Mission in Abingdon

By the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Reading

Churches in the Abingdon Deanery have been getting to grips with sustainable, active mission and evangelism in their communities.  Here the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell explains his Mission Weekend project, while two of the parishes reflect on their experiences so far.

Many PCCs wistfully wonder whether, at some indeterminate point in the future, they might have a parish mission event with lively preaching of the faith from some visiting evangelist who will usher in a revival of fortunes and the church will grow.

For most churches it never happens. The parish mission keeps falling off the edge of their five-year plans.
For the few  bold enough to make the dream a reality, it is too often accompanied by disappointment. The visiting team of evangelisers came, and what they did was lively and renewing. But it cost a lot of money, a lot of time and even more energy, and the results at the end were actually rather disappointing.

I write as someone who for many years plied my trade as the visiting evangelist, leading many parish missions. I enjoyed every one and God did great things through every one.

But I couldn’t help wondering if this was the best way of ‘doing’ evangelism. Hence the idea of a Mission Weekend.
Not something that is run by a visiting expert; but a team of missioners from within the parish community taking responsibility to develop evangelism.

Not one week of mission every 10 years, but a sustainable pattern of mission events woven into the daily life of the parish.

Not huge events which you hope unchurched friends might attend, but small scale do-it-yourself events responding directly to the issues and interests of people you are already in contact with.

These are the principles behind a Mission Weekend. Many parishes up and down the country are now building this approach to evangelism into their daily life, so that a Mission Weekend becomes as normal a part of church life as the Harvest Festival or Christmas Fete.

As you will have read in the DOOR in recent issues, all the churches in the deanery of Abingdon have committed themselves to this sort of ministry and have sent enthusiastic teams of people to the training that has been going on for the past six months.

 Each of them is doing something in evangelism that they’ve never done before. Each of them now has a team of people trained in some of the basics of evangelistic ministry. They all recognise that these events are the first step on a journey that can lead to faith.

The Mission Weekend is part of the process of becoming a missionary church.

If you think your parish would benefit from similar training why not discuss it at your Deanery Synod. For more details email bishopreading@oxford.anglican.org  or call me on 0118 984 1216 or  Janet Russell, Berkshire Parish Development Adviser, on 01865 208296.

A time for dads and  children in Appleford

By Becky Fisher

Keeping a church going in a village of only 150 houses is a tremendous effort.
It is very easy to let the constant struggle to raise money to keep the church building in good repair overshadow the challenge to maintain contact with those in the community who have no allegiance to the church.
We feel safe asking people for help to maintain the historic building. But our faith, which forms the strong foundation for our lives, seems far harder to take to the wider community.
The encouragement of Bishop Stephen and the team in the Abingdon Deanery has helped us to become more focused on evangelism.
Many of us felt uncomfortable with the idea of talking to others, perhaps strangers, about our faith and we found the small steps approach, which begins with seeking out the needs of others, was just the right approach for us.

We decided to provide an opportunity for dads to do something with their children. A group of us organised a craft morning for the day before Mothering Sunday where  dads could get stuck in  with helping their children make chocolate truffles, posies, biscuits and cards as gifts for mums and grandmas in the community.

The sight of happy children and their dads leaving the village hall at the end of the morning made it all worth while. We were joined by three dads and nine children, aged 2-12, to make gifts. We had made contact with two new families and learned that offering activities which dads and children can enjoy together will be a valuable contribution to family life here.

It was a huge encouragement to those involved in this first event. We now feel the next step will not be so hard.

Becky Fisher is a member of SS Peter and Paul, in Appleford

Detox at Long Furlong

By Derek Walker, LLM at Christ Church on Long Furlong

A worker driving home after a hard day sees the words ‘Feeling Spent?’ by the roadside. A week later (after a heavy credit card bill arrives) another banner appears alongside the first, reading: ‘Re-invent Lent - www.longfurlong.org’.

When a leaflet drops through the door a few days later, urging six weeks of spending only on essentials the worker thinks: ‘I’ll try it!’

That is what Christ Church on Long Furlong aimed for when planning a Lent initiative for the local estate.
It is a mission born from prayer for people whose spending is out of control, and that they might try faith as a way out of the debt spiral. We first negotiated a trade rate on a very earthed and accessible book entitled ‘Detox Your Spiritual Life in 40 Days’ by   Peter Grayson, then subsidised it further, as a special offer to the local community to feed their faith.

Finding this book was like a gift from God, as the working title of our project had been The Spiritual Detox.
Aware that many people are reluctant to enter a church, we decided the whole ‘detox’  could be done at home, with a ‘virtual church’ on our website for people to log their progress and read other people’s ‘blogs’.

But to tempt people in we issued an open invitation to a free Pancake Party on Shrove Tuesday, which was well attended and built up  links.

Our project is still underway, so we have yet to find out what impact it has had.

The enquiry level from outside the church has not been as strong as we hoped, but it has kept our profile high, and shown that we can offer a relevant alternative to Sunday services.

At church it has provided a joint learning experience, as nearly every household has bought the book and we have based some of our current sermon series on its themes. We have also begun to use the new part of our web site as a forum.

But we still have a long way to go to make the impact that we would like.