‘Partnering with God in the Flourishing of our Communities’

Colossians 1:19-20 talks about Jesus coming to ‘reconcile to himself all things’ and Jesus ‘manifesto’ in Luke 4:18-19 described Jesus’ mission to both proclaim (‘Preach good news to the poor…proclaim freedom for the prisoners’) and demonstrate the kingdom (‘recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed…’). If we are called to continue the mission of Jesus we too are called to partner with God in bringing his kingdom in in every area of life within our communities.

We were given a key prophetic word in 2017 which was a call to us to be

“a ‘new kind of well’, or to rediscover in a deeper way what it is to be a well of the presence of God in this community – to be the kind of community in, and then through, which streams of living water flow. And for you to be confident afresh, that you offer out the water of life, that that is better than any other water – better that you can get from any other spa or any other well. And to trust that as you, as a community, press into the presence of God, and trust in the power of God, that through you, the presence of God will leak all around you; that people will experience what the woman at the well experienced, which is a kingdom that includes the excluded, that forgives the unforgivable, washes clean the dirty, and gives life to the hungry and the thirsty.”

Our mission statement describes our key priorities and purpose:

  •  Encountering Jesus in worship, prayer, Word and Spirit

When Jesus calls people, he first and foremost calls them to come and ‘be with him’ (Mark 3:14) – for them to encounter him. We don’t just gather to ‘do’ from our own strength, but we first of all come to encounter Jesus and be transformed by Him – through worship, prayer, the Bible and openness to the Holy Spirit. This has to be the starting point of all we do.

  •  Growing whole-life, life-long disciples

Jesus’ final commission to his disciples was not to build church or gain converts but to ‘make disciples’ (Matthew 28:19) and we are called to do the same. We acknowledge that whoever we are, however mature we are in the faith that we are all still a ‘work in progress’ and still growing more like Jesus. This call is for our whole lives (not just for the few hours we are at church, but for us to live this out on our ‘frontlines’) and for the whole of our lives – life-long. We seek to be led by Jesus, transformed by Jesus and sent out by Jesus.

  • Seeing lives transformed and communities flourish as we demonstrate and proclaim God’s Kingdom.

As well as calling his disciples to ‘be with him’ Jesus calls them to be ‘sent out by him’ (Mark 3:14) and we are called to be followers of Jesus on Jesus’ mission to continue to partner with Him in bringing in the Kingdom.

This calls us to be willing to proclaim (1 Peter 3:15) and to demonstrate (Mathew 5:16) God’s love and to partner with God in seeing individual lives transformed (i.e.. it is about each life being precious and valued and seeing people as individuals) by people encountering the love of God.

Recently God seems to have been speaking to us about being ‘blessed to be a blessing’ and we want to be an outward focussed church which has a bigger vision than just ourselves and which wants to bless Malvern, the other churches and beyond in order to see lives transformed.