PART ONE: PREFACE BY THE BISHOP continued

1.6 Mission

We hear a great deal today about being a ‘mission-shaped church’, that is a church that has such a passion for God, that it wants to grow and will focus its life and activities on making and nurturing new Christians. But sometimes people confuse the word mission with evangelism. Mission describes the life of the church as it continues Christ’s mission to the world. Mission includes evangelism but it also includes pastoral care, social concern, teaching the faith, peace and justice issues and worship. What is important is that we connect with all of them! A church that has fine worship but no social concern will become like a cult; a church that is good on pastoral care and social action but is weak on the study of the scriptures and worship will be a church without a gospel. Our worship must connect with our own discipleship, with evangelism and with the suffering world.

Love between one another and with God, naturally leads to 'giving birth'. Churches should be looking for opportunities of planting new churches and congregations.

1.7 Vision

Where there is no vision the people perish (Proverbs 29:18)

Our vision as God's people in the diocese must be of a church that is a sign of God’s Kingdom on earth. We need to be a church where growth is natural and normal because we are the Body of Christ and each one of us is playing our part to make up that living body.[11]

Our vision should be of a church where:

• all are welcome, because God loves variety and calls us to be the catholic church, for all people and for all time.
• the gospel is proclaimed in ways that are accessible and inspiring, and where the scriptures are prayed[12] and put into action.
• people are discipled and nourished and where faith is related to daily life.
• liturgy is appropriate to the building and people, and where people have an experience of God's presence in both intimacy and mystery.
• every church provides opportunities for people to meet in small groups to learn and share about the faith and to exercise the ministry of encouragement.
• young people and children are welcomed and nurtured and have opportunities of worshipping in their own culture.
• the gifts of the people are discerned and released for ministry and mission.
• there is a real passion for making and nurturing new Christians.
• there is a respect for God's creation, the environment and animals.
• people are not just friendly but can make friends.
• there is a concern for social justice.
• church planting and commitment to the local community are explored.
• the church does a few things but does them well.
• people can be helped to mourn the passing of a dying way of being the church and face the birth pangs of new ways of being the church.[13]

A church that strives to fulfil this vision
will be truly a sign of God's Kingdom.

Footnotes

11 1 Corinthians 12:12-26
12 This way of prayer is popular within the Benedictine tradition and is known as Lectio Divina.
13 ‘Jesus takes a quite dialectical two-age view of things. ..There is grief work to be done in the present that the future may come. There is mourning to be done for those who do not know the deathliness of their situation.’ Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination 2nd ed. Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2001, p.119