I believe in local church-based
evangelism. I also believe that mission
has to become central to the life of the church - if you want your church to
grow and see evangelistic breakthrough, then mission has to be the primary
focus of your church. The priority of
mission in the life of the church affects issues as basic as the church diary
and prioritising what happens on a Sunday.
When I first came to
King’s the church programme was shaped by my diary and my availability, not around
the purpose of mission. For example, ‘I can’t be here on that Sunday as I’m on
holiday so we won’t do the mission event there…’ We soon worked out was that
was the wrong way of building! We decided - mission
comes first. I think in everything
we do now, right through the philosophy of the church, mission is primary and
then we build in behind that priority - the church programme must reflect this
philosophy.
Mission at the heart of
church life particularly affects our Sundays - our Vision Sundays which we do
twice a year, one in September and one in January, (and which I always do as
the team leader) always includes an aspect of growth presented within it. It will always include an appeal for new
people to step in. It will always include
telling some of the King’s story. Mission
will be explicit in our goals and what we are reaching for over the next 5
years - that will be very high profile.
I’ve got this evangelistic thing in me (although I am not an evangelist
– I realised that when I met one!) which makes me instinctively think that’s
the way to grow. So in our prayer
meeting, if I’m leading, we will pray for other areas including pastoral care but I would probably always lead us
into vision and into praying about growth.
I just do that.
Posts
