March 24 Monthly Message

Dear Church Family,

 

At the start of the year I outlined the four priorities of mission and ministry for the year ahead. 

 

Leadership – growing our capacity for mission

Discipleship – growing our confidence in mission

Children and Families – reaching the next generations

Seniors and the Vulnerable – loving and caring for the elder generations

 

Discipleship

It may appear from the outside that we haven’t made much progress in these areas, and although we may have started slowly, they are never far from my mind. The invitation to join a small group over Lent is with the mind to deepen our discipleship as we engage with a smaller group of people in deeper relationships, exploring the bible together and encouraging and praying for one another. Small groups are foundational to our discipleship. And so I want to encourage each of you to consider joining one.

 

Leadership

The investment in raising leaders is one that happens primarily in the 1-2-1 meetings with individuals, and with the gathering of small groups of people to share vision and values, and equip leaders for ministry. One of the first places we explore what it is to be a leader within the church is in a small group where we have the opportunity to try things out and exercise our giftings in a safe place. Yet again, another reason to join a small group. 

 

Children and Families

In our children and families work, we continue to see new families engaging with the life of the church, through stay and play, little peas and All Together At 11. We’ve transitioned Explorers up to the Parish Centre for the 11AM Contemporary Service to enable continued growth of that ministry. We’re also excited to be offering Explorers at the 10am Monthly Combines Service starting in May. We hope that this enables more families to engage with the life of the church in the coming years.

 

As some of you know we were hoping to appoint a Children and School’s Minister at the start of the year. Unfortunately we were unable to interview through lack of suitable candidates. The PCC have agreed to adjust the terms to be more favourable and readvertise at Easter in the hope that we can appoint for the Summer or just after… please do be praying the right candidate to apply and feel free to share the details with anyone you know who may be interested or may know of someone who might be.

 

Seniors and the Vulnerable

We hope to some thinking around ministry to seniors and the vulnerable after Easter, but in the meantime we want to work with Gail, Heidi and co at Nourish, to support the community café they’re running on Tuesday and Thursday’s. If you are able to assist with the ministry on behalf of BFPC, please do talk to Chris, Will, Tina, Gail or Heidi and then we can start to put together a team that will enable this initiative to grow in it’s impact across the town. If you want to know more about what’s involved, have a chat with Sheila and Andy Besant who are already assisting with the café on a Thursday.

 

Church Weekend - Catalyst

I know we’ve mentioned this a few times since January. Can I invite everyone to come along to this? It promises to be a time where we grow together as a community, we get more time to spend with God in worship and prayer, and we get time to invest in our growth as followers of Jesus Christ. Days like these act as catalysts, accelerating the work of God in our midst in a way that’s hard to replicate on a normal Sunday morning. Our speakers John and Anne Coles have experience of equipping leaders and churches to go deeper in following Jesus and seeing God work in greater measure through his church. They will build upon the themes that were bought to the fore in “The Church of Tomorrow” so we can grow into the church God has called us to be in Blandford Forum. 

 

There will be children’s ministry for the morning (and we hope for the day) to enable families to engage as fully as practically possible. There is a small charge for the day in order to fund some of the logistics, speakers and food, but we hope the cost is not prohibitive. If it is, please do let us know. We want as many to attend as possible. You can sign up here: https://blandfordforumparishchurch.churchsuite.com/events/effxcxjv

 

First Fruits

We had the privilege of welcoming the Revd Tom Coopey of St John’s Weymouth to speak at Going Deeper this month. He spoke on Numbers 13 & 14 where Moses sends 12 people to spy out the land of Canaan ahead of them, and instructs them to bring back fruit. Fruit is bought back wth good reports of the land, but 10 of the 12 also see the problems to be overcome, and manage to dissuade the people from taking possession of the land.

 

Tom was keen to draw parallels with us… we are seeing fruit here in BFPC, but this is just a foretaste of what God has for us as we are obedient to his call to take the land. There is so much more to be attained as we follow the Lord’s leading. The danger for us is that we become distracted by the obstacles, allow grumbling and fear to dictate our actions, and forget what God has done for us so far (just as the Israelites forgot all that God had done up till then).

 

Interestingly enough, a member of our congregation, who wasn’t present at Going Deeper, has come to me with a prophetic nudge about this same passage this week, and so it seems likely this is what the Lord is saying to us for now.

 

So I would like to encourage us to focus on the fruit we’re seeing and be encouraged by that, to not allow ourselves to become distracted by the obstacles we face, to not allow grumbling and dissent to gain a foothold, and to remember all that God has done for us over the last few years.

 

If you do feel there’s something amiss, can I encourage you to adhere to Jesus teaching in Matt 18 – and go to the individual directly rather than complain to others in the background. We want to be a church that seeks to build up, rather than tear down, and so it’s important that we deal with conflict in a way that honours God and each other.

 

A Call to Prayer and Fasting – Easter to Pentecost

As mentioned above, we believe that God has more for us as a church. We’re seeing people come to faith, we’re seeing new people join us. We’re growing, which is really exciting. With God, there is always more. The scale of what is possible for him to do greatly exceeds what we could hope for.

 

Having said all of this, God’s primary (and possibly only?) plan to work out his purposes is through the church. He wants us to partner with him to see His rule and reign established here on earth. With that in mind, the core team and I feel it is right to call us all to a season of prayer and fasting to intercede for our church and our town, and to ask God that he would do more than we could ask or imagine in Blandford Forum.

 

The invitation then is this: That we fast from sundown on Tuesday to sundown on Weds each week between Easter and Pentecost. As part of this there will a prayer gathering in church each Tuesday evening, where we’ll worship, we’ll pray and we’ll wait on God. This is an invitation, rather than a mandate – but we want to really encourage as many to participate as possible. Fasting is usually from food, but can be from other things if you’ll struggle with that, such as social media, television, the internet etc… effectively giving up something that allows more time to pray and be with Jesus. We’ll give more guidance on how to fast as we get closer to the time itself.

 

We hope that this collective endeavour will release something spiritually and provide a gear change in what God is able to do here at BFPC. I’m really excited about what may be possible.

 

I hope all of the above makes sense, and excites us to step into what God is calling us to be and do. As always, I encourage you to ask if you want clarity or don’t understand why certain things are happening. 

 

Many Blessings

Chris