Heald Green United Reformed Church

Dear Friends

This week sees yet another important church meeting in the life of our church. The main item for our discussions together will be the Elders meetings suggestions for restructuring the leadership, maintenance and pastoral teams of the church. The ideas are in the pack, ‘A Church Fit for Mission – reforming structures’, (copies are available at church if you haven’t received one). The pack is the result of several months work on the part of the Eldership and myself.

The restructuring of this area of our churches life is important in order for us to be as ready as possible for the challenges ahead. There is no suggestion whatsoever that our current Eldership is not performing well, but only that there are shortcomings with the current structures which are not allowing people to offer their best or use peoples skills and time as efficiently and effectively as possible.

So rest assured that this is not ‘change for change sake’, wasting our time tinkering with structures for little benefit, but neither are these simple changes going to transform the life of our church in itself. These are just simple changes to structures.

However, these proposed new structures we hope will help things run even more smoothly and efficiently. Enabling those with practical skills to ease the maintenance burden on the Eldership, freeing the Eldership to focus on the future of our church and equipping us all to play our part in caring for each other as a church fellowship.

All these changes we hope will also help the church be a stronger fellowship as we face the challenges of growing in our fait and connecting more and more with our community, all with the real possibility of the time I have to spend working here being stretched more and more thinly as the strains on our District Council increase. The number of churches without ministers is growing, as is the number of churches each minister will have pastoral charge of. Already I am Pastoral Advisor at two churches in Burnage, and I have district responsibilities for providing information and support on Mission and Evangelism to the rest if the district, but all ministers in the district will soon have to do even more.

However, don’t be alarmed by this, these are the realities of being a United Reformed Church minister today and I am confident that less can (and will have to) mean more. The churches that will continue to grow in these challenging times are those making changes now, ensuring stronger local leadership is in place to working alongside ordained ministers.

As such, I am confident of a bright future for our church, as we continue to change and adapt to the challenges of being a vibrant United Reformed Church to our community in Heald Green. Sharing together the ministry of this church and planning for the future mission and growth of our church together.

God bless,

Mike