Buckhaven BC - We give thanks to God that from lockdown (March 2020) we have been able to continue our food bag support for local families and individuals; we’ve also been blessed to refurbish the kitchen for our Friday Café reopening post-lockdown. Pray for the...
If you haven’t heard me speak about innovation in the last year then you probably haven’t heard me speak. I know I’ve been going on about it. That’s because I’m convinced it is a deeply important word for churches seeking to follow Jesus faithfully in these changing times (along with transformations and generations, which you may also have heard me mention)…
Innovation collectives are a tool for leaders to pursue change or development in the life of the church, with the support, challenge and prayer of a small group of other church leaders.
Based on the model of action learning sets used at the pre-accredited conference, I’ll be honest and say I wasn’t sure what it would be like. Any time I undertook an exercise like this, I usually spent more of my time trying to think up what I might share rather than engaging well in the exercise. I quickly realised this was different though.
We have all faced so many ‘firsts’ over the past 11 months – some reluctantly foisted upon us; others embraced enthusiastically. This year’s January pilgrimage to Fishers Hotel in Pitlochry was re-engineered as one such ‘first’ for me, by being mapped onto a digital, virtual space.
In March 2020 many things changed, including the way we connected with our church fellowship and worshipped together. We started Zoom church, which has been a greater blessing than expected.
We also started a project called13:10 last March, which was initially intended to be an encouragement for our church fellowship.
Deep Impact is a conference valued not only for its teaching and input, but also its sense of community. So the decision to move Deep Impact online was one we wrestled with, but we felt that the need to come together and be equipped and inspired was very much still there.
Glenn Innes, Chair of our Mission Initiative Group, shares his thoughts on Mission in 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F14_ntqmV6w
I have been greatly inspired by our National Prayer Live gatherings over 2020 and we will be continuing this on a monthly basis into 2021. It is so good to unite together in prayer for our churches, our nation and our world.
Having crossed the threshold of a new year, with or without a lump of coal, what is it that we cherish as our hope for the months that lie ahead?