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A pdf file of this talk can be downloaded here

Vision 1.3 – ‘Mission-oriented : Community-focussed’

Different people have had different expectations and experiences of church.  It might be of a holy huddle of people who make very clear who the ‘insiders’ and who the ‘outsiders’ are?  It might be of a bunch of weak people who keep themselves to themselves?  It could be of a group of do-gooders who genuinely try to do good things but make people feel guilty on the way?  Or it might be of a bunch of people who try and shove the Bible down people’s throats? 

No doubt Christians, at different times in different places, have been all of these things and it may even be that one of those descriptions pretty much sums up what you think.

As a church over recent weeks we have been thinking about who we are and who God is asking us to be in our context. We have been discussing our vision.

We are a Church that is all about Knowing Jesus and Sharing Jesus and we believe that therefore we need to be 5 things: our ‘We are …’statements. (see the vision document to see them all).

 

We have already thought about what it means that we are gospel-centred, worship-hearted and God-dependent, and about how these things shape our priorities for the next few years. 

So now we are going to be thinking about the last 2 statements.

We are mission oriented and we are community focused.

 

We are mission-oriented

The fourth ‘We are…’ statement says this –

God’s partners in reaching the world with the gospel are his people; you and me.  When god’s grace in Jesus grips our hearts by his Holy Spirit, it inevitably flows over to friends, family and the wider community as we enjoy and share his goodness.  Hockliffe Street Baptist Church exists to live, share and speak the gospel of Jesus to those who need to hear it in our town, our country and our world.  This global vision also fires local mission; it is God’s heart so we seek to be intentional in all we do in making disciples. 

In Vision 1.1 we thought a little about the second half of our vision statement; Sharing Jesus and we considered Philippians 2v1-18.  It is helpful for us to reflect on them again as we consider being mission oriented.

By definition, the church is mission oriented.  It is a hospital, a rescue shop, a society that exists for the benefit of its non-members. It is to be missional, and we are to be missional because that is what God is like.

The church should be defined by a heart which is shaped by God.

 

A heart - shaped by God

We have just read that what God has done should change us.  Being united with Christ, loved by God and knowing God’s Spirit should impact us.  Paul talks about us ‘being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose’.  We should learn to not be selfish but humbly consider others better than ourselves.  In short, our attitude becomes like Jesus himself.  In the ‘We are…’ statement we have said that –

When God’s grace in Jesus grips our heart by His Holy Spirit, it inevitably flows over to friends, family and the wider community as we enjoy and share His goodness.

2 weeks ago we thought about the first 3 verses of the great song of Philippians 2v5-11

Jesus Christ was and is God’s Son.  He was and is ‘in very nature God’ or ‘in the form of God’.  Elsewhere we see very clearly Jesus showing that He is not just fully but he is fully God also, as he calms violent storms with a word; as he raises the dead; as he heals the sick; as he forgives sins and accepts worship for himself that is suitable only for God.  He was fully God, yet didn’t grasp hold of it. 

Verse 6 is an amazing verse and takes us rapidly into some deep water as it assumes knowledge that the Bible gives us elsewhere.

Firstly, God, as God, has all the power in the universe.  All monotheistic religions view God as omnipotent; all powerful. 

Secondly, it assumes that Jesus, as the second person of the Trinity has existed for all time, since history began.  Though he was not known of as having the name ‘Jesus’, this second person of the Godhead is seen all over the Old Testament in various ‘Christophony’ passages.  But when he became a man, born of Mary, something unbelievable happened. God willingly gave up something of His nature or form.  He didn’t ‘consider it something to be grasped.’  Of he could have done.  There was no-one more powerful than him in the universe to drag his nature away from him, to ‘downgrade’ him, but he chose to give it up to become a man.  So we read that he made himself ‘nothing, taking the very nature of a servant’.

But these amazing verses go further.  Not only did he give up something of his nature, he went through the ultimate humiliation; crushing at the hands of his creation. 

So in verse 8 we read that He died.  The creator killed by his creation.

