Ministry what?

Ministry Areas

 

We never did chat much about Ministry Areas did we?  I remember giving out a leaflet, but we hadn’t had a sermon, a chat or even a coffee whilst discussing it.  Well…the idea is that as the church continues to get smaller, we need to plan for how we will engage communities, and serve God.  This means we are looking again at what we do well, it is all quite exciting.

 

Over the next year, we will be creating the Benefice-wide team of a MisisonalCommunity, this means that people will be licensed to different ministries, and supported by the Benefice as a whole.  Itdoes not mean that we stop meeting for the usual church services, but it does mean that we look more closely at everything we do, and make sure that we aren’t doing the same things in different places.

 

Some might take a lead in children’s ministry, and the way in which we are looking again at the work in the schools.Some might feel called to help with the work undertaken in Llanedeyrn and Pentwyn, and  some might feel called to help with the outreach from All Saints’ Cyncoed to the local community, or even from St. Edeyrn’s, who have always felt themselves to be a church without a parish.

 

We can no longer be seen as churches apart from the others we seek to serve, we need only look around us to see that this is the case.  Churches that are flourishing look to the community to see what God is doing, and join in with the mission.

 

In the twenty-first century, we need to accept that the Church can no longer shape the mission to the communities around us;rather the mission will shape the Church.

 

“The Church of God does not have a mission, but the mission of God has a church”

 

So, what does this mission look like?  Well, if God is Trinity, then his mission in creation is through the Trinity. The most unambiguous and direct statement of mission is found in the Gospel according to St. Matthew;

 

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.   Matthew 28:19-20

 

We need to understand that God as trinity is in the business of sending.  God as trinity, sent the Son, the Spirit was sent, and we have been sent too.

 

Beyond all tradition, background, learning and likes or dislikes, one cannot deny that God is in the business of sending, and we are sent too.

 

Anyway…watch this space, for exciting, exhilarating, and maybe exasperating news from the front.

 

Blessings and peace,

 

Revd. Mark

 

Rev’d Mark Lawson-Jones

Team Rector