Parish Life

We plan to renew discipleship and congregational life through revitalized Parish-based communal practices across metro Richmond.

Parish Life is the structure by which we will “grow small” in the coming years. This model has been built with a vision of fostering discipleship and mission in a way that is decentralized, bottom-up, boundary-crossing and contextualized in smaller local settings.

The Parish Life model will serve to:

Help people find easy pathways into Christian community and discipleship
Better care for the members of a large congregation
Mobilize more members of our congregation for lay leadership
Encourage our congregation to participate with fellow believers in the renewing mission of God right where they live, in their own neighborhoods and communities

In the coming months, we will communicate a unified vision for discipleship and mission at Third, with Parish Life as the center of our vision for how disciples of Jesus at Third are transformed in community and sent out on mission. We will do this through storytelling, leader development and intentional equipping.

Our goal is for 75% of our congregation to have the personal experience to explain the vision for Parish Life by 2027.

Vision Focus 2

Parish places

We plan to cultivate vibrant “Parish Places” for crossing boundaries and connecting with our neighbors and community.

Our “growing small” vision builds on the structure of Parish Life through Parish Places, which is a localized vision for incarnational mission through the empowerment and mobilization of lay leaders to cross boundaries, engage members of their local communities, and build and nurture those relationships for the sake of gospel renewal.

The Parish Places model will serve to:

Be an informal, shared gathering space where people can meet, connect, and build relationships, often with those that are not in their typical social circles.
Help to heal social isolation by fostering casual, organic interactions that strengthen social bonds, provide a sense of belonging, encourage face-to-face conversations, and create opportunities for diverse communities to come together.
While they will not all look the same, the vision for these spaces is to embody the presence of Jesus outside the walls of the church building, in the unique social ecosystems God has already placed us in.

Our goal is for every Parish Area to at least one active “Parish Place” that is led by lay members, exists outside the church building, and fosters relational connection across cultural or social boundaries for the sake of gospel renewal by January 2029.

Vision Focus 3

Multiplying Culture

We plan to multiply leaders and plant churches within our metro region to form new healing communities and to make known the love of Christ.

In our vision of “growing small,” we hope to build on our legacy of church planting by continuing to equip and send people to start new, Christ-centered, diverse, missional churches in different parts of our metro region.

The Multiplying Culture model will serve to:

Encourage growth and multiplication, while also freeing up more room at our Forest Ave building to welcome newcomers and new covenant partners.
More effectivly reach unchurched people through planting new congregations.
Cultivate an intentional, sustainable culture that identifies, equips and sends new pastors.

In addition to identifying a church planting pastor in the short term, we recommend initiating a 2 year pastoral residency program in the mid-term. This residency will operate in the model of a “teaching hospital,” in which pastoral residents will work among us as full time pastors, taking on significant responsibilities in our ministry life, but also will be learning about how to lead, pastor, shepherd, preach and potentially plant new congregations.

Our goal is to have a sustainable program in place for the training of future pastors and leaders, and plant at least one new congregation in metro Richmond.

About our Strategic Planning Process

As culture shifts and we face new challenges that require new tools and approaches, we are grateful that our original mission and identity remain unchanging: that we are a church called together for the renewal of all things through Jesus Christ.

A strategic plan gives us the opportunity for direction and focus in a defined period of time. It does not include all that we do as a congregation.

Rather, it reflects the unique areas of focus that God is calling us to work on in this particular moment in our story. In sharing this, we hope we keep our community informed and engaged with the mission of the church.

We continue, in humble faith, to simply live more deeply into the calling that God has for our church in this time and place, and we look with hope for what God has for us not just in the next 5 years, but the next 50 and beyond.

– The Strategic Planning Committee

Corey Widmer, Jason Snook (SPC Chair, Governing Elder), Peyton Jenkins and Sarah Hale (Governing Elders), Becca Payne

Questions? Email the team.