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Wellington Diocese
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- To encourage a shared lay / ordained ministry team.
- To develop and encourage the ministry gifts of all God’s people.
- To allow the church to be vision and mission led.
- To enable the budget and finance to follow the vision and mission of the church.
- 2006 MINISTRY GOALS
- We have made good progress in areas where the Lord seems to have opened the door for us to go through and blessed us.
- · We welcomed Wendy as our new Youth Pastor and Curate. (A Youth Pastor was a priority goal and the Lord blessed us with a Curate as well!)
- · We re-ordering the church worship area amazingly kept to our proposed schedule and now have a wonderful new flexible space for use in all services.
- · The sound system has been totally renewed and an aid to all worship especially the music group.
- · A slight increase in numbers worshipping on a Sunday morning indicates the first fruits of our focused vision instead of gentle falling in numbers. Many of which are children and younger folk as we had hoped and planned for.
- · We are welcoming new older folk also into fellowship who have moved into Levin, and been attracted by the love and care of some of the congregation they have met.
- · Offspring continues to grow and develop contacts with non-church families.
- · The Children’s ministry is flourishing in numbers and vibrancy.
- · The youth ministry is starting to develop again.
- · The ministry team to the elderly is expanding with lay and ordained help.
- · The drainage problem around the Church and Vicarage at St. Mary’s is solved.
- · The Vicarage roof has been replaced.
- · There is lot’s more that has been accomplished.
o Unfortunately our giving has not shown signs of an upward turn after stepping out in faith and vision in ministry with a negative budget. The 04/05 stewardship campaign enabled us to merely stand still in giving. We have therefore called upon finance we have had in reserve. However it would be better to be covering our general ministry completely by our giving and call on reserve finance for special items. We did however agree to invest some of our reserves, in ministry to encourage new growth and that is what we have done.
- What next for 2006-7?
- We are still working with our overall vision and goal of growing the church.
- · We need to make sure that we continue to look after the needs of our present congregation and predominantly older folk.
- · We also need to focus on those age groups that are not very present in our congregations, 20s, 30s, 40s. (It will be from these groups that our future leadership will come in the years ahead.)
Two or three broader themes emerge as important:-
- Relational Ministry. We need to be more relational in our life as a church and our connection in the community. What I mean by ‘relational’ is express and develop the warmth of relationships, (1)with God in Christ in our worship, (2)with each other in fellowship, (3) and with the community. 1. Worship needs to be lead in a friendly way, taking spontaneous opportunities provided by the Spirit to respond to situations and peoples needs as they arise, as Jesus did when he moved among the communities and met the people. 2. It would be helpful to develop the quality and depth of our relationships through a home group (mid week fellowship) structure, so that peoples reel needs for true friendship are being met on top of the casual hello on a Sunday just before or after a service. 3. We need to be Jesus in the community and therefore we need to look again at what it means to be the Body of Christ in the community and how we can increasingly share Gods love just as Jesus did.
- Training and encouragement for all the church to help focus us in our vision and mission and to equip us to be effective leaders and witnesses of Christ in the church and the community. Periodic days for worship, pastoral care, mission, prayer, healing etc.
- A Building Project. The next stage in our building is likely to be when our total congregation reaches 200 regularly on a Sunday morning. At that point we will need to consider how we expand our facilities to provide adequate toilets, a fellowship area with a kitchen, which will aid our fellowship time, and extra space and meeting rooms for the growing congregation and various mid week activities. It would be premature to go too far down this track until we have grown to 200.
- Explore Congregation Ministry Teams. To develop and encourage the ministry, fellowship and pastoral care of each congregation.
- Occasional training dates/times for ministry leaders of all kinds.
- To further explore the use of parenting and marriage courses in the community.
- Pastoral care and visiting.
- Teaching the life in the Holy Spirit and the full Gospel.
- Teaching Practical Discipleship. How to:- pastoral care, healing, stewardship, evangelise etc.
There may be other things that you would like to identify and pass on to Vestry.
We will look for those things that the Lord seems to be opening up before us and follow those first. We will also wait on those things that seem to be stuck or blocked with little or no progress and assess what the Lord might be saying to the church again.
Walking in faith with the Lord is exciting. As we allow ourselves to listen to the Spirit we do sense his leading and blessing as we respond. But also we find sometimes that we have moved ahead or beyond where he wants us to be and consequently we find a lack of blessing. It is at those times that we have to re-assess where we are and put ourselves back in his space.
I am very grateful to the Wardens, Vestry and whole church for the work we have accomplished this year and feel that we have a lot to thank the Lord for.
I would like to thank those in the congregations who quietly and lovingly get on with their acts of service and worship to the Lord through the jobs they are so faithful in. It is easy for the rest of us not to notice and therefore never to say thank you. THANK YOU to those people and may the Lord Bless you for your faithfulness.
I also want to thank those who have stepped forward to offer themselves in sacrificial service as an act of worship to the Lord for the special more specific things they have been doing to further the life, witness and mission of the church, both in pastoral issues and of course in some significant practical ones. THANK YOU!
Dare to Dream!
Being a church is exciting with the Lord at the helm. We are on a journey with him and have come to a particular place. But we are also given the permission to dream about where next in this next year.
What would you like to imagine or dream the church might look like by this time next year?
Is it possible that God has given you that picture because that’s how he sees it and he is allowing us to see it so that we catch the vision? Acts 10v9-32. Joel 2v28-29.
David
20th Feb 06
- St. Mary's Levin
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