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Churches Together in Dorset
"Moving on as One"
Report of Forum 1998

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Contents   
Introduction
Proclaiming the Good News
Baptising and Nurturing New Believers
Responding to Human Need
Tackling Unjust Structures
Safeguarding the Integrity of Creation

Introduction

  

This is a summary of the Churches Together In Dorset Forum 1998 which looked at the theme using five workshops on the five marks of mission identified by the previous Forum of Churches Together in England.

Proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom

  

Content

  • Bible teaching
  • Christ - life, teaching
  • Sin
  • Prayer

Methods

  • A mission - recruitment drive
  • Personal example
  • Modern media- IT, CDs etc
  • Literature

Church Boundaries

  • denominational
  • church
  • personal God

Culture/Change

  • Dissatisfaction with church
  • Irrelevance
  • User-friendly - a big issue

Results

  • Numbers?
  • Start of Christian journey
  • Lifestyle - conforming to God's will
  • 'Good News'

Four Areas for making our existing ministries more evangelistic

Clergv Pastoral Contact

Opportunities presented by births, deaths and marriages.

Congregation Based Work

The real work of making our Christian life more evangelistic is ultimately down to members of the congregation.

Principles:

  • Vision and structure for growth
  • Relationship building - meeting people outside the church family
  • Informal education about the process of proclamation/evangelism
  • Being in the world - incarnation

Practical aspects:

  • Visiting - 'adopt a street'
  • Joining clubs
  • Training

Church Based Work

  • Review church programmes
  • Review church structures
  • Review church buildings.

The Mr Bean video, showing him visiting a church, is a useful tool to help churches consider how they appear to outsiders.

Sector ministries

  • Youth and children's work - youth congregations, homework clubs, youth clubs, drop-in and bus ministries.
  • Older people
  • Workplaces.

    Conclusion:

    Christians as individuals and as a community often need to be counter-cultural agents.

 

Baptising, Teaching and Nurturing New Believers

   Alpha and the 'STAR' course were discussed. Ecumenically run courses for seekers, but then nurturing is usually done in individual congregations It is still possible to foster ecumenical attitudes eg Anglicans have believers baptism as well as baptism of infants. We can encourage people to be open to others' traditions, and to be outward, rather than inward looking.
 

Responding to Human Need by Loving Service

   What is human need? We need to get involved ecumenicaly to, tackle the problems. Can we become more supportive of one another's work; rather than suspicious? We need to get more of our own congregations involved in this work. How can we tackle the hurts that we have caused to people in our churches? Many people' seem to have never learned some basic skills needed for living in our society: parenting, cooking, budgeting. Should we be teaching these?

   

Tackling Unjust Structures in Society

  

Who Is Involved?

Poole - Wareham - Salvation Army - St Gabriel's - Social Responsibility Adviser - Gillingham - Shaftesbury Support and Advice Centre - Wareham Churches Together - Dorchester Poverty Action Group - Bridport Churches - Dorset Baptist Churches

What Are The Issues?

Fair Trade - Poverty - Hunger - Homelessness - Lack of skills - Debt relief - Reconciliation and reform - Asylum - Access for the disabled -Disability awareness - Housing allocation - Arms trade - Transport -Health rationing - LETS (Local economic trading systems) - Taxation structures

Ways and Means

One stop advice shop for young people - Collecting supermarket receipts - Credit unions - Meal vouchers - Survey of unemployment - Train and build scheme - Petitions - Housing Forum - Working with local authorities in partnership - Electing councillors with constructive approach to the issues - Parliamentary lobbying - Urban hearings - Raising public awareness -Raising awareness in other Christians - Meeting with local authorities and other agencies.

Support Organisations

Local authorities - Peace movements - One World Week - LETS - Christian Aid - CAFOD - Jubilee 2000 - BCHA (British Churches Housing Association - Amnesty International - Detached Youth Worker.

Some Objectives

  • Change public attitudes
  • Increase awareness of the issues among our church congregations and in the general population
  • Make equal opportunities a reality
  • Improve access to places and services (including church services!) for disabled people - those with mobility, hearing, visual, or mental difficulties.
  • Produce. a 'Charter for the Disabled'
  • Make an audit of buildings and transport using wheelchairs, involving disabled people and their carers.
  • Promote the provision of 'one-stop information shops'.

Conclusion

There are lots of different ways to tackle the issues, and there are fruitful partnerships to be made with other organisations and agencies, but a major concern is how to raise awareness and motivation in our churches, that these are issues we should be tackling, and tackling together, not only as individuals.

 
Safegaurding the Integrity of Creation and Sustaining the Life of the Earth   "The treatment of the Earth by man the exploiter is not only imprudent, it is sacrilegious. We are not likely to correct our hideous mistakes in this realm unless we recover the mystical sense of oneness with nature. Many people think this is fantastic. I think it is fundamental to our sanity".

Archbishop William Temple

A meditation on this quotation suggested that our loss of a mystical sense of oneness with nature has contributed to the hideous mistakes that have brought planet Earth to its present damaged state. We need to recognise that our assumption that mankind is separate from the rest of creation is false We need to realise that God made and values all that is; that our 'dominion' over creation should, like God's, be based on respect and care, on love. Modern physics, showing that all matter consists of energy particles, constantly moving, changing through space and time, has made clear the interlinked, interdependent interconnectedness of all that is. Science supports the spiritual understanding of the oneness of creation on which all our actions should be based.

Issues

  • Conservation - recycling - restoring - re-using - repairing
  • Traffic reduction
  • Pollution reduction
  • Sustainability
  • Bio-diversity
  • Local economies
  • Sharing resources
  • Renewable energy sources
  • Trees

Courses of Action

  • Tree planting and increased recycling of wood
  • Action on Traffic and Pollution: car sharing - electric cars - more zycling, creation of cycle tracks - more public transport - lead-free petrol-SUSTRANS
  • Education and lobbying are crucial,
  • The use - and misuse - of money underlies all the issues.
   
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Copyright ©1999 Churches Together in Dorset
Page last updated on 28th February 1999 by Steve Potts