Initiating a new Vision

Over the past six months, the Vestry of the Parish has been developing a language around where we believe God is calling us and identifying specific areas of our life we believe we need to invest more heavily in to partner with God in renewing the Anglican church and drawing people into a relationship with Jesus.

This time has led us to the following perspective:

Mission (Our what): To help people speak hope, be light and know grace.

Vision (Our why): To play our part in building God’s kingdom in which all people flourish through the proclamation of the gospel, evangelisation of our region, revitalisation of the local church and the equipping of the saints.

Our Values: Grace: From beginning to end, following Jesus is grace. When that is lost, so is the gospel and so is the point. We believe grace melts hearts and transforms lives, and so we must be a grace-based community where we lift one another up because we know we all stand on the grace of Jesus.

Boldness: We believe that the work we do and the vision we hold is in fact God’s work through the Holy Spirit. It is not done in our strength, in fact with us it is impossible. But with God, everything is possible. We are bold and ask God for an inconceivable vision.

Persistence: The story of God’s people is the story of faithful remnants that come to renew and restore. From history we know these stories are not quick and that they are not easy. We are persistent in our belief that God is doing a new thing in the Anglican church and will collaborate with the Spirit through ease and discomfort.

Courage: To be who God calls us to be need we know we need courageous conversations, courageous action that takes risks for the kingdom, and courageous prayer that asks God to bring change to our lives and the life of our city.

Love: There is no point in us existing unless we love those to whom we are called to serve. Love calls us to respond with grace to all people, circumstances and to the city – if we love, then God will work through us. If we lose love, we lose the power of the Spirit to transform.

Hospitality: We do not want to be a holy huddle. We believe God has planted us within a region and a culture to help bring the Gospel to light within it. We put a priority on the outsider and the guest because in welcoming them we welcome God.

As we undertake this work, we believe the following six areas of our life together are essential to build the kind of church God desires for another generation of mission:

1.     Education

To be a people who can proclaim the gospel in word and in deed we must know the story of our faith, be confident in our belief, and acknowledge our roles as ambassadors of God’s kingdom on earth. To achieve this, we must form a community that is fluent in the language of the gospel – forgiveness, grace, generosity, hospitality, embrace and love. As a church, we aspire to be known as a centre of learning and discipleship within our Diocese and within our nation. We believe that through education we can help to reshape the imagination of the people to tell a better and truer story of themselves and of the world around them and so to live more flourishing lives.

2 Leadership Development

Leadership is not just the domain of a few, it is what life looks like when lived with the intention of the gospel. Whether in the church, the home, or the city, we strive to be a community in which people find their purpose, their voice and the resourcing needed to live intentionally for the gospel. We also recognize the need for culturally responsive and grace-literate leadership within the church and so aspire to be a centre for the calling, formation, and discernment of lay and ordained people within our region, diocese, and nation.

3. Family

Church is a family of believers. It is meant to be a community to which one belongs and engages. As nuclear and extended families have struggled within our cultural moment, the church has also. We believe we need to emphasize this dimension not only of our corporate life, but also the privilege and importance of the wider family unit. We want to be a village without walls that is responsive and nurturing of the lives God gifts to us, but which also resources those who are parents to grow and nurture their families and relationships with gospel vision.

4. Church (re)Planting

The history of the church is a story of planting, growth, stability and then decline. For thousands of years, God has called people to, in the words of St Francis, ‘rebuild my church.’ We believe God is calling the church to rebuilding. Because of this, we believe that church planting and re-planting will be a major component of our ministry and mission in the coming generation. To make this possible, we will leverage resources to the formation and training of church planters and gear discipleship around the concept of ‘going out’ in mission to our city and region through the planting of new communities.

5. Encounter

The context in which we do mission values personal experience and truth over rationalist understandings of the world and spirituality. While we will continue the intellectual case for the gospel, we also acknowledge that people encounter the truth of it primarily through their experience. As such, we seek to be a parish that places encounter at the heart of its worship, community, and event planning. This looks like ensuring our worship spaces, from welcome to environment, help people feel safe and welcome but are also conducive to a sense of intimacy with God.

6.  Facilities and Plant

As a parish, we are blessed with church plants and facilities, the inheritance of generations of faithful giving and vision. We want to honour that inheritance and to pass it on to another generation in excellent condition and fit for purpose. To do this, our facilities must be considered part of the strategic levers that we have to utilise in securing the financial, ministry and mission future of our parish.

In the coming weeks, we will be inviting your contribution to this discussion and, through and upcoming sermon series, Alan will speak into some of what it may mean and how it has come about. When considering much of the direction and intention in this work, the Vestry were able to articulate that much of it we are already doing and working toward by the simple reality that they are where God has called us. As we finalise the structure and intention, however, we are able to more clearly distil the intention and to hear the community's heart and desires that are stirred by a vision such as this.