We published the first version of this document in 2010 in conjunction with the building initiative. It's purpose was to establish the baseline for why the building initiative was necessary to support the vision, mission, and strategic goals of the church. It is republished every 3 years or so. The last update was 2017.

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Vision

God sees Prospect as a historic pillar and spiritual sanctuary of the community with an open and welcoming embrace to all who choose to enter in harmony to exemplify His word through beliefs, behaviors and actions aligned with Christian principles — impacting ourselves, our community, our nation and the world.

Mission

We reaffirm our commitment to glorify God and make disciples for Christ. We will continuously re-enforce a faith-based community that is friendly, safe, fun, and spiritually nurturing for all. We will focus our efforts, stewardship, facilities, and other available resources to offer engaging programs, activities, and ministries for all ages in a variety of ways. We will strive to keep Prospect's heritage alive by maintaining a good balance of old and new traditions. We will seek to continuously improve our outreach programs to ensure our effectiveness as a concerned and caring church body in the community and beyond.

Strategic Goals

Our strategic goals included below are designed to accomplish our Mission and stay aligned with our Vision. We will maintain a three-year horizon while reviewing and reaffirming annually. Current goals reviewed and revised in 2017 are:

Leadership. We will maintain strong pastoral and lay leadership supported by effective committees and work groups. We will engage the congregation and value the efforts of everyone involved. We will be perceived as a leadership body for the community and an effective collaborator.

Membership. We will strive to increase congregation attendance levels to an average of 100, distributed across all ages. Special attention will be applied to building up Youth and Young Adult programs.

Services. We will offer relevant and inspiring Sunday morning worship with Children's Church that includes varied and uplifting music, is well organized, and encourages attendees to live according to Christian principles. We will offer special services from time to time that supplement Sunday services. We will offer our facilities and pastoral service for funerals and weddings.

Programs and Fellowship. We will offer quality ministry-based programs and education, church and community-oriented social opportunities, activity clubs, and special events. Events will align with the diversity and needs of our membership and will also attract non-church members. We will embrace more individualized, small-group interactions to enhance a sense of connectedness for all ages and gender.

Stewardship. We will continue to stress the importance of membership tithing to support our local church efforts and ability to make a difference in our service to the nation and world. From time to time, we will identify special programs for fundraising events, collect special offerings, and trigger larger-scale campaigns to raise capital funds to finance special initiatives.

Outreach. We will communicate who we are and what we have to offer within our membership network and the extended community. We will visit and stay connected to home-bound members and those who have special needs through prayer support and by providing individualized personal assistance. We will maintain a strong involvement in UMC-sponsored missions programs worldwide and also support local service organizations.

Facilities. We will maintain our church building to accommodate: current and growing membership, evolving special-purpose service needs, education programs, combined primary and overflow seating capacity for at least 275 for special events and services, and larger events that utilize the Fellowship Hall seating and kitchen facilities.