But he didn’t stay dead. He was raised from the dead, defeating death and ‘therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every other name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father’ (v9-11)

The amazing thing is this; just as He was raised from the dead, so we are too, if we put our trust in Him and believe in His death and resurrection, we too can both know God and also be raised from death. 

‘I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead.’ 3v10

This is how we are changed and what changes us.  No wonder Paul speaks about encouragement, comfort and fellowship in the beginning of Ch2!

This grace that has changed us, both informs and motivates our message in mission and it is our message.  We want God’s grace to be known and experienced by others because we have experienced it. 

This shapes our priorities.  Because we have been loved and changed, we want to love others too.

This message shapes our priorities.  That is why in our priorities you will see that -

• We intend that we all learn to engage with real issues affecting the lives of those we meet, where they are, sharing problems and seeking to help them find answers.

When God shapes our hearts we want to love and help others too.  We want to find out what is affecting others and help them find answers.  Of course, as a church we can do this in a number of practical ways.

• We seek to be a community in whom people needing Jesus are enabled to find him as we live out the great commission in a hurting world

Of course, for us to do this will require lots of things, and lots of resources.  In our priorities at Hockliffe Street Baptist Church we have particularly highlighted our social ministry, our communications and use of our buildings. 

• We intend to grow our weekday ministry in the church building and develop as a community that blesses the town and connects people with the love of God through our actions.
• We intend to develop our communication; both internally and externally through updated streams of publicity and an increasing use of social media and internet
• We intend to maximise the potential of the location and physical resources of the church buildings by developing them into welcoming multi-functional community resources for the town and the gospel

But of course we see God’s grace most clearly, not in us, but at the Cross.

 

A message - the cross and resurrection 

What’s in our heart eventually comes out of our mouth.  So there is, and must always be, a connection between who we are and what we say.  If I am allowing my heart to be shaped and moulded by a God who has shown much grace to me, then I will begin to speak of grace to others.

Our job is to celebrate and share the message of the cross and resurrection, the means of hope for the world.

Our fourth ‘We are…’ statement says that this is what we exist for and that is right.  We should live differently, shaped by the message.  But we must be active in sharing it too.

Francis of Assisi once said ‘Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.’  Famous words which are, sadly, not 100% true.

Francis of Assisi was speaking into an age of real hypocrisy in the church when people said one thing and did another.  He was saying the good news of Jesus must change us!  And in that regard he was right. 

But we do have the job of speaking the message of the good news of Jesus Christ to others; we must match up  If we are claiming to know the grace of God, it will come out of our mouths too!  Jesus Christ was willing to sacrifice, to humble Himself in order that other people might find rescue through His death and resurrection.  We are called to do the same in living and speaking the message of Jesus death and resurrection so others can find rescue too!  Even you, even today!

It is our job to be these people for those around us.  It is our job in this town.  It is our job in this region.  Indeed, it is our job in this world!

 

An audience - the world

Did you notice the words in Philippians 2v11?

 ‘…every tongue’. 

God’s picture of the people who follow Him and of heaven is one of people from every tribe, language, nation and tongue being there.  It is God’s heart, His vision for His Kingdom and He calls us into this too.

Again it is sad and sometimes deserved that Christians get a reputation of making people feel like outsiders.  From the earliest days Jesus went to people who were not insiders, not Jews.  Paul was sent specifically to people who were not insiders, not Jews.  Being mission-focused means a global vision.  The audience for the gospel is the world.

We are privileged at Hockliffe Street Baptist Church to have sent and to support people taking the message of Jesus to Brazil, Israel, Zambia, Europe and the Arab world as a whole to name a few, and today we are sending people to Thailand too!  This is so important and a crucial part of the vision of Hockliffe Street Baptist Church.

The great thing is, it also fires mission locally.  When we see how others in different parts of the world are seeking to share the message of Jesus it inspires us to do the same here.

Mission involves being intentional.  What does that mean?  Intentionality means we plan towards, prepare towards, pray towards and take steps to do.  Things don’t happen by drift or by accident.  Mission doesn’t happen like that; it is always intended, intentional.  Therefore we must be intentional.

