Simon spoke on 8th January about Jubilee and the goals he feels God gave him for the church in 2012
Click here Jubilee Slides for a copy of the main points he covered
Click here for the 2012 Goals
Stanway
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Stanway Green Lodge
It has been a real joy to get to know the residents of Stanway Green Lodge this year. Since February 2011 a team of half a dozen from our church have visited the home on first Sunday of each month and led an act of worship in one of the day rooms.
There are two day rooms,so no one is forced to be there! Each time we have gone in there have been 10-15 residents with whom we have read scriptures, sung hymns, offered prayer and heard stories of how Jesus has changed lives. Real relationships have been formed we have had sincere expressions of gratitude that we have taken church to them ( as does Father Nicholas Davis from All Saints at other times).
Our latest visit was Sunday 4th December. Steve Mann shared some thoughts about John the Baptist, based on Mark 1:1-8. John knew his place and despite having a huge following he directed people to the Jesus. Rose Lasky shared a testimony of how we need each other and yet we can also connect directly with God when we need direction.
We have arranged to lead a special carol service on the morning of Christmas Eve, in the dining room where there will be space for plenty of people. We hope that some of the families will come along to this event too to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Victory Hall 30th October: Jeremy Noles
It was great to have Jeremy Noles from St Lukes church on Highwoods come to speak to us at our monthly all-together gathering at Victory Hall.
Jeremy shared his own story old of leading St Lukes over the last few years. He took over a good strong church, planted by a successful church, with a great building, less than mile away from where St Lukes meet, in a community centre.
Jeremy felt that God wanted to take St Lukes down the route of establishing missional communities in place of the cell structure of small groups. Each missional community would have a 3 fold emphasis of UP, IN and OUT.It is the OUT that is often the missing ingredient. One model that they came across was of church being like a life boat which could save people rather than a cruise ship which was enjoyable to travel on but ill equipped to rescue those who were drowning.
After much prayer, teaching and discussion, the existing cell structure was shut down and people were realeased into new missional communities.
At our meeting Jeremy was joined by Janine, Tim and Gillian who are involved in leading some of the missional communities. Each missional community has a name, so we had the Oak Tree Coffee House community, LOL and Calendar girls represented.
There are also missional communities called Men Behaving Boldly, an art group, a messy church Alpha and the Js.
It was great to hear from Janine, Tim and Gillian about how natural their groups felt to lead and be part of . They are doing activities that they enjoy, with people they enjoy being with and it seema normal to invite people to events linked to their existing passions and interests as opposed to a "cell".
It was so encouraging to hear from a church very a similar background and age to our own, who are on a similar journey.
From discussions afterwards it was clear that the visit had stimulated some new ideas and creativity. Let's follow up on this with a bit of vision casting, brainstorming and prayer at Sainsburys Coffee shop at 7:30 on 16th November.
Stanway Green Lodge
Sunday 6th March was our first church service for the residents of Stanway Green Lodge Care Home. Stella, Viv, Jackie and Steve gave bible readings, following the Anglican lectionary. Andy briefly shared his story of his life and Simon played guitar and gave a short talk based on Matthew 17.
We were very well received by residents and staff alike. One resident was visibly moved at the end of the meeting and it was lovely to chat to people informally.
We look forward to our next visit on Sunday April 3rd.
The garden begins to take shape
Sunday 30th January was a wonderful morning in the life of the church. Following on from Simon's talk on 16th January You are a seed planted by God it was a time for vision to be released and for new groups to begin to emerge.
It was so helpful to have Aaron Lasky lead us in worship and he was taken aback by what God has done and is doing through us. A powerful time of praise, proclamation and declaration really allowed people to engage with God and spontaneous songs and heart felt intercession flowed from that.
Steph then led us through a process of identifying ways of people getting involved
Some of the great ideas that have already emerged are:
- Planting a new mini-church in Sible Hedingham in the midst of a family/friendship network
- Sainsburys cafe
- Other location based discipleship groups
- An invitation to provide church in a Stanway care home
- A group for those whose motivation is compassion
- Swahili church
- Barn church - a youth group for people from KCS and DNA
- A workplace based group looking at the Seven Signs of John's gospel
If you have good eyesight you will see some more opportunities in the photo above!
