Covenant Presbyterian Church - Charlotte, NC

Envision Covenant


In the fall of 2023, all were invited to come share your voice as we listened and learned from each others’ thoughts and hopes about how we could continue to live vibrantly into our vision.  

OUR VISION STATEMENT
Covenant Presbyterian is a dynamic Christian community that gladly invites all people into a transformational experience of faith; boldly proclaims the gospel; bravely works toward a whole and just world; and passionately nurtures discipleship.

Report from Envision

At the Session retreat in early January 2024 the Envision team presented a summary of the input gathered from the listening sessions, mission partner interviews and emails sent in to the Envision inbox. Their report highlights 4 existent strengths to build on and a set of recommendations to help shape strategic focus for Covenant over the next few years. A summary of that report is included below.

Now we begin the work of integrating these insights into the life of our church. To launch this important phase, staff and lay leadership are holding sessions with members of the Envision team to talk through the input in depth and begin to reflect on ways to use it to inform and inspire plans for 2024 and beyond. At these sessions church leaders are also hearing about the specific creative ideas that were shared.

The Envision listening season reaped so much rich sharing of hopes, dreams, and imaginings of how we can live into our vision in the coming years that it is impossible to convey it all in one report to session or a single newsletter article. Throughout the year you will see and hear further updates on ‘what we heard’ and how the voice of our community is shaping our future. Stay tuned!

Strengths to Build On

COMMUNITY BUILDING
A core strength of Covenant is we are a welcoming community. There were many examples and stories shared of how members, partners and visitors have experienced Covenant as a gladly welcoming and relational community. People challenges we should consider in order to continue to grow as community builders.

DYNAMIC WORSHIP
Our openness to reimagining worship and thus having dynamic, diverse worship life has positive impact beyond just the availability of choice. Our varied worship services provide an invitation to transformational experiences of faith to a wide range of people.

DYNAMIC, ACTIVE FAITH
People shared examples of how we have continued to stretch how we practice our faith in action. A key tenet of our faith in action is our willingness to face hard issues together. We share anticipation about where God will take us next.

QUALITY OF STAFF
Over and over we heard expressions of gratitude for the gifts and spirit of our current staff. People shared stories of ways that members of staff in all areas have had meaningful impact on their experience at Covenant and their personal faith journey.

Recommended Areas of Strategic Focus

  • Continue to think creatively about how our worship design can help us better understand and grow towards being a reflection of the kingdom of God and be a source of transformational experience.
  • Discernment and action towards our outreach and impact in the world (local and global) beyond ourselves. Explore the question of ‘where is God calling us to our next bold step’ in working towards a whole and just world and how do we cast a wide net of invitation thus engaging many in the work.
  • Continued discernment and action towards God’s call for Covenant relative to diversity & inclusion (inclusive of equity and justice)
  • Identify opportunities to integrate across ministry areas thus deepening impact and creating even more transformational experiences (Kinship Project was cited dozens of times as an example of this)
  • Identify ways to equip a culture of welcoming and engagement in order to have more consistency in people’s experience of being engaged to their desired degree How to extend our practice of welcoming and embed it into our culture
  • Intentional connection opportunities across the breadth of our church so that we maintain community in the midst of growth with specific focus on intergenerational connection.
  • Continue to invest and expand energy into small group creation and support with emphasis on programs and resources to help them be places that nurture spiritual growth and discipleship.