Missional-Life

Here are some photos from our recent Vision Sunday (9th May 2010). Enjoy!

Dwell London – Ed Stetzer Interviews Terry Virgo from Ed Stetzer on Vimeo.

Richard Dawkins, the author of ‘The God Delusion’ is famously recorded as saying:

“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”

Is Richard Dawkins right? Is faith just ‘the blind leading the blind’ or a ‘great leap in the dark’ or using Dawkins phrase the great human ‘cop-out’?

On Easter Sunday we will be exploring the evidences or proofs for the actual bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. Please come and join us!

Time: 10:30am

Venue: Nene Family Church, Church Centre, Fletton Avenue, Peterborough.

On Sunday 9th May 2010 the leadership team at Nene Family Church want the whole church to be together for a day (10am – 3:30pm) so that we can share with in some detail the fresh and exciting vision that we believe God has given us for the church and some substantial changes that we will need to work through over the coming months. I cannot overstate the significance of this meeting! I suspect that in five or even ten years time we will be looking back on the 9th May 2010 as a truly momentous day in the life of the church. If your part of Nene Family Church or considering moving and joining us, can I encourage you to make this an absolute priority!

Children: As this is such a significant moment in the life of the church, Les and Alison Howard are going to be organising a day of fun activities for crèche, pre-school and primary aged children. Les and Alison are hoping to be supported by a team of experienced and CRB checked helpers from other local Newfrontiers churches enabling our own dedicated children’s workers to be freed up to fully participate in the vision day.

What do I need to do now?

Please can you book in ASAP by contacting Jaki Bellamy in the church office:
Phone: 01733 552227
Email: office@nenefamilychurch.org.uk

Reason 1: The glory of God

Reason 2: The church is God’s plan

Reason 3: To play your part in transforming a city and a nation

Reason 4: To see the tide turned

Reason 5: God’s slipstream

Reason 6: The rainbow-like family of God

Reason 7: A city for families

Reason 8: A city connected to the rest of the world

Reason 9: The hope of Peterborough

Reason 10: Love the city

Reason 11: A ‘train station’ to the region and nations

Reason: 12: Coffee beans by the truckload

Reason 13: It’s God who gives the increase

Reason 14: Demonstrations of the Kingdom

Reason 15: A city with a great theatre

Reason 16: A great adventure awaits…

Reason 17: A gateway to the city

Reason 18: A Gateway to the Region

Reason 19: A Gateway to the Nations

Reason 20: It’s all about Jesus

I have a dream that Jesus would be made famous in this great city! Why not come and join the adventuring in seeing this dream realised!

God has always had the ends of the earth in his heart. It is a too small a thing to just be concerned about Peterborough or even Peterborough and the surrounding area. God has called us to play our part in seeing the nations transformed by the planting of glorious gospel-centred churches across the nations!

Come and join the adventure as we look to get caught up in apostolically led church planting mission into other nations!

I believe that God is not only calling Nene Family Church to be a city transforming community, but also to be like a ‘train station’ [1], constantly sending people out into the surrounding region. This train station mentality means that we are looking to create a mobile and flexible community that is willing to be led by the Holy Spirit into new Missional contexts!

Come and join the adventure as we look to peer over the walls of the city into the surrounding towns and villages and see what God might have for us there!

Here is an article I wrote for ‘the loop’, the bi-monthly magazine of King’s Community Church (Norwich).

Have you ever felt a sense of disappointment as the credits start to roll on an epic adventure film that you’ve been watching? For an agonisingly short period of time everything within you has been captivated by a great adventure! Suddenly a lifeless story has ‘got under your skin’ and moved not only your imagination but also your desires and longings. However, by the time you’ve unloaded the DVD, scooped the stray popcorn off the carpet and removed the empty beer bottles, you’ve managed to persuade yourself that those adventurous feelings are just childish dreams with no place in our modern and sophisticated world. Or are they?

I believe that God has invited you and me to join Him on this great and thrilling adventure! In many ways the book of Acts is the start of God’s great adventure of creating for himself a glorious church! Not the sedate, cautious, inward looking church that is so often portrayed in the media, but rather one that is: a city set on a hill (Matt 5:14); a glorious mountain of the Lord where all the nations shall flow to it (Is 2:1-2) ; a mission focused church; a city and region transforming church! Or as Charles W. Colson states “The church is not incidental to the great cosmic struggle for the hearts and souls of modern men and women.  It is the instrument God has chosen for that battle – a battle we are called to by virtue of being members of His body.” (‘The Body’, 1992).

