I was struck by an article in a recent edition of diocesan eNews, saying that, with the latest round of grants, our Development Fund has now given just under £5 million since it started six years ago, to 269 different projects in parishes and deaneries across our diocese. These projects are all different, but are all investing in local vision and initiatives to try new ways as we seek to grow God’s kingdom and to show and share the love of God with the people around us.
From its inception, the Development Fund has been a grassroots approach that asks local churches to discern God’s call in their area. Grants range from a few hundred pounds to help with publicity and materials for an outreach initiative, to significantly larger sums supporting often up to half of the costs of employing a youth or community worker to help take the gospel into specific areas.
I am particularly pleased that, for the last year or so, Bishop’s Council have made a commitment that at least half of the Development Fund will be allocated to projects reaching children, families and young people, as we seek to grow the church younger, deeper and larger.
A legacy of faith
As I was reflecting on the Development Fund, and the way it can make such a huge difference in encouraging and enabling our churches in their outreach, witness and growth, I found myself considering the resources God has given to me personally – my money, but also my time, my abilities, and my passions. I wondered how much and how often I am consciously using those resources in a way that looks outwards, that seeks to impact and to bless others with the love of God and to declare to them the goodness and grace of God.
As a Bishop, I have the joy of seeing and worshipping in literally hundreds of beautiful churches, across our diocese, and to stand in the rich legacy of faith that previous generations have handed down to us.
Living stones
But I need constantly to remind myself – or, should that perhaps be, allow the Holy Spirit to remind me – that the church is, above all, a collection of "living stones". We come together as God’s people to declare his praise in our worship, to be equipped by him in our discipleship, but then we go out into our work places, our schools and colleges, our friendship groups and social settings, to declare and live and radiate the presence and love of God so that we might see our friends, our loved ones, our communities transformed for his glory.
And so, in the same way that, as a diocese, we are committed to investing such significant sums of money through the Development Fund to help build God’s kingdom, then, I wonder, in each of our own lives – mine as much as yours – are we consciously giving all the resources that we have – our time, our talents and our treasure – to invest in the growth of God’s kingdom in, through and around us?
May our prayer, our desire and our active commitment be that we allow God to use all that we have to build his kingdom as, through his Holy Spirit, we become a more Christ-like Church for the sake of God’s world.
With every blessing in Christ,
The Rt Revd Gavin Collins
Bishop of Dorchester