VISION SUNDAY AND SPECIAL OFFERING 2010

This Sunday is our annual special offering looking to trust God for £40,000. We sent out a letter to explain the details of this offering. If you didn't receive it, here is the letter for your perusal.

Firstly I want to say a huge thank you for your generous support over the last 5 years.  It has been tough at times, but we have seen God do so much in our own lives and also in the city. 

Currently, Mission Groups are flourishing (we now have 25 groups with 240 people attending).  ‘Intro’ has never been so popular and already 25 non Christians are signed up for the ‘More’ course this term.

We also continue to punch above our weight financially given the number of low earners in our congregation and that is down to you guys trusting God with your finances and giving so generously.

Once again in 2010 we face a financial challenge! Not only are we praying for our normal giving to rise by £2500 a month this year but we will holding two vision Sundays in February where we will be looking at the opportunities that face us in 2010 and holding our annual special offering.  The feedback from last year was that people wanted to know more specific details of where the money would be invested in order for them to sense faith growing for giving sacrificially. So here is what we are planning:

Special Offering:

On 7th and 14th February we will be holding two ‘vision Sundays’ where we will be looking to raise £40,000 for two salaried positions on staff.  We currently looking for people for both these positions.

i) Childrens and Youth Worker
We have grown from 15 children a year ago to over 50 in five different age groups.  We’ve also started working among 11-18’s for the very first time.  This means we need to find someone to bring some focussed oversight and input across these ages. 

Under Claire Sorely’s leadership Mo-kids has thrived but have now grown to the extent where we need to employ someone to be able to provide an excellent children’s program at Mosaic and support our brilliant kids workers. In the future we would like this role to develop an outreach focus as we look to serve children and youth in the community.

ii) Operations Manager
A crucial staff appointment when a church reaches around 300-400 is an operation manager. This is more than just a graduate administrative role but rather we are looking to hire an experienced project manager who can help oversee our finances, building management, offices, administration, staff employment and legal work. 

To give a biblical example, in Acts 6.1-7 the Apostles were overrun with the important work of serving food to widows so they appointed trusted men like Stephen to fulfil this task in order that the apostles could devote themselves to prayer and ministry of the word. Similarly this important yet often unseen role would release church members and staff to focus on the task of outreach, discipleship, study and pastoral care. Our hope is that if we employ someone who could take on this role we would see something similar to what the Jerusalem church saw (v.7) “So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly…”

The next five years!

We are amazed at what God has done in the last five years but imagine what God could do if we are faithful to our task to love God, each other and the World.  Imagine individual lives being turned round, think of your friends knowing Jesus as you love and serve them.  Imagine the poor and needy experiencing the tangible love of Christ and becoming missionaries to our broken world. 

Perhaps you dream of your school, your street, your office being influenced by the Gospel? Perhaps you are desperate for your kids to pick up the baton and make Christ famous wherever they go?  Or maybe you are simply ruined for anything but a life of no compromise, radical discipleship, and passion for Christ?

We dream of those things too and ask for your continued support and commitment to pray and give generously this year.

With love,
Matt, Chris and Steve.