Bath Deanery Everyone a disciple / Everyone a disciple-maker

LICC's overall mission is to make The Core Question: How will we reach the UK with the good news of Jesus? (NB: This is not a church renewal programme!) …………………………………………………………… Aim of the day is to address this question: reach the UK? How can we, the ppl of God, and you, church leaders, tasked with leading and discipling the ppl of God, help one another be effective in the places we find ourselves (frontlines), and equip ppl to live fruitfully where they spend most of their time. In a sense, less interested in the form of church… ..more interested in the PURPOSE of your church. Responsibility: listen to the Spirit …………………………………………………… Talk through materials LICC's overall mission is to make whole-life discipleship unavoidable and central in the lives of the people and leaders of the UK church.

“A missionary encounter with the West will have to be primarily, a ministry of the laity. .. the revitalization of the office of the believer is crucial, for two reasons: first, the church’s witness will be much more credible if it comes from those who not belong to the guild of pastors; and second, only in this way will we begin to bring together what our culture has divided, the private and the public, for the lay members of the church clearly belong to the public square and secular world, whereas the pastors [are perceived] to belong to a separate “religious” world’. Believing in the Future, 1989 / pub. posth. 1995 David Bosch

“We need to create, above all, possibilities in every congregation for laypeople to share with one another the actual experience of their weekday work and to seek illumination from the gospel for their daily secular duty… For while there are occasions when it is proper for the church to make pronouncements on public issues, it is much more important that all its lay members be prepared and equipped to think out the relationship of their faith to their secular work. Here is where the real missionary encounter takes place”. Foolishness to the Greeks, 1986 Lesslie Newbigin

learning to live the way of Jesus in their context at this moment

“One of the most common reflections we heard from frontline congregations was that people lacked ‘confidence’ in applying their faith into their Monday to Saturday lives.”

we need a root and branch, top to bottom examination of every aspect of church life through the lens of one question: “How does what we do as a church, ordained and lay together, enable God’s people to grow in their capacity to live out the Good News of Jesus in all of life – in service in the church and in the world?” Until, together, ordained and lay, we form and equip lay people to follow Jesus confidently in every sphere of life in ways that demonstrate the Gospel we will never set God’s people free to evangelise the nation.

To place mission and evangelism at the heart of everything we do In response to God’s immense love for us, we seek to be God’s people living and telling the story of Jesus. To place mission and evangelism at the heart of everything we do This means that we will shape our life together to serve and embrace our communities better; we will undertake activities and initiatives with an explicitly missional purpose and engage proactively with our communities at a personal, parish, deanery and diocesan level. To realign our ministry resources towards mission This means that we will shift the balance of the resources we deploy towards mission and provide resources for explicitly missional roles; that we will seek numerical and spiritual growth as we trust in the leading and guiding of God’s Holy Spirit. To identify, develop and use the gifts of all our people This means that we will seek new ministry models that help us to make best use of the gifts and talents that God has given to his people; that we will seek to build congregations that flourish through serving each other, serving their communities and witnessing to the love of God in Jesus Christ.

LICC – formed by John Stott, 30 years ago Connect the two… Work out in the church ……………………………….. Personal background Fellow servant, not as an expert but as a leader on a journey like you…learning and trying to live out what I am sharing with you. Trying to do it! Now! Love the church! ………………………………. Why are you here? Come hoping for? How would you like to leave? Now is the time to move! Afternoon: lot to talk about and possible next steps/ practical Contact in 3 months time: option …………………………………………………