1st draft proposed Church Mission Statement

1st quick draft of a proposed renewed church mission statement. Comments and suggestions welcome.

(I fully accept that this is perhaps not quite a Mission Statement (or indeed a Vision Statement or Values Statement) or Mission Action Plan or whatever. I've tried to put down some things that the key decision makers like the PCC might be able to agree on and which might guide our planning. Perhaps most accurately it might be called "Some Principles and Priorities")

(No doubt it might also be helpful to have a kind of tag-line or church motto and a short memorable summary of what we stand for).

Our aim is to glorify God in all that we do in obedience to his written Word, the Bible.

Our mission is to be and make increasingly faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. Indeed, we seek to make disciples who will make disciples.   

Our method is prayerfully to minister the Word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit in a context of love, warm fellowship and good deeds.

We therefore seek to pursue:

(1)   Mission / Evangelism. We want to present the good news of Jesus attractively and persuasively to those who are not yet Christians. We recognise this may involve “pre-evangelism”: developing contacts and friendships. We understand that coming to faith in Jesus may be a long process for many people. We encourage all our committed members to be known as Christians and want to help them to be able to give a reason for the hope that they have. We want to regularly put on events to which our committed members feel they could invite others to hear something of the gospel. We would ask committed members to regularly pray for a few people with whom they might be able to share something of the good news and to make suggestions as to how the church might support their personal evangelism.

(2)   Maturity / Discipleship. We want to encourage all committed members to be growing in their walk with Jesus, emphasising his two most important commandments of loving God and neighbour. We encourage regular personal and family Bible reading and prayer. We would like to see all our committed members involved in some kind of midweek group if possible and recognise the importance of Christian fellowship. We encourage our committed members to give joyfully and sacrificially to the local church according to their ability – and in a planned and tax efficient way, if possible. We would ask people to consider giving 10% of their income.

(3)   Ministry / Training. We want to encourage all committed members to seek to serve God and others with the gifts they have been given and according to the needs in our congregation and beyond. We hope people will be willing to try new things. We want to provide training, support and feedback, pointing people to other organisations and resources where necessary.    

We recognise our particular responsibility to all those who live within the parish.

Because our church family is perhaps more grey haired than the general population, we want to make a special effort with children, families and the under 65s. We also want to make a special effort with men since they are often harder to reach but if they become committed they tend to have a great influence on the rest of their families.

We recognise the need to continue to move towards paying our full Parish Contribution and will seek to gradually increase this as funds allow.

We will give 10% of our normal income to other Christian mission organisations at home and abroad and have a monthly prayer focus on one of these projects.

We seek to work together with the other parishes in our benefice, the deanery, diocese, and wider Church of England and with Churches Together in Heathfield and District, and with other Christians and churches as appropriate.


 (Making disciple-making disciples of Jesus Christ might be a good key aim for any church. Hopefully those key activities of Mission, Maturity & Ministry might prove memorable. Other key ideas like gospel, Bible, prayer, Spirit, love, fellowship, good deeds might also hopefully stand out for people!)