For those of you who were unable to join us for Vision Sunday 2022 yesterday will have missed the important announcement made during my outlining of the proposed vision for the next 2-3 years.
I announced that Philippa accepted the role of Interim Associate Minister in Clayton, Fairweather Green and Allerton in North West Bradford. This means that I will, sadly, be leaving Saint Peter’s to support her in this new season. My last Sunday will be on 3rd April. I don’t yet have concrete plans as to my own ministry but I trust God will guide me into something new. I will spend the next three months putting as much in place as I can to ensure God’s work continues and you are equipped with all that you need.
The Diocese of Sheffield is moving to a new model of ministry and so my ‘replacement’ will be a different shape to what you have experienced before. For more information on this please watch this introductory video: click here
We have already done lots to build foundations to sustain ministry and mission in Greenhill and Lowedges including establishing and strengthening our PCC committee structure and processes, embedding values and, most significantly, articulating Mission Action Priorities. These priorities were proposed to the congregation yesterday and are the result of PCC committee discussions around what we want to invest our time, money and energy into to become loving, witnessing and growing people. To help us specify that vision we focused our vision to ‘become a loving people as we welcome others into a shared life’ to ‘gathering’, to ‘become a witnessing people as we live transformed lives because of what God has done for us’ to ‘healing’, and to ‘become a growing people as we seek to know God and experience his love more’ to ‘connecting’. These three objectives can be seen in various ways in all the Mission Action Priorities.
The Mission Action Priorities can only be effective if we actually invest time, money and energy into them. If we do not then they will be useless. The PCC believes that these help us live out our values and will help us achieve our vision. We ask that you pray and consider whether you believe so too. It is only in committing to each other in a shared life and a shared future that we can be united as the Body of Christ in the parish of Greenhill and Lowedges.
Please read the attached commitment form and pray to God asking where he wants you to invest your own time, money and energy and let us know.
Finally, please pray for me as I prepare to leave, for Philippa as she prepares to start her new ministry and for each other as you move into the future together.
As family we go.
Ned