On page 6 of the document you can see our priorities for Mission

• We seek to be a church that becomes increasingly equipped to communicate the message of Jesus to a dying world
• We seek to grow as a whole church in our passion and effectiveness at sharing the gospel message and person of Jesus with individuals, families and communities of the Leighton Buzzard area.
• We want to maintain and grow our commitment to gospel mission internationally through prayer, finance and sending those called to serve.
• We seek to build friendships with other churches and ministries, to support gospel-centred mission in the Leighton buzzard area, wherever possible supporting and encouraging other fellowships.

This is so crucial to who God is calling us to be.  It is the cutting edge of our vision as far as the community outside of the church is concerned.  It will involve our hearts, our minds, our bodies and our all.  But we must do it.  It is what we are about.

 

We are Community-focused

Our fifth and final ‘we are…’ statement is this: We are community-focused.  Community is what we are called to be and to be about.  Just a brief look back at the beginning of Philippians 2 makes that clear.  Paul encourages us to be like- minded, having the same love, being one in Spirit, thinking of others better than ourselves.  In a world and society that is increasingly seeing community breaking down, we are to be different.  In 2v19-21 Paul says this –

‘I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you.  I have no-one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare.  For everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.’

Hearts that have experienced the grace of God will do what?  Take a genuine interest in the welfare of others.  Why?  Because that is what it means to be concerned about the things Christ is concerned about.  Timothy was known for this.  We need to model ourselves on Timothy.

So, we are going to be deliberate in seeking to grow in this, allowing it to shape our priorities. 

As a result, in our priorities we have a whole section on care and community.

• We intend to increase our love, care and commitment to one another.
• We seek to build a cohesive family where everyone is connected and new people are both welcomed and included in community life.
• We intend to increase the profile and uptake of fellowship groups, the first tier of pastoral care and with responsibility for on-going discipleship.
• We intend that fellowship groups see themselves as hubs of the church community and their witness in the Leighton Buzzard area.
• We will re-launch a larger, broader pastoral care team as the second tier in a pastoral care strategy.

Two things are worth expanding on briefly.  Firstly, our fellowship groups will increasingly become central to our community.  Really functioning as a community is very difficult in a large congregation but much easier in small, bite-size chunks.  But ‘fellowship’ is perhaps in our culture a misleading name.  These groups not only function as social and caring groups, but also hubs of witness in the community.  Groups capable of holding small social or evangelistic events for folk who don’t otherwise connect with church.  We need to do this!

Fellowship groups also have a key pastoral role in the church.  Pastorally, the church has layers.  The first layer is the fellowship groups.  Some will not attend, or the issues they face will be too difficult or big to deal with and care for in a fellowship group.  With that in mind we are going to develop a large ‘pastoral care team’ providing practical, emotional and prayer support.  We also have the elders, pastor, medical and counselling professionals when needed.  In a growing church we need this set up to care for all the people God has, and will bring us!

So, being mission oriented and community focussed is who we are.

As we have thought about the vision and outworking of the church vision we have been talking in general terms about all of us.  We have not focused on individual niche groups. 

However, finally, in our priorities we have picked on one group which is in desperate need of impetus, focus and energy not just at Hockliffe Street but in the town more generally.  We have to make our youth and children’s work increasingly effective.

We have said this -

• We seek to grow the children and young people in the Leighton Buzzard area in the knowledge and love of God, providing a safe and welcoming environment for them to hear and understand the gospel.
• We intend to develop our midweek activities for young people to be increasingly effective in providing a relevant and safe environment to learn to live for Jesus.
• We seek to encourage and develop dynamic ministry that reaches the children and youth of the Leighton Buzzard area with the good news of Jesus.
• We intend to develop a mature, stable and sustainable structure for on-going development of Youth Ministry.

If you are a praying person, please pray particularly about these issues which are so crucial for a generation of youth and children in and outside of the church.

Our vision is to be a community knowing and sharing Jesus.  And we pray, with God’s grace and Spirit at work amongst us that we will be increasingly equipped to be who he is asking us to be.