We encouraged people to add their name to these initiatives or start a new initiative themselves and seek to find others who are like-minded.
Simon has made himself available to meet with people on a 1:1 basis during the month of February to help them find their place in this and to encourage people with ideas and passions that they may already have.
This way of doing and being church provides tremendous opportunities for people to touch the community, express their passions, in the context of real relationship and see God's love bring hope and change to broken lives.There is great flexibility for those whose work or other commitments make it difficult to meet regularly on a Sunday morning.
We will meet together once a month at Victory Hall to worship, share stories, pray and encourage one another.
You are a seed planted by God
On Sunday 16th Simon spoke about the theology that will shape how our church develops in 2011 and beyond.
"I have become convinced over the last 2 or 3 years that we should be a church planting church. This might sound odd for a church without a building and relatively small in numbers. But Jesus said that he was in the midst of gatherings of 2 or 3 people.
The original command of God to mankind in Genesis 1 was to be fruitful and multiply. Whatever God creates is capable of multiplication. Matthew records Jesus' important last words as a command to "make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you". "All that I have commanded you" includes making disciples of all nations. That's part of what we are to obey!
We illustrated this by playing Chinese whispers with 5 people. It began with Allan being told "You are special - pass it on". Fortunately Rebbeca , the final person in the chain, received the exact same message "Your are special - pass it on".
It could so easily have been distorted with someone hearing "You are special" but saying the next person "I am special". Then someone hearing " I am special" could have passed on the message "Allan is special".
This kind of distortion of Jesus' message has disempowered Christians from making disciples.
Christians often personalise scriptures that are more accurately addressed to churches. For example "He that began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ of Jesus" has become a promise that people claim for their individual lives, when Paul was addressing a whole church.
The command to make dsiciples does not appear to be one of those scriptures! Christians assume discipling is for others to do. They don't feel spiritual enough or gifted enough and so don't see themselves as disciples who make disciples.
Imagine if God were to give us a performance appraisal when we meet Him about how we have obeyed the great commission. Many would say "That's not part of my job description!
Shockingly, part of the command is to baptise people. So the challenge is who do we want to baptise this year?
Jesus Jesus Jesus tells two stories about seeds in Matthew 13. In the first case the seeds represent the message of the kingdom. In the second case, the seed represents the people of the kingdom. So you are seed planted by God. If where you are, is not where God has planted you, it's time to take action.
If God has planted you, it is His intention that His seeds bear fruit and multiply.
As the simple organic church movement say: raise the bar of discipleship and lower the bar of church. Churches can't multiply easily if they are overly complicated and where there are high expectations of music bands, technology and minimum numbers. That is not so say that simple organic churches should be naff. The transfiguration and the road to Emmaus were pretty awesome occasions where the numbers were on the small side!
There are exciting opportunities in Stanway where we have been asked to get involved in projects. "As I thought and prayed about this I felt God show me the church should like a garden, where a variety of flowers, shrubs, bushes, plants, vines, vegetables and fruit can grow and mutiply. So this year we need to see new "mini-churches" emerge and grow.
Our plan is for the whole church to meet monthly to share stories, give thanks , be inspired and hear visiting speakers.
Our next meeting at Victory Hall on 30th January will be quite practical as we seek to help people find their place.
The Holy Spirit
We have started 2010 by exploring the work and person of the Holy Spirit. Last year we studied the parables of the kingdom over a 3 month period in a series that we called kingdom.com. We are convinced that it is the kingdom of God that we need to pursue as a priority.
Jesus said that you can't see the kingdom without being born of the Spirit. So for people who believe that the kingdom is important we must be open to the Spirit of God.
Some Christians seem to remain in a state of guilt that is more in associated with the baptism of John than the baptism of the Spirit. The baptism of the Spirit must mean more than whether we speak in tongues or not.
We have explored the images of wind or breath and learnt about walking in the Spirit, not quenching the Spirit and not greiving the Spirit.
