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Imagine Update - February 2009

The Imagine Project has been with us for a year and the PCC has just committed to continue for a further year, so it seems that now is a good time to take stock. During this time its concept of each of us becoming more like Jesus has been preached, written about and discussed on different occasions and in different venues. From this it is plain that Imagine is not “a course”, it is not “doing church”, and it is not about exhorting others to join us. It is a project to help us to follow Christ more closely, beginning from wherever we happen to be – imagine what that could mean!

Summary

Imagine is an unending project of individual commitment to God, to develop our lives by degrees towards a whole–life discipleship, so that individually and collectively we can make a difference to our world. Imagine can help us on our way by connecting well with our Vision Statement of Encountering God, Encouraging one another and Engaging with the World.

What next for Imagine...

There will be further steps for us all to take. This is a gradual process, but Lent can be a good time for reflection, leading each of us to try to answer the question:
“Where next in my own Spiritual Journey?”

Ambrose and Sylvia - Churchwardens

Previous Imagine Update - July 2008

Since January 2008 St Mary Magdalen has been involved in the Imagine Project. This is an initiative of the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity (LICC) to try to assist churches in putting Whole Life Discipleship at the top of the agenda. While many of us in St Mary Magdalen are very excited about this initiative, others feel a little confused, so before I tell you what has happened, let me remind you what Imagine is.

What is Imagine?

At the heart of Imagine are the words of Jesus to go out and make disciples. Church can easily become separated from the world in which most of us spend the majority of our time and yet, to be a follower of Jesus is to be out there in the world allowing our faith in God to shape our work, leisure, friendships and time with family. It is through doing this that we are really able to make a difference; the Christian faith is not just another activity alongside all those others, it is the one that helps give meaning to all that we do. This comes out of a belief that God is intensely interested in every part of our lives and He calls us to be disciples in every part of our lives. Imagine what the church and our lives would be like if we really took this seriously.

This is not a programme by which we do certain things or put on a course and say, We've done that!. It is about being true to what God has made distinctive about our church in this place, while seeking to be more of what God is calling us to be.
For Imagine to have been successful we will, as a community of faith, be longing to know God more deeply and be more willing to ask, and demonstrate, what difference being a Christian makes to each of our lives. We will be more able to see God at work in the world in which we live and work and in the lives of those around us and, be more ready to share our faith with others.

This fits very well with our Vision Statement of Encountering God ~ Encouraging one another ~ Engaging with the world

Where have we got to so far?

We have been working with Neil Hudson from LICC who has been helping us to see how we might deepen our discipleship. In January we completed a questionnaire by which we explored the question of How "WholeLife" is our church? There were some interesting results to this. Most significantly it was clear that the one factor that contributed most to people’s sense that the ministry of the church was helpful to them, in helping them to live as disciples, was the quality of the relationships they found there. People face a wide range of issues at church, at home and in their personal lives. The factor that they either appreciated most or most felt the need of, was having others they could talk to, listen to, share with and pray with.
There were some important encouragements and challenges about what and how we teach in the church, but the importance of relationships and hearing stories of how others have faced situations and recognised God’s presence was most significant.

A small group of us have met together, and with Neil, to look at what we should do about these findings. Fundamental to Imagine is that it is a project not a programme. It does not come with a blue print of what churches should do, but the conviction that making small Ome degree shifts in what we do, can change the culture of the church and make us more of a place where Whole LifeDiscipleship is encouraged.

There were five areas that we identified as significant and where we could take steps to act.

  1. Our Vision Statement

    We saw the need to allow our Vision Statement to permeate more deeply into the life of the church. To this end we have sought opportunities to ask people to reflect on how their activities within and beyond the church connect with our "3 E's" Vision

  2. Deepening Friendships

    Relationships are so clearly fundamental. We want to encourage people to deepen their friendships with others in the church and to see that prayer is an important aspect of friendships between Christians.

  3. Sharing of Stories

    It is clearly important for people to hear how others have struggled with the issues that they face and how they have seen God at work in their lives. This is, perhaps, particularly true as we hear stories of how the Holy Spirit has driven us to engage with the world in which we live.

  4. Sermon Feedback and response

    We need to make sure that sermons address the issues that people face (the current series has sought to do this) and to encourage them to engage with what has been said. The questions following the sermons in the current series have been part of this, and we see the need to have occasional opportunities for response to sermons within church.

  5. Adult Education and Discipleship

    Home Groups and Prayer Cells are important for many and some people have appreciated Open Book. However, we need to find ways of helping people who do not appreciate this format to engage more deeply with their faith. A small group, to address this issue, has met and is looking at ways to take this further. They are looking to find how best we can offer short home based courses and occasional talks, alongside our current system of Home Groups and Prayer Cells, so that as many people as possible can find something that helps them to go deeper.

What Next?

None of these things individually will make a huge change to the way we do things in St Mary Magdalen; they are One degree shifts However, we hope that through them our culture will begin to change so that the church becomes more and more a fertile soil in which discipleship can be nurtured and grown and in which others can come to faith in Jesus. We will continue to try to develop these areas of our life.

On Monday 29th September Neil Hudson will be with us for an open meeting where we can discuss some of these things further and from 21 - 23 November he will be leading our Weekend away at St. Rhadagunds on the Isle of Wight. But there will be other times too. Do please talk to me, a member of the PCC or one of the Imagine working group.

Alongside me the group consists of Anne Davidson, Margaret Glenny, Mike Knee, Sylvia Bovington and Ambrose Barber.


 
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