District Mission Enabler

Rev Liz Childs

District Mission Network

Lincoln and Grimsby Disrict Mission Network Group

Are you interested or involved in a Fresh Expression or a Mission Project in the Lincoln & Grimsby District? If so you might like to join the LandG mission network email group - which is just for you. it is an opportunity to discover what is going on in the District and to join in discussion or ask questions. The idea is that members will keep themselves up to date by looking at the group regularly.

If you wish to join, click on the link and go to promote, click join now and follow the instructions - it only takes a few minutes and costs nothing (even if you need to set up a yahoo mail account).


Liz

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LandGmissionnetwork/

The warm weather of the past few weeks appears to be breaking as I write – a thunderstorm is surrounding Gainsborough. This puts me in mind that August is well underway and September is around the corner – the Methodist New Year.

It will be, I believe, an exciting year with Mapping the Way Ahead: Reshaping for Mission beginning to take shape in theory ready for practical implementation in the not too distant future.

Now you may be thinking: ‘Mapping the Way Ahead: Reshaping for Mission ' and ‘exciting' don't belong in the same sentence, but let me try to persuade you differently.

The important bit is the ‘Reshaping for Mission ' part, for that is what Lincoln & Grimsby District is attempting to do. Altering circuit boundaries to create bigger circuits and fewer superintendents is not the name of the game, though that may be a consequence. The intention is to restructure ourselves across the District in order to be better equipped to fulfil our mission as church in the C21. In order to do so we need to ask ourselves what it means to be church for today and tomorrow and it seems to me that the answer is something rather different from that which has served us well in the past.

C21 people in Britain are not too interested in our traditions and the way we do things, they are however interested in what could improve society as they experience it. They are concerned about injustice, discrimination, poverty, inequality, violence and crime. In fact if we read the gospels we might discover that they are concerned about the same things Jesus was concerned about and came to o something about. He came to bring a new way of thinking and living – the Kingdom of God – which would be a kingdom where justice, mercy and love were key. I believe it is that same Kingdom we are called to live and to proclaim by words, actions and attitudes as church in C21.

How we do so is the big question – it must involve a commitment to discipleship by those within the church and opportunities to share the good news of the kingdom outside the church. Our present structures do not necessarily help us to make these two aspects of Christian life our priority. So we must Map the Way Ahead and Reshape for Mission – and I hope and pray that you find that prospect as exciting as I do.

If you do please join the District Mission Network e-group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LandGmissionnetwork/ and tell us what excites you and/or any ideas you have for reshaping for mission in this District.

Enjoy the rest of the summer, even if the best of the weather has passed.

Liz

Please book November 22nd in your diaries – Steve Hollinghurst is booked to be in the District that day – watch this space for details and look him up on his blog

Liz Childs (District Mission Enabler)

Email

Tel: 01427 610057

Side Door on mission in Ukraine - painting an orphanage.


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