Chestnut Ridge is in the midst of a Spiritual Strategic Journey through which we are seeking to discern the leading of God's Spirit for our ministry. This is a three to five year intentional process through which it is hoped that our entire ministry will be transformed to make us a more vital, growing community of faith as we seek to serve East Cobb County.  We are calling our process Answering God's Call.

The first step of the journey began on March 1, 2009. Fourteen groups of three, which we call Prayer and Share Triplets, committed to 100 Days of Prayer for our congregation's ministry. This phase of the journey is to lay the spiritual groundwork for what God is doing in our midst. The Prayer Triplets are meeting ten times for at least 100 minutes over the 100 days, and they are being asked to discuss and prayer about various aspects of our church's ministry, structure, and activities. The Triplets are reporting back to us in a variety of ways, and our SSJ Leadership Team is collecting the information from them. We celebrated the conclusion of the 100 Days of Prayer on June 8th, 2009.

The second phase of our journey was the writing of our Future Story. Through the 100 Days of Prayer we hope that God's Spirit will uplift common themes among our Triplets, and we will write a narrative of what Chestnut Ridge will look like in the year 2020. What will CRCC look like to a visitor pulling into our parking lot? What will worship look like? What types of activities will be taking place in the life of CRCC? These questions and many others will be asked to help us formulate the Future Story we believe God is calling us towards.

With help from the Prayer Triplet members, our Leadership Team begin to compile the Future Story for our congregation. The writing process of our Future Story encouraged us to examine and refine what we were discerning God was calling us to become by the year 2020. Once written, we shared the Future Story with the entire congregation, and we celebrated the Future Story with a day-long celebration.

The final phase of the journey is our greatest challenge. This phase will take 3 to 5 years to complete, and it will require us to be open change and transformation in our ministry at CRCC. Living Into our Future Story will require us to take the Future Story we have written and begin to live into it by implementing the structures, programs, and ministries which will enable us to achieve that reality by 2020. We will formulate our "Map" which will become our guide for our ministry at CRCC. Our Map will include various waypoints we will strive to meet by accomplishing a variety of things in our life together to enhance our ministry. Every 90 days our board will measure our progress, and we will examine what changes to our Future Story God is calling us to make as we hone our ministry.