gospel: We believe that the means to a renewed city is an ongoing in-depth perception of the gospel. This is not to say that other religions and worldviews cannot contribute to a renewed city, indeed they do. But our conviction is that the gospel does this in a way that other views of reality cannot, because it deals with the basic problem of our "alienation" in a way that other views of reality do not.
- Individual renewal dynamics. Here we will cultivate the practice of using the gospel on our own hearts. Identify idols and works righteousness, and propagate the assurance of acceptance by God on the basis of Christ’s work not our own.
- Corporate renewal dynamics. This is the same thing applied to the larger context of community worship and small groups.
- Regional renewal dynamics. This again is the same thing applied to the broader context of planting churches in our geographical region.
Community Development: We believe that the gospel by its essence is not just to feather the nest of the individual believer or a particular church for that matter. It is for the community at large.
- Reneighboring: Church leaders live in and partner with community in need. a) The poor are not considered "objects" of ministry but partners in ministry. Contrary to liberal approach which often doesn’t empower. b) The base of the partnership ministry is a local worshipping congregation, not programs. Again contrary to the liberal approach.
- Reweaving: Look beyond just helping scattered individuals or only helping specific needy groups but seek to renew or rebuild all the systems of community: education, business, safety, housing, health care, employment opportunities, etc. Contrary to conservative approach which often says, "we don’t have any problems."
- Re-inviting: Do good deeds as evangelism (Mt. 5:16), not as only a supplement to evangelism or as a result of evangelism. If anything, evangelism is the result of good deeds. Evangelism is showing a new humanity. Contrary to church growth approach.
- Reconciliation: Mutual respect between races embodied in attitudes, relationships, leadership structures. This is not a supplement to evangelism or a result of evangelism, but a means of evangelism. Another way to say it is: It’s not something we have to attempt to do like quotas, but is the normal organic outgrowth of the gospel. Contrary to liberal, conservative, and church growth approach.
Cultural Transformation... We believe that one of the chief purposes of mankind is to enjoy the beauty of their Creator God.
- A Biblical Model vs. a) "Accomodationist" model. Believers simply give in and adopt the pagan culture’s values and world-view, both in their fundamental values and perspectives and their lifestyles. vs. b) "Privatization" model. Believers keep the external trappings of Christian faith and practice, but they adopt the more fundamental values and perspectives of the dominant culture. vs. c) "Militancy" model. Believers respond with a sense of superiority and hostility and with a very great degree of separation. vs. d) "Pietist" model. Believers, instead of engaging the culture and social brokenness concentrate completely on evangelism and discipleship building up the church and their own numbers. e) Rather the Biblical model is the "Engagement" model. Believers co-working with secular people but in ways that reveal the distinctiveness of the values of the kingdom of God. This is a complete reverse of the second model. They are externally quite like the surrounding culture (positive toward it and conversant with it) without ‘jargon’ and other Christian trappings—yet in worldview, values, and lifestyle, they demonstrate chastity, simplicity, humility, self-sacrifice. They are quite different in the way they understand money, relationships, human life, sex, and so on.
- Strategy of Vocation. a) Christians work distinctively. Understand their work within the Biblical worldview of creation-fall-redemption. b) Christians work excellently. Empowered to do their work with quality.