Who We Are and Where God is Leading Us

The following hopes and thoughts serve to guide this ministry and reveal the heart of its ministers and volunteers.  We are excited to share them with you.

Our Slogan:
ASHAN
God's presence in smoke.

Mission Statement:
The mission of SMRM is revealing the presence of God to those who live, work, and play in the resort settings of Sevier County and the Smoky Mountains.

Vision:
Creatively sharing Christ with others, ministering to their needs and hopes, and growing the Church through mission involvement.

Core Value:
"The call to salvation is at one and the same time a call to mission."
                                 Finley Edge

In SMRM we enable non-Christians to say "yes" to the call to salvation
and Christians to say "yes" to the call to mission.

Character
In accomplishing the mission, vision, and core value of SMRM,
it is our philosophy and strategy to emphasize personal and intentional ministries.

Resort missions is communicating the Gospel to people in a leisure lifestyle setting. 
The freedom of this ministry requires these focal points:

Thanks be to God and to all of you for enabling this mission effort!

These focal points are to be expressed in all our programs and ministry efforts.  They require us to be totally involved in our work  and are the filters through which our goals will be interpreted and accomplished.  They reveal our character and focus our strategy.

DEFINITION:

Resort missions is communicating the Gospel to a people caught up in a distinct leisure lifestyle.

To be caught up in a leisure lifestyle means that one takes his value system not from where or how they work, but from where and how they play.  This target group, then, consists of persons on vacation, seasonal workers, and long-term residents on the resort.

A resort is any private, public, commercial, government administered location or special event established for people to spend leisure time.

A key to resort missions is identifying with the people within the leisure lifestyle.  This means being there with the people; playing with them; doing what they are doing; and looking like they look.  Even as the missionary makes the effort to identify with the leisure lifestyle, he or she must remember that they are there with a purpose.  Resort missions entails identifying with people, yet maintaining the initiative and purpose to witness and minister.

It is important to remember that resort missions is greater than simply performing in a resort setting.  Day camps, music, relational creative arts, hiking, chaplaincy, etc. are all tools which we use to: (1) get peoples' attention, (2) earn the right to be heard, (3) build a relationship that enables us to be heard, and (4) be heard with the Good News of Jesus.  Resort missions requires that we to beyond performing and cross-culturally communicate the Gospel into the leisure setting.  We must be personal and intentional with our ministry.  Further, we must design our program and our personal language to reach a secular-leisure people.

CHARACTERISTICS OF RESORT SETTINGS:

• Secular: Resorts are not religious.  There are no sacred persons, places, or times.
• Urban:   Even though they may be in a rural area, the people in resorts are generally urban people.
• Massive: They are big business; big money; big crowds; and big time.  Where people are together in this way,
  there are big problems which call for Christians to give a caring (big) ministry.
• Mobile:  The population is transient in activity and time.
• Professional: Resorts are very competitive with their attractions.  Ministry efforts must respond with a professional attitude.
• Impersonal: Resorts are basically a lonely place.

THE GOALS OF RESORT MISSIONS INCLUDE:

• Evangelism: Our evangelism must be personal and intentional. It cannot be careless or pushy.  
  We are to tell the Good News with urgency and sensitivity.
• Ministry: Ministry is helping people meet their needs and hopes in Christ name.
• Congregationalizing: Our task is to grow the Church through new Christians and through mission involvement.