About Us

Framework for the Future

Christ Church St Albans - the shape of things to come.

INTRODUCTION

Over the past 12 months the PCC has spent a lot of time considering what Christ Church should be doing over the coming years. We have been asking

“What is God calling us to now? What should we be doing?” Or to put it another way:

What do we want to look like in 5 years time?

And how do we get there?

We have arrived at a place where we now have a Framework for the future which gives us some idea of what we will look like.

This is the fullest expression we yet have of the shape God is asking of us as a Christian community. But what is the Framework for the future?

KINGDOM and CHURCH

To begin with we must get back to the Big Picture, the biggest one of all to find a context in which all that we think and do can bear fruit. That Big Picture, in the New Testament, is always concerned with the coming of the Kingdom rather than with “building a church”. The kingdom is God’s active reign coming into the here and now. “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” is talking specifically about NOW not some distant time in the future. And we, the people of God, are meant to be the agents of God’s activity on earth. If he is acting it usually has to be through us.

So we have what is being called a Vocation which is always laid upon us: to be the people of God and to do the works of the Kingdom.

But how does that vocation work out in our life together? What does it look like? It works out in FOUR different ways.

We are already committed to our vision which gives shape and direction to all we do: to be an all age community on a journey of faith making the edge the centre. And we have a long standing commitment to every member ministry. These can be seen as Guiding Principles.
Secondly, of course, we do things together: meet, have projects, pray together etc. In the first instance these are our activities. We really have complete choice over our activities; whether we do them or not. The question always is are they fulfilling our vocation? Are we doing the works of the kingdom through our activities?
However there are some activities which are a bit more fundamental. They don’t just happen as one-offs but need to go on and on. They are a skeleton which needs to be in place always for Christ Church to function effectively. These are Structures. They need to be directly relevant to our vocation or they enable the vocation to be fulfilled. By this we mean things like the PCC and Action Groups which administer and organise our life; and also things like our Sunday Services, Alpha and Small Groups through which we actually are Christian community.
Within all we do – every activity, all the structures, and the way we do those things – there are FOUR Key Tasks. These are measures of whether or not what we are doing is relevant, healthy and worthwhile, namely Worship, Discipleship Formation, Mission and Spirituality.

Each of these needs a lot of explaining and we will be looking at them a lot. But here is the brief outline again:

VOCATION Being the people of God,doing the works of the Kingdom.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES Making the edge the centre, we aim to be an All Age Community on a shared journey of faith. Also every member ministry.

ACTIVITIES The things we do. Can be very varied and not long term. But must deliver the vocation.

STRUCTURES The things we do which provide a skeleton for all of our life such as Sunday Services, PCC, Alpha, Small Groups.

KEY TASKS Worship, Mission, Discipleship Formation, Spirituality.

This is our Framework for the Future.