Partnership in Mission at St Paul's by

robinpham — 2023-11-24 09:45:15 UTC

"Empowered by God's Spirit, we're a community passionate about giving everyone the opportunity to hear, enjoy, & live out the good news of Jesus - for God's glory in Barrow & beyond.”

£41,66 p/m to Church Mission Society

robinpham — 2023-11-24 09:47:24 UTC

£220 p/m to Barrow Network Youth Church

robinpham — 2023-11-24 09:47:50 UTC

Individual organisation 'collections' or events, e.g. Children's Society; Macmillan Cancer Care coffee morning; Christian Aid envelopes

robinpham — 2023-11-24 09:48:42 UTC

Individual church members may support particular causes/organisations/missionaries, e.g. sponsoring a child through Compassion UK

robinpham — 2023-11-24 09:52:35 UTC

We are currently operating at a significant deficit. How do we handle this?

robinpham — 2023-11-24 10:00:19 UTC

Interesting online conversation here

robinpham — 2023-11-24 10:02:49 UTC

Partnership goes in two directions!

callumandbecca — 2023-11-24 15:47:06 UTC

It would be great to not only be able to give & pray for our mission partners, but to also be able to share what we are doing to make Christ known in Barrow and have them pray for us!

Holistic gospel-focused partnerships with specific individuals

nathmair — 2023-11-25 17:54:46 UTC

Some initial thoughts from me :-)

Holistic: Partnerships where we commit all three of our financial giving (in an ideal world - obviously budget permitting), our prayers, and regular contact and encouragement.

Gospel-focused: We should primarily focus our partnerships on those involved in evangelism, church planting, Bible translation etc, rather than on social or humanitarian causes – in the light of Jesus' return and of future judgment, only the gospel can save eternally, and only Christians are going to support gospel work. (NB I'm not saying we shouldn't ever support social or humanitarian causes, just suggesting what our priority might be.)

Specific Individuals: Rather than supporting organisations as a whole, I think we should choose named individuals - it's much easier to be invested in and pray for a person we know and care about.

nathmair — 2023-11-25 18:38:00 UTC

Receiving updates and praying frequently for our partners - could we commit to praying for a different partner each Sunday during the service? Then if we have 3-4 partners we'd pray for them all at least once a month.

People we already know?

nathmair — 2023-11-25 18:42:30 UTC

We could decide to support gospel workers that individual members of St Paul's already know/support, so we're not starting a relationship completely from scratch.

I think all the ways the church currently gives need to be reviewed. I fear we are in danger of just carrying on because that's what's always happened, instead of actually thinking about why we give to these things, and how they fit into the mission statement and connect with where we're at as St Paul's now. I think it's also important to review at the moment when we are running at such a deficit. We definitely shouldn't be paying out money without due consideration.

fionac17_ — 2024-01-18 20:40:30 UTC

Gospel-focused

fionac17_ — 2024-01-18 20:44:11 UTC

As Nathan said in his dream...

If part of our mission statement is to 'give everyone the opportunity to hear, enjoy and live out the good news of Jesus, it seems like we want to prioritise partners who are also doing this.

fionac17_ — 2024-01-18 20:49:48 UTC

Definitely praying for them. Receiving regular updates to inform prayers. We should also be in contact as support and encouragement to them too. Maybe connect groups could write an email/letter etc to a partner? Have visits from partners, where possible, or on Zoom etc, to actually see the person, grow relationship and pray with them. This could be on a Sunday, or during a prayer meeting for example.

It's important for us to give too.

fionac17_ — 2024-01-18 20:52:27 UTC