Happy Mondays all
Rachel did a great job yesterday in encouraging us to share our faith in Jesus with others and to be prepared to do that by knowing the power of the gospel, our testimony, the voice of God, our identity and our citizenship in heaven. Our mission, as we have been reminded weekly through looking at Acts, is to go and make disciples of all nations and we have seen how the gospel spread from Jerusalem to the ends of the Earth throughout the book of Acts. As we come towards the end of our series and as a focus for our summer holiday period, we are going to continue with the theme of mission by looking at the “5 Marks of Mission”. These were adopted by the General Synod of the Church of England in 1996 and many dioceses and other denominations use them as the basis of action plans and creative mission ideas. Some churches abbreviate the five marks to five words:
TELL – TEACH – TEND – TRANSFORM – TREASURE.
Tell – To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
Teach – To teach, baptize and nurture new believers
Tend – To respond to human need by loving service
Transform – To seek to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and to pursue peace and reconciliation.
Treasure – To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth
These will be our themes for the month of August (and the first week of September) when we traditionally have no children’s groups but use the opportunity to create a more all-age or rather ‘all-together’ feel to our 10:30 services. There will be stories from around the world, lively worship, an opportunity to catch up with our overseas mission families, and guest speakers to encourage us to engage with mission in its wider context using the themes above.
I hope that these summer meetings will be inspiring and encouraging as we look at ways to respond to the teaching we have received from the book of Acts.
Have a great week
Mark
