- Do you have a decent church website?
- Is it up to date?
- Is it responsive – ie does it work on mobile phones?
- Does your own online profile feature your ideas and hopes and dreams other than a desire for people to turn up to church?
- Do you know what you are doing with twitter and facebook?
- Who could you learn more about social media from?
- Do you have a compelling reason why people should come to your church other than where it is or what denomination it belongs to?
- Can everyone in the church tell you in one sentence what that compelling reason is?
- What is your beginners’ course like?
- What comes after the beginners’ course?
- Do people like the preaching?
- Do people enjoy the music?
- Have you dealt with conflicts from the past?
- Are the people friendly?
- Do you have any new groups starting soon?
- Do you talk about making the world a better place?
- How will people experience joy if they come to your congregation?
- If someone from your past turned up unexpectedly at worship how would it make you feel?
- How do you identify newcomers and what do you offer them?
- What problems will arise if you do grow and how will you deal with them?
- Do claims that you welcome everyone stop you working at welcoming those who traditionally find it hard to find a home in church?
- Do you use language that is inclusive of everyone?
- How do you know?
- Is there any identifiable group of people that you can’t explicitly say are welcome because of how an individual or group in the congregation will react?
- Do you want to grow or not?
4 responses to “Prayers at a time of tragedy”
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It’s hard to imagine that only a few hours ago I was in your beautiful church in that wonderful city that sometimes I think of as mine. My heart and my prayers go out to all the families of the bereaved and injured tonight.
“Rest eternal Lord, grant unto them and may light perpetual shine upon them” -
Amen. And yet again the people of Glasgow showed themsleves at their warm-hearted best, with unsolicited offers of practical help.
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Thank you for this prayer Kelvin.
Here in Australia the week before last, a guy dressed as a Muslim (and was in fact one) held a lot of people hostage in a very posh but well-patronised cafe in the business/law precinct the city of Sydney. He had a lot of irrational demands. It was a very well-planned and he held up the people and the city in terror for 12+ hours. He was actually a bully and unhinged mentally. In the end the police broke in and in the ensuing gun battle 2 people were killed by the gunmman then the gunman himself.
We lie quietly here in Australia with relatively little racial violence (but lots of domestic violence -the gunman had heaps of charges)
We understand this incident does not equate with what happened in your city
or to the schhool-children in Pakistan but it stunned us.So I thank you for your skill to put this simple prayer together.
Tom-
Thanks Tom – we were all watching and praying along with those in Sydney last week. These events are world events. Paradoxically they bring us together.
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Jesus met a woman at the well
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAe8NXq8Lbs
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Sermon preached by the Rev Chucks Iwuagwu
Here is the sermon that Chucks preached on Sunday. Its going on the church website too. Like a number of things, its been delayed due to an internet outage at the office. I’ve got so used to uploading things with the fast internet connection in the office now that when it fails, it all starts…
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Lady Day
Tomorrow (Friday) is Lady Day – the Feast of the Annunciation. St Mary’s will be being Visited by Bishop Gregor tomorrow. That means that the Bishop will be meeting with clergy, Vestry and Church Wardens in the course of the day as well as making one or two pastoral calls alongside either Cedric (Vice Provost)…
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Internet Outage
We’re suffering a week-long internet outage in St Mary’s office at the moment, which is rather trying. Hence lack of updates and lack of answering email from the office account. Normal service may be restored tomorrow.
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