The Mission Statement for both Blandford Forum and Langton Long:
A Vision Statement for Blandford
Over the past few years, God has been very good to us in
the resources of people and money he has made available to us and,
based on the verse "Where there is no vision, the people perish"
(Proverbs 29.11, KJV), there is a need to know what we do with
these resources. In 2004, the whole parish worked together to contribute to the process
of seeking God's Mission and Vision Statement for the parish. What resulted was based
on the words, verses and pictures that people gave during that period.
The Mission Statement for the both Blandford and Langton is ...
1 John 4:9-10 says this ...
"This is how God showed his love among us:
He sent his one and only Son into the world
that we might live through him. This is love:
not that we loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."
The key point of this verse is that long before you and I were born,
God loved us and sent Jesus to die for us ... in other words, our Salvation
was in place a long time before we knew about it. Our need for Salvation stems
from our sin and the only way our relationship with God can be repaired is
through the Cross of Jesus Christ. God has already done his bit ! All we
need to do is to discover what he has done for us and enjoy a new relationship
with him .... hence we need to "Discover and Nurture our relationship with God
through what Jesus has done for us."
Jesus said this in John 13:34 ... "A new command I give you: Love one another.
As I have loved you, so you must love one another."
It is my strong belief that the best place for us to discover and nurture our
relationship with God is through meeting together, especially in small groups.
As we do so, we find that others struggle with similar issues or have similar
doubts or needs as ourselves and that we can travel our journeys together.
Our relationships with each other are strengthened - and so another way of
seeing our Mission Statement is that we need to "Discover and Nurture our
relationships with each other in the Church, the Body of Jesus Christ."
But that's not all .... Jesus went on in verse 35: "By this all men will know
that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
In other words, there is a need for us to grow relationships with those who
we work with, who we meet in our social lives, and those in the town in which
we worship and seek to serve. So yet another way of seeing our Mission Statement
is that we need to "Discover and Nurture relationships with those around us, to
build up the Body of Jesus Christ, the Church."
So the Mission Statement talks of us Discovering and Nurturing Relationships
with God, with each other and with those around us in the town. That is what
we need to be doing now . The question is what happens if we do this - where
do these relationships lead to ?
The Vision Statement for Blandford is a picture of what I hope we will see if
we look around us in 5 years time. If, during those five years, we have worked
to discover and nurture the relationships, then the vision for the church
in Blandford Forum is ....