These 5 focus areas can help us be who we are meant to be – Real People with Real Hope. Discipleship, Mission, Prayer, Fellowship and Community are not simply good sounding words, they are the basis of how we can honour God today, and grow up as a church for tomorrow.
Discipleship
is growing up in our faith walk with God. It’s learning how to belong to Jesus and to one another. It is to build the fellowship up and give opportunity to serve across the life of the church, to test a gifting in an area, and to have the opportunity to find that something is or isn’t for you. Discipleship takes place across all ages, and it is never complete. Discipleship aims for growth in character, humility, and self-discipline – growing to be like Jesus. Disciples help form new disciples. Given the mixed locations that people in the church family live in relationship to the church building, and with our varied livelihoods and workplaces, our focus area of discipleship requires a threefold approach. Discipleship in small groups, discipleship in life, and discipleship in service.
Mission
is always God’s mission. As a local church we participate in it. If we have an idea about engaging the community, or reaching out, or hearing more testimony of God at work and people coming to and growing in their faith, it is because God’s Spirit is already there at work. For us today we can hold a threefold outlook on mission, following Jesus’ instruction to his disciples in the Bible (Acts 1:7-9). Today we could hear Jesus’ voice like this: you will be my witnesses in Gorsley and the surrounding area, and in the UK, and to the ends of the earth. This gives us a focus as a church on local mission, national mission, and international mission. This focus area is therefore partly about increasing awareness of mission activities and agencies, as well as our participation in telling people about what Jesus has done for us. Mission should inspire and challenge us to get involved with God’s desire to reach the whole world with the gospel. It is likely this is the most uncomfortable of the focus areas as it pushes us to speak to. It is therefore all the more necessary that we pray for this work to increase.
Prayer
is vital for us in our personal walk with God as well as in our fellowship. As people living for God prayer should be something that is central to our faith. It is our communication with our amazing God, our speaking and our listening. It is a vital part of the life of the believer as evidenced through the Bible and down through the history of the church. In prayer we let God speak to us by the Holy Spirit; in prayer we seek God’s will; and in prayer we believe that God can bring healing, restoration, refreshing and release in all sorts of different circumstances of life. In prayer we hear God’s voice. We read in Revelation 5:8, and 8:3-4, of the Bible, that the prayers of God’s people are like incense in heaven before God’s heavenly throne. Prayer is so amazing. It is of heavenly importance, especially as we seek God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. We currently have a prayer space in our building, a prayer tree in the Orchard Coffee House, and Try Praying booklets available.
Fellowship
is our belonging together as a church family. In all our experience of church life if we fail to build the fellowship up, we fail to be the church. No great programme, event, or activity can run to the glory of God if the people who run it fail to be in fellowship with one another. Fellowship takes great effort. Fellowship is the desire to deal well with one another, to love each other, and to seek to sort things out. Fellowship is found in a gracious, kind, forgiving and honest church. Fellowship was a key aspect in the life of the early church (read Acts 2: 42). Fellowship is core to the way we meet together and choose to belong together, from Sunday services, to small groups, to prayer times, to social activities. Fellowship reminds us that we need each other and that we belong together, and that God has brought us to one another. And God knows what he is doing.
Community
is both the location we are in and the people around us. It is those who connect in with the life, activity and events of the church fellowship. In our community we have a beautiful space, a field with a slowly growing orchard, our Orchard Coffee House, play area, and Community Shop, as well as all the different groups, events, and services that take place. This focus area of community is the opportunity for local missional connections to grow, and for us to live out God’s Kingdom value of care for his creation. People and place belong to God’s Kingdom, and to this community. The world that we live in and the people we have around us are part of that which God has made very good (Genesis 1). We need to love, care for, and maintain the place that we live in and the build relationship and engagement with the people of this area to God’s glory.
