You might be aware that last fall Indiana Ministries began using a new logo. We wanted something to freshen up our brand that conveyed movement and contemporary relevance. You might have noticed that the logo is made up of several play buttons or arrows that face forward and one that faces upward. These play buttons indicate action and movement. The state of Indiana is comprised of two orange play buttons and indicates where Indiana Ministries is located, as well as where our primary focus is.
Over the last couple of months the staff at Indiana Ministries has been developing a new tag line to highlight our mission. We wanted a way to communicate our mission that was simple and identified the heart of what we are about. After lots of discussion and rewrites, we’ve settled on: Accelerating healthy multiplication in Indiana & beyond.
Each of the words in this tag line is significant.
“Accelerating” reinforces movement and compliments our logo. It describes how we want to bless and energize churches of any size – small, middle sized and large. We want to empower all churches to take steps towards accomplishing their mission. You might think of our role as adding fuel to a congregation’s missional fire as we meet them where they are and help them move ahead.
“Healthy” is a key word for us. We don’t want to accelerate something cancerous or dysfunctional; we want to accelerate health. We desire to provide training, consulting, coaching, and resourcing to foster healthy missional movement. Sometimes that means assisting a church addressing dysfunction. Other times it may focus on solving a problem or navigating a challenge or an opportunity. Sometimes it means helping a moderately healthy church become even healthier so it can more effectively accomplish its mission. One of my personal goals for IM since I first began in October 2008 is to develop a culture of health and growth. I feel like we are making good strides in both areas.
“Multiplication” focuses on the discipleship and growth piece. It refers to multiplying disciples AND churches or campuses. We are building on the addition/multiplication emphasis that Exponential has emphasized the last couple of years (Becoming 5 and subsequent e-books). While at this point multiplying (rather than addition) is more aspirational than reality, it points to where we want to go and where we want to help churches and pastors go. Multiplication aligns with our purpose because a healthy church isn’t just one that holds religious services and activities. It is committed to increasing the number and Christlikeness of disciples. While some congregations are more likely to add disciples and churches, we want to encourage churches to aim for multiplication because that has the greatest potential to accomplish the next piece of our mission.
“To transform” identifies the outcome we desire. We want the disciples in our congregations to be transformational agents in areas where they live and in our world. The desired outcome is changed lives, marriages, families, churches, communities, and the very social fabric of society. Disciples of Jesus bring others into a growing, life changing relationship with Jesus. We are the heart, hands, and spirit of Jesus. The role of Indiana Ministries is to empower pastors, lay leaders and local congregations to be Jesus’ transformational agents so that we can take back what hell has stolen.
“Indiana” identifies our primary target. IM is a middle judicatory that focuses on people in the state of Indiana. Indiana is the primary sphere of influence of Indiana Ministries. We first and foremost exist to serve ministers and congregations in our state.
“And beyond” conveys that Indiana Ministries is not limited to Indiana. Our heart is to see Kingdom multiplication throughout our world. We want to be partners in discipling and reaching people who are far from God regardless of where they live. That’s why we are in a multiplication partnership with Ohio, Michigan and Healthy Growing Churches. That’s why we are involved in Emerge (a broad based effort to accelerate the multiplication of churches in the United States.) That’s why we are supporting (in partnership with Global Strategy) Peninsula Community Church & Kris Gilbert in Auckland, New Zealand, and Carmen & Alejandro De Francisco in developing a church planting network in Spain. We want to see everyone in the world come to know Jesus!
Indiana Ministries is here to support, encourage and resource you and your congregation as we pursue the Great Commission. Thank you for your partnership in this mission.
And, by the way, I hope you can make one of the four gatherings Indiana Ministries is hosting in our state for pastors to connect. There are some things that the staff would like to share with you, and we want to enjoy some time with each other over lunch. The four gatherings are:
April 17th @ 10:00 AM CDT at Gary First Church of God, Gary, IN
April 26th @ 10:00 AM EDT at Crossbridge Church, Ft. Wayne, IN
May 15th @ 10:00 AM EDT at Crosspoint Church, Fishers, IN
June 5th @ 10:00 AM EDT at Bedford First Church of God, Bedford, IN
I hope to see you at one of them!
Blessings
