Welcoming Opening Words

Welcoming – Opening Words

Colleagues and friends, on behalf of the United Reformed Church, the Mission Committee and members of the Small Planning Group responsible for the organising and delivery of this conference on church growth – a warm welcome to each one of you (especially you, JohnDaniel, who have travelled the furthest to be with us - New Zealand).

I am Michael Jagessar, a current moderator of the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church and a member of the Mission Team, with specific responsibility for intercultural ministry. There are always “story-lines” to a conference and the one I wish to briefly share with you to locate our gathering here is that this conference is a follow up from our first productive gathering held in Birmingham (2011), where we explored the theme of evangelism! As a Mission Team staff member, I took the lead of that gathering (working with a small group). Inspired by our conversations on “evangelism” (across a theological and ecclesiological breadth), we picked up the suggestion of a follow up conference on “church growth”, moving to Manchester, with Francis Brienen (secretary for Mission) taking the lead and working with another team. By now, you would realise that these themes are also related to our vision2020 statements, but more importantly, they are pertinent to our life together as people called by God to walk the way of Christ, in the power of the Spirit.

Where, the Spirit is leading us next is asunpredictable and mischievous as the ways of God’s Spirit will always be….

Like generations gone by, we will claim that as a church we face some very urgent and critical questions – not the least – that of how we “keep the main thing, the main thing” – what we are supposed to be about as people who claim to be walking the way of God in Christ (fullness of life). A current default mode is that of problem-saturated and scarcity discourses that impoverish our life together. I can also sense a tendency to operate in three default functional ways (causing much dys-functionalism – that is, functioning, but always in pain): functional atheism, functional rationalism and functional stupidity.

This conference (like other gatherings – Courage, Conscience and Commitment anda Rainbow of Spiritualtiesby groups across our church)is an attempt at a different narrative – that together we write because of our faith and faithfulness in the name of the one who has called us

Church growth challenge is not about the church, it is about each of us. The church fails in its mission if it does not help each of us discover Jesus in our lives and see the wonder and miracles that happen around us each day.Otherwise, we’re just practicing spiritual correctness - “completely useless” and obvious to everyone. Growing the church is about growing community—and being in communities that thrive on faith, and love and the joy of being the Body of Christ by doing God’s work in the vineyards we are given to tend.To grow we must not be afraid to throw open the doors —and our hearts to those who love God and seek Christ… we are not alone.

Michael N. Jagessar (Revd Dr)