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, in the middle of December 2009, whilst most other people where madly getting ready for Christmas, my family and I were moving from Attleborough where we had been planting Christ Community Church (www.christcommunitychurch.co.uk). We were relocating to Peterborough to enable me to lead the team at Nene Family Church (www.nenefamilychurchchurch.org.uk). We are praying that many other people will also hear the call to join this great adventure in Peterborough!

Peterborough is a great city! There are approximately 180,000 people from a wonderfully rich and diverse ethnic and cultural background. It is a growing and developing city and an ideal place to bring up a family. However, although Peterborough is a great city, it has tremendous need of the transforming power of the gospel!

My dream is to see a significant gospel-centred, mission-focused church in Peterborough that will play its part in seeing this great city transformed through both demonstrations of the Kingdom, such as ministry to the poor and declarations of the life transforming message of the gospel.

However, this type of dream will only be fulfilled by many, many people coming together to humbly and sacrificially ‘sow’ their lives into seeing the city and region transformed. I’m unashamed in saying that we in Nene Family Church cannot fulfill this dream on our own. We are praying that God will send many people who have a heart for the city and surrounding villages and towns. Maybe God is calling you? If so, please do get in touch to find out more

In James 1:27, the author writes an amazing provocation:

“Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress…” (James 1:27, NASB)

What is James saying through this verse? Genuine faith in God will produce in us as believers a desire to “visit” the orphans and widows in their distress.  Faith must overflow the banks of our hearts and flood our communities with genuine kingdom compassion and concern.

Paul writing to the church in Galatia recounts a discussion he had with James, Peter and John about his ministry to the Gentiles (or non Jews) and this is what he says their response was …

“But on the contrary, seeing that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised (for He who effectually worked for Peter in his apostleship to the circumcised effectually worked for me also to the Gentiles), and recognizing the grace that had been given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we might go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. They only asked us to remember the poor — the very thing I also was eager to do.” (Galatians 2:7-10 NASB)

“Remember the poor – the very thing I also was eager to do.”

I believe that an authentic expression of the Kingdom of God in Peterborough requires that we as a local church live and breathe these verses.  James doesn’t say wait till the orphans and widows show up on your doorstep and then help, but to go out and ‘visit’ them.  In the days of when James was writing orphans and the widows were those within society that fell through the safety net.  They were the ones on the bottom of the pile with little to look forward to and much to dread.

I don’t believe we have the liberty to see this as a bolt on to our role as ambassadors of the Kingdom of God.  When Jesus was starting His earthly ministry He used a prophetic picture from the Old Testament to describe the nature of His ministry…

““The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are downtrodden, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”” (Luke 4:18-19 NASB)

Jesus said, My ministry would be a poor engaging, captive releasing, sight restoring, and downtrodden reinstating ministry.  These are the marks of authentic kingdom life!

“visit the orphans and widows … remember the poor”

I believe that one of the great tragedies that has taken place in the church has been the divorce of what some have termed the ‘social gospel’ and the ‘preaching of the gospel’.  In the early church there was no separation.  If the kingdom of God burst out through the church it was both preaching the good news and demonstrating the good news.

I remember reading about William Booth the founder of the Salvation Army.  There was time when he was living in the east end of London and would walk down the streets and every other shop would be a Gin joint.  Many of these drinking holes would have makeshift wooden steps up the side of the bar so that young children could place their order for the ‘hard stuff’.  He also saw around him child poverty, and social decay and he was moved to action.  Nearing his death he said this …

“While women weep as they do now, I’ll fight; while little children go hungry as they do now, I’ll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I’ll fight – I’ll fight to the very end!

This was a man who had captured the heart of the Kingdom and knew what it meant to “remember the poor” and “visit the orphans and widows”.

Reason 14 for moving to Peterborough is very simple. Peterborough needs an army of people who have been moved by the Christ’s compassion for the lost, poor, marginalised, alienated, abused, broken, abandoned and downtrodden!