Our new Vision Statement:
Responding to the call of Jesus on our lives we will be…
family not acquaintances,
disciples not bystanders,
servants not volunteers,
unapologetic evangelists not apologetic believers.
In the power of the Spirit we will be whole hearted not half hearted.
How we got there…
From 2015 into 2016 we spent a lot of time reflecting on the kind of church God is calling us to be. With a lot of prayer and small group discussion across our congregations and in our PCC we asked questions like:
- What kind of church would you invite someone to belong to?
- What would you like to be able to say about your church?
- What did you hope church would be like?
- What would you want to celebrate about where we are now?
- What is God’s priority for this church?
- If you had a blank sheet, what would our church life look like?
- What do you think Jesus expected His church to look like?
After much sifting and distilling, we came up with four themes: belong, grow, serve, and tell.
We saw a difference between the bad habits that it is so easy to fall into and the church Jesus would have us become.
Some of the ideas are already second nature to us. Others will take time to become part of who we are, but we believe that these practices are vital if we are going to continue to grow and make a difference in our parish.