shape not size matters

One of the surprise packages of this role has been involvement in property. Not my favourite part of being a circuit minister at all, so I can't pretend to have been filled with unalloyed joy when I found out that my role of District Director of Mission involved sitting on the District Property Panel. However it has proved so far to be just as enjoyable as the rest of my ministry here. There is a real determination in the District to be mission-shaped in terms of giving grants towards property schemes and so a visit from me is an essential prerequisite to making a grant application to the DPP. This week I visited Thornborough in the Buckingham, Bicester and Brackley Circuit. The church has begun an extension at rear of the chapel and having found sources for nearly all the money for it themselves, are looking to the District for some of the rest. The extra meeting room, toilets and kitchen will be used for their growing childrens work, much of which is in co-operation with the Anglicans. The church has run an ALPHA course with help from Well Street church in Buckingham and have got themselves twinned with a church in West Bromwich for exchanges and mutual support. All this with a membership of 11 and a weekly congregation of around 15. It all serves to remind me that being mission shaped has more to do with where the collective focus of a church is than with how many are available to do the focussing.