What do we think God is doing?
Gathering together
To help us to be attentive to the activity of God amongst us, we invited everyone in our church to gather together to share in exploring what we have noticed about our common life, the experience of change, and sense of what God is up to amongst us and around us. We thought together about what we've noticed in our experience of worship, our experience of other groups and activities around the life of the church, and what we have noticed going on outside the life of the church.
We invited all members of the church, including those who belong to small groups who do not necessarily attend on Sundays, to come along and participate in one of these conversations. We also involved our children and young people, holding similar conversations for them in Jam Packed and Pathfinders. Over 120 people of all ages took part.
High Engagement
To have so many people involved indicates something of the heart and passion of those that belong to St Mary's in so many ways. It also means we have a significant amount of thoughts, reflections and material to work with. Those that were able to gather contributed over 800 individual comments, which gave rise to six reflective conversations on what we thought God might be up to, and generated over one hundred and thirty 'God is' statements, where we had a go at writing down what we thought God was doing amongst us and around us.
So What's Next?
Now, having listened and reflected together, our task as a church is to pay attention to the key threads, opportunities and challenges that are emerging from all that work the congregation has done. Amongst it there are key encouragements we want to be able to draw out. There are key questions that are arising out of the congregations reflections. We need to look for the places where there is commonality and agreement. We need to weigh any challenges we see amongst it. Amongst all that has been said and offered, we need to see if we can see the particular things amongst it that God would direct our attention to. In doing this we want to invite everyone in the congregation who would like to, to be involved.
How?
We are going to hold two further gatherings, to enable people to review all the work that the congregation has done thus far, and share in noticing the key themes, questions, encouragements and challenges that are arising from the material we have generated together. We might think of this work as 'distilling' everyone's reflections. Because of the volume of material generated we are doing this work over two gatherings. The first will be to share the material with people and explain how we would like them to explore it. Those that attend can then take the material to explore at home. Then at the second gathering we'll bring everyone back together again to share their observations about what's emerging in the work, and build a shared picture of the key themes and threads emerging.
The dates and times of the pair of evenings are as follows;.
Do I need to attend both?
Some will be asking if they need to attend both gatherings, to which the answer is, ideally yes! The first will help you work through the congregations reflections in a way that will help everyone to share together. The second will predominantly be about feeding back together after people have had a chance to look at the material at home.
I want to be involved but can't make the dates!
Some will be in the position of being unavailable for the dates, or unable to meet in person. {This will be particularly true for our online congregation}. If this is the case please be in touch with Phil Marsh directly on [email protected] and we'll work to help you be involved.
I wasn't at the gathering in February can I still come?
Absolutely. Likewise if your new to church we'd still love to have you involved!
Please Sign up!!
In order to help us prepare for the gathering it is really helpful to know how many are coming, so please sign up using the Eventbrite link below!
If you have any questions at all please contact Phil [email protected]
Gathering together
To help us to be attentive to the activity of God amongst us, we invited everyone in our church to gather together to share in exploring what we have noticed about our common life, the experience of change, and sense of what God is up to amongst us and around us. We thought together about what we've noticed in our experience of worship, our experience of other groups and activities around the life of the church, and what we have noticed going on outside the life of the church.
We invited all members of the church, including those who belong to small groups who do not necessarily attend on Sundays, to come along and participate in one of these conversations. We also involved our children and young people, holding similar conversations for them in Jam Packed and Pathfinders. Over 120 people of all ages took part.
High Engagement
To have so many people involved indicates something of the heart and passion of those that belong to St Mary's in so many ways. It also means we have a significant amount of thoughts, reflections and material to work with. Those that were able to gather contributed over 800 individual comments, which gave rise to six reflective conversations on what we thought God might be up to, and generated over one hundred and thirty 'God is' statements, where we had a go at writing down what we thought God was doing amongst us and around us.
So What's Next?
Now, having listened and reflected together, our task as a church is to pay attention to the key threads, opportunities and challenges that are emerging from all that work the congregation has done. Amongst it there are key encouragements we want to be able to draw out. There are key questions that are arising out of the congregations reflections. We need to look for the places where there is commonality and agreement. We need to weigh any challenges we see amongst it. Amongst all that has been said and offered, we need to see if we can see the particular things amongst it that God would direct our attention to. In doing this we want to invite everyone in the congregation who would like to, to be involved.
How?
We are going to hold two further gatherings, to enable people to review all the work that the congregation has done thus far, and share in noticing the key themes, questions, encouragements and challenges that are arising from the material we have generated together. We might think of this work as 'distilling' everyone's reflections. Because of the volume of material generated we are doing this work over two gatherings. The first will be to share the material with people and explain how we would like them to explore it. Those that attend can then take the material to explore at home. Then at the second gathering we'll bring everyone back together again to share their observations about what's emerging in the work, and build a shared picture of the key themes and threads emerging.
The dates and times of the pair of evenings are as follows;.
- 22nd March – 7:30 - 8:30pm - Church Rooms
- 29th March – 7:30 - 9:30pm - Church Rooms
Do I need to attend both?
Some will be asking if they need to attend both gatherings, to which the answer is, ideally yes! The first will help you work through the congregations reflections in a way that will help everyone to share together. The second will predominantly be about feeding back together after people have had a chance to look at the material at home.
I want to be involved but can't make the dates!
Some will be in the position of being unavailable for the dates, or unable to meet in person. {This will be particularly true for our online congregation}. If this is the case please be in touch with Phil Marsh directly on [email protected] and we'll work to help you be involved.
I wasn't at the gathering in February can I still come?
Absolutely. Likewise if your new to church we'd still love to have you involved!
Please Sign up!!
In order to help us prepare for the gathering it is really helpful to know how many are coming, so please sign up using the Eventbrite link below!
If you have any questions at all please contact Phil [email protected]