Making Connections

You may have read in the Parish Magazine of the Diocesan Vision of “Growing Communities of Faith and Engagement”, which mentioned three characteristics of a healthy church:

  • Spiritual Maturity

  • Numerical Growth

  • Community Engagement

By co-incidence (or perhaps that should be “God-incidence”!) we in this parish have been looking over the past year at our own vision.  It is very similar, but particularly focused on the quality and variety of relationships, both within the churches and with our local community.  We summed this up as “Making connections” – between ourselves, between us and God, and between church and the wider community.  I believe that a church which pays serious attention both to spiritual maturity and community engagement will see numerical growth as a consequence.

 

In order to grow spiritually we need to be in a network of relationships which we call the church: a worshipping community in which each person has the opportunity to realise their full potential by experimenting with and developing the different gifts God has given them.  The gifts of some people may be particularly focused on what we do inside the church, e.g. music, preaching, or flower arranging.  For other people, their gifts may lie in community engagement – living out their faith in the local community and helping to strengthen links with the churches.  Others may have pastoral or practical gifts, but all are needed to make up the whole.


With a number of new initiatives to be undertaken, as well as our existing ministries, the PCC feel that the time is right for all members of the church to re-examine how we use our gifts and talents in God’s service.  We have produced a booklet that we hope will help you in that.  We have listed some of the opportunities for service within the church and we hope that all members of the church will take on at least one of these areas.  It may be that you have been serving in a particular way for many years, but feel the time has come to do something different.   In that case, please indicate on the last page of the booklet which job you wish to give up, and the new ministry you wish to undertake instead.  If you are housebound or in some other way prevented from active involvement, please put a tick next to those areas which you will commit to pray for at least once a week and return your form so that we can keep you informed of the prayer requests for those ministries.


Perhaps you are attracted to a particular task, but are not sure whether you could do it.  In that case, please feel free to talk to one of the clergy or churchwardens before replying.  In many cases training is available, and most of the opportunities involve working in teams, so that there is support and companionship available.


Please download and consider the booklet prayerfully and return your response to the Vicarage or Parish Office by the 24th July.  We will then collate all the responses and contact you by the beginning of September at the latest.

 

Last updated: Sunday 14 June 2009