We published a draft version of our vision at the AGM last night. Please follow the link below:

'Vision 2012 - Loved by Christ and Challenged to Grow'

We would like to encourage you to give us your feedback. Please contact a member of the vision team, or leave a comment on this blog. Thank you very much.

In our final evening, we talked about what we have learned and what God has said to us over the last few weeks. And then we responded to the question what God might be calling us to contribute over the next few years.

This is what was written down.

How do these responses inspire you?
What would you say, what is God calling you to do?
Do these answers show where we should focus?

We had our fourth evening yesterday, on "Serving God in the Community", thinking about our vision for this, what needs to be sustained, dropped or created, and the barriers that prevent us from achieving this vision.

Please click here for the write-up of the evening.

Please post a comment if you have any thoughts on this.

The third evening yesterday was about "Living God's values". We identified the five Gospel values that are most important to us, and we thought about how we as individuals and as a community can better live out these values.

This is a summary of the evening.

And here is the list of all the Gospel values that were identified, in order of importance to us.

Our values are crucial to who we are and what we do. So what do you think? Do you agree? Is anything missing? Is anything unclear?
Please post a comment (anonymously if you wish).

Thank you very much to all who came along to the evening on 'Experiencing God in Worship'.

In the questionnaire we asked the respondents which aspects of worship they have a passion here. This is a summary of how often each aspect was chosen, for each congregation as well as all churches together.

At the evening itself, we went through the reflections and visions on worship, identified the key threads and themes, and then wrote a vision for each congregation. This is what we have come up with.

We would like to encourage you to give us your thoughts on this, whether you have not been able to come along or whether you were there but have further thoughts. Please do so by commenting on this post, or, if you prefer, by talking to a member of the vision team (Simon, Gordon, Lorna or Hans).

Last Wednesday, we had a very good evening thinking about our relationship with God.

Please read what aspirations people have for their relationship with God in this document.


This Wednesday, 7th of March, we will focus on 'Experiencing God in Worship'. We will look at the responses to the questionnaire regarding worship in more detail. Based on the reflections and visions expressed there, we would like to produce a vision for worship for each congregation.

Please join us in the Church Centre if you can (7.45 for 8pm). If not, please leave your comments on this blog.

Here is more information on the first week of our conversation. Please come along to the Church Centre this Wednesday, 29th of February, and/or join us on this blog over the following days.

Week 1 - 'Be selfish with God' Psalm 139

Before we get on to our collective responses to God we are going to start by focusing on our individual relationship with him  At the heart of the evening will be a listening exercise in which each person will respond to one or both of these questions.

1- Recall a time when you have been most excited about your relationship with God or  When you have been most aware of him at work in your life?

What happened, who was involved, how did it feel, what did you do, what happened as a result?

2- What is your deepest wish, your aspiration, for your relationship with God?

What would you like him to do, how would you like to be responding to him, what would you hope might happen, or you might do, as a result?

If you are not able to come on Wednesday why not reflect on these questions on your own. When the results of peoples reflections are posted on the blog you'll then be in a position to add your own thoughts!

Thank you very much to everybody for filling in the questionnaire. Your reflection on the past few years and your vision for our churches has been very interesting and promises to lead to an exciting conversation about our new vision statement.

This week we will start this conversation in our Lent Course. The sessions have been devised by Simon, Gordon, Anna & Paul and each week will involve worship, talks, discussion , conversation and prayer.

'Appreciative Enquiry' is at the heart of 'Vision 2012'. So we  begin by discovering and celebrating the best of what is , where we see God's life now, before dreaming what it would be like if there was more of that happening in the future. They are the first two steps, 'Discover' & 'Dream', and these will be the focus of  our Lent course,. Having put into words of God's vision for us, in the months after Easter, each part of our church community  will be invited to design ways of helping that Vision become a reality in their work. From there, with God, we will then work together to make that vision a reality. So 4 steps in all, Discover, Dream, Design, Deliver! 

If you can, please join us for our first Lent Course evening, this Wednesday, 29th of February, 7.45 for 8pm, at the Church Centre. The topic is "Be selfish with God - Psalm 139".

If you cannot, do not worry. We will post updates on this blog and would like to encourage you to comment on anything that is published here.

The topics of the subsequent sessions will be

• Experiencing God in worship (7th of March)
• Living God's values  (14th of March)
• Serving God in the community (21 st of March)
• 2017? (28th of March)

Welcome to the Vision 2012 blog.

If you have not filled in the questionnaire yet, please do so as soon as possible at www.rustwychurch.org/vision.

We will start analysing the responses soon. They will form the basis of the conversation in our Lent Course (details on the page above) and on this blog. Watch out for updates.

You are welcome to comment on everything that will be posted here.