What's Ahead for 2016? East Taieri Church

What is Ahead in 2016? East Taieri Church

I realise the following is mainly of interest for people involved in East Taieri Church.  These are some highlights from our strategic plan and operational goals.

Our theme for the year is “Engage”.  Our theme series will be in Feb/March “Engaging the Vision” – helping us all engage with God; engage with our Fresh Vision; engage with one another; and engage with people in the community.

Evangelism Push (especially early in the year Feb/March):

·         We will run three business breakfasts at Aurora Café.

·         We will gather those gifted and passionate about evangelism and develop a way to train 10 people in evangelism using “What’s the Story?”

·         We will set up Journey to Easter - Stations of the Cross display in the Hub leading up to Easter and invite the community to experience it.

·         We will be a part of the Easter distribution of Hope booklets to letterboxes.

·         We will challenge everyone and all ministries to be feeding people into Alpha.  Imagine if everyone invited one person to Alpha in 2016.

·         We will engage with Sugar and Spice families once a term, including running a parenting event.

·         Heather Moore, our new children and families fresh expressions worker, begins 1^st Feb.  Her half-time role is not responsible for Sunday children’s ministries, but is outward looking.  It is focused on developing relationships with children and families who don’t come to church.

Worship:

·         We want to review the 10am service and see growth in this service.

·         We will review the connecting times such as morning tea, with a view to building closer community and improved incorporation of new people.

·         We will continue to explore fresh expressions of church.

Discipleship and Spiritual Growth:

·         We will start 3 new life groups and have 3 networking nights on “Making Good Disciples”

·         We will experiment with a café discussion setting for Christians who aren’t engaging with church and people wanting to explore deeper issues of faith.

·         Through an EPIC culture we will be intentional about mentoring and discipling young people.

·         We will use the results of the Reveal Spiritual Growth Research in our ministries. We want to give people a place to belong and a pathway that guides them on their journey toward intimacy with Christ.  We will catalyse their spiritual growth by helping them understand the Bible in greater depth, by challenging them to apply the Scriptures with specific next steps, and by modelling how we are taking those steps ourselves.

·         Seb, Leeanne and Jo will help us identify our spiritual gifts and where God is calling us to serve through our ET developed “Wired2Serve” course.

·         Our new Youth Intern Nathaniel Stock will join the Youth East Taieri team.

Community Ministries:

·         From April 2016 around 45 Syrian refugees will arrive in Dunedin with other ethnicities to follow.  We will work alongside the Red Cross and others to assist their settlement.

·         We are going to focus on parenting and family support and development in 2016.  This year we will run the parenting course (and other parenting events) instead of the marriage course.

·         We will explore the need for and feasibility of a community hub.

·         Our funding manager will implement a consistent funding sourcing and reporting programme.

·         We will enhance well-being and connectedness of seniors through a mid-winter lunch.

·         FUEL will have one large community event for Fairfield.

Communications:

·         We will build on our new website, develop a communication plan and prioritise what material is printed.

Mission Facilities:

·         We will carry out a feasibility study for a café and continue to use “third spaces” to engage people on kingdom of God matters.

·         We will decide on our commitment to the East Taieri site and prioritise our building needs.

Wider Ministry:

·         I will be on study leave at Cambridge University for term two studying the role of the Bible in Spiritual Growth, with a particular emphasis on fresh expressions settings.

·         Seb will MC the South Island Ministry Conference with our speaker Rod Thompson on “Engaging Contemporary Culture in Biblically Faithful Ways.”

·         A Youth East Taieri mission team will go to Vanuatu in July.

Above all, as we engage our vision statement we will focus on two key things:

   1.      Responding to God’s grace and

   2.      passionately living out our faith. 

Please pray for God’s refreshing grace, and God’s empowering passion – so we will see a thriving church and thriving communities.