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St Peters vision

St Peters vision at St Peters Church by vicar@stmarystpeter.net

We seek to worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, teach the bible, grow people in faith, love and understanding, equip people to serve, and make Jesus known.

We aim to do this at St Peter’s by being a community of Jesus Christ, submitted to His Word and serving His world

Our vision is to be a united community, of all ages, meeting together on the first day of the week, focussed on Jesus Christ.

Our vision is to listen to Him, receive from Him and be equipped to live as His body in this place: an open, loving, welcoming, forgiving, growing, empowering, serving and witnessing community.

We long to be a people who are open to God’s word: gathering together expecting to meet with and hear from the crucified and risen Lord Jesus. We long for our worship to be real, relevant, exciting and life-giving. We long for our teaching (whether in age relevant groups, or preaching) to be biblical, stimulating, comforting and challenging, envisioning and equipping. We long that our communion, celebrated on Sunday, will be lived out in our relationships, service and witness during the week.

We long to be a people open to God’s world: serving our neighbourhood and beyond by prayer, witness and practical service.

We recognise that we face a number of distinct issues
1. Because St Peter’s is off the beaten track and is not in the centre of a natural residential unit, most of our new contacts do not come from passers by, but from friends bringing friends.
2. We have a current concern that we do not have many families with younger children. We recognise that it is God who gives growth, but we will make an effort to reach out to younger people.
3. Although we long for people to join our community, our deeper desire is that people will meet with God. Our first prayer when visitors come is not that they will join us, but that in their worship with us they will recognise that God is in our midst.

Practical focus

1. Worship
We will work at our Sunday service, and particularly our all age services, so that they are more accessible for people to bring friends. We will work to develop links between the service and those who go to Little Fishes. We will explore the possibility of running ‘messy church’
2. We will work on our communication: improving our noticeboard, website and communications (electronic and paper).
3. We will seek to put on more social events (as bridge events, enabling people to invite friends to come into contact with the church community), including a summer fayre in 2012. We will seek to set up a small group with responsibility for coordinating such events.
4. We would love to see St Peter's becoming a church building which is there for a local community; and for people who worship at St Peter's to increasingly serve God in their homes, workplace and community. We will explore the idea of trying to link St Peter's with a particular area of our parish, so that people see St Peter's as 'their' parish church; also of developing links with the Hyndman Centre; and we will explore what gifts people have to offer.

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