Contending for Croydon, Contending for Leaders
For the past 12 months we’ve been particularly contending for two things;
A Culture of Worship; we’ve been working hard to enter, enjoy and steward the presence of the Lord, to fix our eyes not on ourselves but on our Great King and to draw power for life from his Spirit. Worship teams have led the charge in this. Through Worship Circle and through sacrificial service on Sunday worship teams, we have seen God move in power among us. The spaces at Harris and at Harvest have helped hugely. Through our New Testament Journey we have felt God renew our minds and grow great habits in the Way of Jesus. We still have a way to go in this; too often we still fix our eyes on ourselves, our issues, our desires, our fears, our plans… but a growing number of us are reorienting our gaze onto Jesus and his Way. We are once again becoming The Church.
Raising Sons and Daughters; we’ve poured energy and money into nurturing a whole new generation in Croydon, so that they can reach their full potential in Jesus. We employed Lara Sokunbi as Youth Pastor and shifted Tina Almstadt’s responsibilities around to give her more space to invest in our Kids. Many of you doubled down to volunteer as team, to pray, to give. We have seen numbers grow, groups multiply and mid-week expressions flourish. If you have been around over the summer you will have seen that the fruit has been abundant. God is raising up among us a truly exciting crop of under 18s in this church.
We want to continue to invest in both of these emphases. They are deeply precious to us and always will be. Look out for more exciting updates on both of these in the coming months.
Over the summer we have felt God stirring us to now give more attention to two of our other emphases; Love Croydon and Multiplying Leaders. We want to briefly update you on what we think this might mean and to invite you into praying and pursuing all God has for us in these.
Love Croydon. During Lockdown we pressed hard into Vineyard English School. We now have classes 5 days a week teaching over 80 students from dozens of countries, many of whom are fleeing war or are extraordinarily disadvantaged. We want to see this wonderful ministry continue to develop and have just been given a £10,000 grant to help with this. However, we feel God stirring us to lay open our hearts again and to ask him to show us new and diverse ways in which we can, as a community, invest in our town. We wonder if God has been speaking to any of you about this? In particular we would be interested in any projects that might empower people to get into employment, help people navigate this time of food and fuel poverty, or any ways in which we could take the truth of Jesus into our community. One area we are wanting to invest in is helping all of us see our workplace as a primary ministry-place. We do not just mean that we tell others about Jesus in our workplace but that we see our labour, our generation of opportunity, our earning of money to be beautiful expressions both of worship and of Love of our Neighbour. A first step towards investing is this will be our Breakfast for Entrepreneurs on Saturday 17 September. Please see below for details.
Multiplying Leaders. We believe in leadership. We know God appoints leaders of all kinds to equip the saints for works of service. We also know that leadership has never been more difficult than in the last 2 years. Many of our wonderful leaders have given all they had, and - for all the fruit we have seen in the church - feel worn out. In this year we want to make a step-change in our investment in our leaders, and we are partnering with Vineyard Churches to start running a brand new one-Monday-evening a month Leadership Essentials Course. If you feel a stirring towards leadership and might be interested in this course please just drop us a line. Watch this space for more.
As with all goals and visions; these words we have written will only make a difference if we find out how God would have us buy into them, pray for them and work to bring them into being… even if it costs us. We are praying that God grabs you with his vision for your life and for our church and that together we press on to see him do more than we could possibly ask or imagine. As Paul says in his amazing letter to the Ephesians (which we will be preaching through this term) “I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.” We do indeed beg you to do that. What else is there really to live for on this earth? Let’s choose to imitate God our Father and follow the example of Jesus our King; making every effort to keep united in the Spirit.
We love you and are praying for you
Much affection
Tom and Lesley
Excerpted from our Digest email to the church, read in full here - https://mailchi.mp/77c291293446/into-september-with-croydon-vineyard-church