GSF Vision Statement

The GSF missionary team was recently encouraged to develop a Vision Statement – a simple, concise statement of WHY we are doing what we are doing here.  We have a Mission Statement and we have worked in the past on vision, strategies and self-evaluation.  But when asked about why we are here and what is our overall vision, we were lacking.  Not that we were wandering aimlessly, we just didn't have a unifying statement.

The missionary team began considering this and our Ugandan management team was invited to join in.  A day of fasting and prayer was set aside as we asked God to make His Vision known to us, to clarify our direction and work.  Input was invited from this group of 20 leaders at GSF and we compiled a list of 23 words, phrases and statements that define GSF.  On Thursday, 19 September 2013, ten of us gathered to discuss and work through it together.  In the end, we came up with the following statement, the Vision for Good Shepherd's Fold:

MAKING DISCIPLES, IMPACTING THE WORLD FOR CHRIST

This is why GSF exists.  As we evaluated all the input there were 5 key words that emerged as themes:  Discipleship, Family, Children, Word of God and Proclaiming.  The Great Commission in Matthew 28:16-20 was read and we discussed the emphasis of our Lord on making disciples and going out to the whole world.  As Claudia Arango and David Malisi shared about the history of GSF and the vision of the Founders, Wayne and Bonnie Sue Walker, discipleship again was the emphasis along with the idea that the children of GSF were to be trained and sent out beyond GSF, even beyond Uganda.  Our team further discussed the ways that GSF is presently ministering, not only to the children in residence here, but also to school children, elderly, families with babies, staff members, pastors and the local church in our village.

An amazing thing to me is how God drew together the input of the leaders here at present, evaluating where we are now and where we feel God is leading us.  He brought in His own vision statement in the form of the Great Commission given 2,000 years ago.  And He revealed how the founders of GSF had this same vision on their hearts when GSF was established in 1994.  Past, present and future brought us to this statement that is very much "ours" - our own calling and instruction from God that makes is personal and exciting for us.  It is also much bigger than any of us individually and larger than GSF as a whole.  It's a God-sized task, just as it was for the disciples so long ago.

Recognizing the ways the Lord has already fulfilled this vision so much, we also humbly acknowledged that GSF has strayed away from the vision to some degree.  We had to confess that and renew our desire and intentional effort to put this vision into practice.  By God's Spirit and grace, we now endeavor to do that very thing – Making disciples, impacting the world for Christ – with greater fervor.

Please pray for us as we begin to share this fresh vision with our staff and children and as we strive to implement it into everything we do here.