As a church on a mission together – how do we know when our mission is succeeding? Is it when attendance grows? Or when our general offering meets the budget? How about when we add another campus? As someone trying to follow Jesus - how do you know you’re actually following him? How do you know it’s working?

If we’re going to accomplish a mission together, it’s really important that we know in advance how we’ll determine when it’s being accomplished. We need to understand the “marks” of success.

To answer this question we’ve developed a set of Missional Marks.

Missional marks represent the outcomes we expect to be experienced by anyone who joins the mission God has given to Orchard Hill Church. What’s more – we think these marks are the measure for the life we all really want to live.

For us – success is marked by the following 5 marks present and growing in individual’s lives and the life of our church as a whole:

1. We are receiving God’s love and identifying as His beloved children

2. We are Loving God (back)

3. Loving Ourselves

4. Loving Our Neighbors and

5. Loving Our Enemies

When we Love God (back) and love others as ourselves – we not only fulfill what Jesus identified as the most important commandments – we discover the path to abundant life (Luke 10). Over the next few weeks – we’re going to put some skin on these great loves. We’ll consider – What does the mark of God’s love in our lives really look like? What does love require? What does loving God require? What does loving ourselves, neighbors and enemies require? We hope it will inspire you to listen to Jesus’ call to consider and take some next steps on mission with him and Orchard.