REPEATED
Last Sunday our congregation received the report of the Consultation conducted by Carolyn Kitto on behalf of the Moreton Rivers Presbytery. A written copy of this report was given to every person who attended last Sunday and Carolyn spoke to the report during our services. If you didn’t get a copy of the report there are more copies available in the church foyer or you can contact the church office and a copy will be provided. This is a report that is available for the whole congregation.
On Monday night the church council held an extra meeting to discuss the report and our response to it. As we discussed it we held in mind the comments that had been made at the discussions following the morning and evening services last week. The church council values this report and thinks that it provides us with some key directions to move into in the future. The church council has identified the following priorities from the report.
Staffing – to not replace Harlee with another full time Minister of the Word, but to appoint specialist part time pastors to build up specific areas of our church life.
Faith development pathway for children, youth and young adults – we have a number of excellent activities for children and youth and parents do a fantastic job nurturing faith in the home. This pathway will seek to coordinate and complement these efforts and provide resources for all involved with the hope that our children will come to an owned faith.
Organisational culture – recent research indicates that the most effective element in nurturing faith in young people is for them to be surrounded by a multitude of faithful Christians who express a vibrant and engaging faith. Our purpose of being a disciple forming community is growing this further within us. We want to continue this push, with particular emphasis on how we express faith consistently, how we interact with each other and resolve conflict and how we communicate within and outside our congregation the exciting work that we are doing.
A Mission Focus/Mindset – for the past couple of years we have intentionally gone deeper into faith by putting emphasis on our explore groups. It is now time to release that faith into action as we emphasis the embody (service) and engage (evangelism) areas of our purpose.
Property refurbishment – the group will continue to meet to make plans so that the building is suitable for the future ministry of our congregation.
Child Safe Church and welcoming and including – these are important areas of our church life that need structure and systems to support them. Having strong systems to integrate newcomers is especially important as we reach out into the community to draw people into the life of God as it’s expressed through this congregation.
This work is not going to be done in a short time. Some of it will, but most of it will take time to plan and for us to adapt our way of doing discipleship.
Grace and peace
David Fender
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