Andy Wheeler of St Saviour’s Church, Guildford, had this to say about our Global-Local programme:
Ours has been a ‘mission-minded’ church for many years, supporting many mission partners and agencies in many parts of the world.
However, a few years ago, it became plain that our multitude of activities and connections had little meaning for us as a church involved in evangelism and mission locally in Guildford. We didn’t know very much about our connections, we had no strategy for our giving and involvement, we certainly learnt very little from them, and they didn’t alter our sense of who we are as a local community within the world-wide Body of Christ very much.
We started over. We stopped giving to a vast range of ministries and agencies without much thought or accountability and, over an 18-month period, sought to discern the relationships and partnerships into which the Lord was leading us relationships of affection, mutuality, learning, and inspiration to involvement in more creative ways in our local mission task.
We reduced our church partnerships to just 12 roughly divided between ’local’, ‘national’ and ‘world-wide’. Simultaneously, we encouraged people at St Saviour’s to keep up with, and continue supporting, their ‘private passions’ in mission.
This was a step forward. Some of these partnerships have flourished and are becoming the kind of mutual partnerships in friendship and the Gospel that we anticipated. Such have been our local partnerships with the YMCA and a youth networking organisation called Matrix, and internationally with CMS, the Diocese of Egypt and the Amos Trust in particular.
At this point we became involved more closely with issues of mission strategy with the Diocese of Guildford and with CMS’ Global-Local mission initiative.
This helped because we realised that others were on the same journey and wrestling with the same questions.
As we have teased this exploration out with others, we have become aware that this is not an easy journey and we are still challenged by such questions as:
- What and how do we learn from the global Church through our partnerships?
- How does what we learn impact and shape our worship, community life and witness in Guildford?
- How can we actually share life and ministry in a real, face-to-face way? How does the life and witness of the Church in Egypt, for example, refresh and shape our priorities and practice in mission in Guildford?
- How do we conduct this dialogue in the context of cultural, language and economic differences and imbalances?
We have only begun, but it’s a truly significant journey to discover more of what it means to be part of God’s multi-coloured and multi-gifted family around the world, and to begin to live and function more as one Body.
If you believe your church or diocese would be interested in exploring the Global-Local Programme with CMS, please email Matt Freer or call 01865 787487.
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