Our mission statement is “sharing the love of God”. At St Paul’s we seek to make this a reality both in our lives as individuals and as members of the whole body of Christ. We recognise that we have much more to do to get to know God better, to be who God wants us to be and to do what God wants us to do. We continue to seek God’s guidance, so that we might reach out in action, prayer and love, make Jesus known and warmly welcome newcomers to our fellowship.
Our base of regular worshippers has grown over the last couple of years and now spans most age groups with a mix of different socio-economic groups and ethnic backgrounds. The reasons for this growth we are told reflect our welcome and fellowship, our style of worship and our preaching which is strongly Biblical and generally evangelical in emphasis with practical applications.
We are blessed with many gifts among our church members, including ministerial and pastoral gifts but also organisational gifts, which particularly over this last year have enabled St Paul’s to develop and to grow. A large number of the congregation are involved in day to day Church life and activities which also contribute to its close community feel. For example, we have four Readers and a retired vicar; three pastoral assistants; a well attended PCC along with its eight sub-committees; eight Home Groups each averaging ten members; a regular Alpha Group which feeds into the Home groups, and a roster of over 50 who regularly read or lead prayers in the services. In addition we have various community activities in our church and church hall and have links to our local care home and school. We also support a different mission each month, giving away 10% of our general income to these causes and we maintain many links with our mission partners in the UK and abroad.
We have much to be thankful for but acknowledge that there is much more to be done in terms of our individual knowledge of God and His plans for us as a Church. The Ministry Leadership Team presentation at the Annual Meeting in April 2009 detailed the three priority areas for St Paul’s over this last year:
- To build on our strong fellowship
- To take God’s message into our local community
- To continue our mission support outside our parish and encourage involvement with our mission partners
As a congregation we have spent some time reflecting and challenging ourselves to understand fully what it means to be part of St Paul’s and to understand God’s plan for each of us, individually and as a community. This has involved taking stock of all the current activities as well as prayerful consideration of new ideas and opportunities. Over the last 12 months, we have made some progress in these areas but consider that this exciting stage of God’s journey is just beginning.
