Why we exist
Our Vision
In our three local churches we aspire to be a community that grows spiritually, and in numbers, by being:
Informed by God’s word
Restored by His grace;
Transformed by His Love;
Perform acts of kindness
Informed by God’s word to know His will and plan for humanity:
We will create opportunities for each person in each church to be able to study the Bible further through having a Bible Study group close to their home in each Church community.
We will endeavour to read through the whole Bible in the next three years.
We will implement a Bible reading plan.
We will start faith exploration courses, for example Alpha, Christianity Explored or Life Explored, and run them twice a year in order to facilitate people who are seeking to know more about Jesus.
We aim to proclaim this restoration to all three villages through all our activities, notwithstanding personal testimony, and create an atmosphere for our villages to seek and find God.
In our corporate worship we aim to facilitate drawing people closer to God and being able to sense God’s presence through his Holy Spirit, by excellence in preaching/teaching, singing, praise and prayer.
In our corporate worship we will embrace the new whilst appreciating what we have received from Christians in the years gone by, especially our historic buildings. In worship we would like everyone to feel that they are glad to be Christians.
Transformed by His Love to transform our local communities:
We want to love God with all we have so that we are transformed to love.
We aim to be ambassadors of Christ in each of our villages by visiting the sick and lonely, the hurting, helpless and hopeless.
We will engage in existing community groups, form new community groups to share resources, strengthen families and help local agencies.
We will advocate God given values for human dignity, free agency, gender, family, sex, money, and power.
Perform acts of kindness for the poor, and seek justice for the marginalised:
We aim to serve the poor, feed the hungry and give what we can afford whilst signposting to other agencies with the right resources, skills and expertise.
Our Mission
Our mission is given to us by Jesus. Before he went to heaven his last words were:
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (MT 28:18-20). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Making disciples or students of Jesus is our primary work. That assumes that we ourselves at our three local churches are students of Jesus. It means that we know him deeply. It is not just knowing lots of facts and historical information about Jesus – which can be found easily – but it goes further: knowing Jesus personally and intimately. I guess this is what Bear Grylls the adventurer meant when he said, “my faith isn’t very churchy, it’s a pretty personal, an intimate thing and has been a huge source of strength in moments of life and death. At the heart of Christianity is the belief that we are loved and held and forgiven, and I try not to complicate my faith beyond that.”
Whether it is a podcast, tweet, newspaper, TV or radio you get your news from, one can hardly miss what a broken world we have, even with all the advancement of humanity. Jesus came to the world to fix that brokenness by fixing each person. We have this broken world because of our separation from God – what the Bible calls sin. We experience forgiveness when we trust that Jesus died on the Cross for each person. Acceptance of what Jesus did on the Cross by faith is what Christians call “getting to know Jesus” – it is deeply personal and life changing, one is never the same if one meant it.
Another aspect of getting know Jesus is getting to know Jesus continuously. One can know someone for a lifetime and yet still get to know new things about that person. We get to know Jesus better by spending time reading and studying the Bible – like spending time with friends. We also listen to sermons, attend Sunday School and special teaching sessions.
As we have seen in the bible verse above, we are also commanded to share this knowledge about Jesus with those around us and help them to know Jesus personally. We do this by living the way Jesus wants us to live and explaining to others why we put our trust in Jesus. It is not just about living but also about sharing the knowledge of Jesus in words.