If I was to ask the members of our church, ‘who wants our church to grow?’ we should all raise our hands, after all growth would be a sign of a healthy church and it would mean that more people of our community have committed their lives to Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, more people entering God's kingdom. That's got to be good, right? As Bishop of Blackburn Philip North said, ‘If you are not leading your church into growth, where are you leading it?'
Early in June, Margaret Redfern, Ruth Coates and I, as well as Joyce Wild and Rita Jones from St Hilda's travelled down to Northampton for a packed three days of the ‘Leading Your Church into Growth Course.’ There we grappled with what the course describes as Seven Steps To Growth:
1: Understanding @ Influencing our Culture and Context (Prayer, Leadership and Vision)
2: Inviting and Welcoming our Community
3: Implementing a continual Rhythm of Growth (Prayer, Presence, Proclamation, Pathways, Perseverance)
4: Developing Engaging Worship
5: Evangelism: Being Effective Witnesses
6: Creating a Pathway for Explorers to become Witnesses
7: Beginning a Planned Journey of Growth
One of a number very worthwhile activities was called ‘identifying your Sea of Galilee.’ The idea is to identify people on the fringe of church, those we have regular contact with throughout the weeks, months and years. We identified over a thousand people, all warm contacts who may be invited to church activities and to church itself and that is before we start counting the personal 'sea of galilee' people of every member of our congregations. The idea of the course that we were on is to replicate the course in our own churches with 'Leading Your Church Into Growth Local. 'This we hope to do in early autumn. Robin Gamble who wrote the course said 'if you follow the 7 steps and principles of the course, your church will grow. I concur!
One way we can start our journey to growth is through regular (daily?) prayer:
A Prayer for Leading our Church into Growth:
God of Mission,Who alone brings growth to your Church,
Send your Holy Spirit to give Vision to our planning,
Wisdom to our actions,
Joy to our worship,
And power to Our witness.
Help our church to grow in numbers,
In spiritual commitment to You,
And in service to our local community,
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Zoom Morning Prayer (Monday-Thursday 9:15am) - If you would like to join us, speak to Neil or Elaine Swinhoe who will send a link and Readings each day.
StHilda's: Evening Worship 5pm (1st Sunday of every month) - This month James O'Toole will be preaching for the first time. Please pray for James and come along to support him if you are able.