Mission and Ministry in Whoberley

(Dt. 6.4-9, Mark 1.9-12)

I've said before that relationships lie at the heart of the Christian faith. It's all about our relationship with God, and our relationships with other people.

Today I want us to think a bit more about the relationship between the church in Allesley Park, and the church here in Whoberley.

As I've mentioned before, there are two ways of looking at it.

- In one sense we are all part of the same parish. That is certainly the legal position. I am the vicar of Allesley Park and Whoberley. We have one PCC who are responsible for the whole parish.

- In another sense Allesley Park and Whoberley are two seperate churches, ...with different needs, different opportunities for mission and ministry, and different priorities,

I've talked before about these two ways of looking at this relationsip. And both the unity, and the uniqueness, of the the two churches are very important.

Let me illustrate that with another relationship, that between me and my wife.

In one sense we think of ourselves very much as a couple. We live in the same home, ...we always go on holiday together, ...we always make major decisions together, (I didn't just say to her one day, "I'm going to be the Vicar of Allesley Park and Whoberley, do you want to come?", ...we talked and prayed about it together).

I like to think that we are a very close couple, but if you have a look at how we spend our time, we actually spend more time apart than we do together. ...Three days a week Jan is a school teacher. ...Most evenings I'm involved with meetings, and Jan is at home. ...In our spare time, Jan loves to read, I prefer to watch TV or to play computer games with the children.

I think that's a good thing. Any healthy relationship needs things that people do together, and things they do apart. It recognises the importance of both unity, and uniquness.

I feel very strongly about the importance of that that. In fact I would go as far to say that God himself gives us the model for healthy relationships.

Christians often refer to this model as the Trinity, ...Tri-Unity, ...or "Three in One". And at different points in the Bible, we are given different insights about how we are to see God.

The Old Testament emphasises the unity of God, ""Hear, O Israel:, The LORD our God, the LORD is one."

Whereas the New Testament tends to emphasis the different aspects of three persons of God. At the Baptism of Jesus we hear God the Father speaking from Heaven, we see God the Son in the water, and we see God the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. ...The three are working together with a common purpose, but they are different.

So at the heart of God we we both unity and uniqueness.

Now as we think about the future of our church, I want to talk about these two dimensions.

- I want to talk about the unity of Allesley Park and Whoberley in the context of our Ministry Leadership Team.

- I also want to talk about the uniquness of Whoberley in the context of a Whoberley Task Team.

Let me start with the Ministry Leadership Team.

One of the roles of the MLT is to seek God's vision for the whole of the parish.

In this way we hope that both Allesley Park and Whoberley will share a common vision, ...in other words, we will all be pulling in the same direction.

A week last Monday the PCC agreed to set up an MLT comprising the following 8 people:

Graeme Pringle

Lynnette Clarke

Kay Law

Jan Pringle

Barbara Bell

Brian Bailey

Susan Borras

Nic Thorpe

The first 4 names on the list know Whoberley very well, because thet often take part in the services here.

You may not all know the last four:

- Barbara is the currently one of our church wardens.

- Brian has been here a few times to help set up the sound system.

- Susan heads up our children's work at Allesley Park.

- Nic was the co-ordinator for the J. John mission earlier in the year, ...you may remember that he came here to talk about it.

Now the fact that these people need to think about the whole of the parish, brings with it some good news and some bad news.

- The bad news concerns Lynnette. During the past 10 years, Lynnette has spent nearly all her time here in Whoberley. Although she still wants to be part of Worship-in-Whoberley, as a member of the MLT she will need to spend some Sundays in Allesley Park.

Being a member of the MLT is also going to take up a lot of her time, ...and that means she has taken the difficult deecision to resign as the Area Pastor for Whoberley.

That important work will now be taken on by Charles Bell, ...and in the past few weeks he has already taken Holy Communion to Lillian Jenkins and Alan Turner.

- The good news concerns the last four people on the list. They are in the opposite situation to Lynnette, ...they know a lot about our church at Allesley Pary, but very little about what goes on here. So one of the things that I've said to them, is that they need to spend some Sundays here.

I hope you can see why this is important, so that the MLT can do their job about seeking God's vision for the whole parish.

Now let me talk about the Whoberley Task Team.

The role of this team is to think about the uniqueness of Whoberley, and to think about the ways in which mission and ministry in Whoberley might be different to that in Allesley Park.

This team will comprise:

Graeme Pringle

Kathleen Biggs

John Clarke

Lynnette Clarke

Lisa Jenkins

John Keenan

Kelly Probert

Sheila Radburn

This is what the Task Team have been asked to do:

To consider different ways of nurturing mission and ministry in Whoberley, particularly in the areas of:

- Prayer and Worship

- Compassion and Evangelism

- Fellowship and Discipleship

Now if you came to the Lent Course this year, on Being Church, these areas of ministry should be familiar to you.

We said that Jesus had given us three commands. The first was to love God with all our your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strenght. ...One of the ways we do this as a church is through Prayer and Worship.

There are many things that the Task Team need to think about in this area. For a start, next year we will be introducing brand new services. We have no choice about this, it affects churches throughout England.

Give potted history of BCP (1662), p251

Give history of ASB (initially for 10 years)

Give reasons for 'Common Worship'

We have 12 months to move over to Common Worship. It gives us a great opportunity to think through our existing service, keeping the things that work well, ....changing anything that doesnt.

Jesus also commanded us to love our neighbours as ourselves, ...One of the ways we do this as a church is through Compassion and Evangelism.

Compassion is caring for people in Whoberley who are in need, Evangelism is charing the Christian Faith with them.

We already do that in two areas, - the Care Group, Baptism Group, ...but there are many other opportunities for expanding that work.

Whoberley is one of the areas being targetted by the City Council, where they want to create a caring community. (Allesley Park has not been chosen, just Whoberley). Councillor John Fetcher asked to see me earlier this year, because he wants the church to help in this area.

This is area of work that our future curate, Diana Farmer feels particularly called to. But we need to think carefully about how we want to go about this.

Finally, Jesus commanded us to love one another as he loved us, ...He loved his disciples by becoming their friends, and by teaching them. Similrly we can love one another, through Fellowship and Discipleship.

We had a great parties during the past year. Some have been for the whole parish, (the next one is our New Year's Eve party), ...but we also had one just for Whoberley, when we celebrated our 10th Anniversary.

That's how you build fellowship, by having fun together. But where do we go from here, would we like some more parties just for us?

One of our current means of discipleship, is through Alpha, Emmaus, Lent Courses, etc. We currently organise these for the whole parish, but in the future, would it be better to run some courses just for us in Whoberley?

There are the sort of questions the Whoberley Task Team will be addressing, as they:

Consider different ways of nurturing mission and ministry in Whoberley, particularly in the areas of:

- Prayer and Worship

- Compassion and Evangelism

- Fellowship and Discipleship

It is going to be a very important task, and I'm very grateful to those who have accepted it. Of course they won't be doing it in isolation, ...I hope there will be be plenty of opportunities during the next few months for all of us to share our views.

But please pray for the Whoberley Task Team in the months ahead.