Over the coming year (2018) we are keen to press on with implementing the vision the Lord has given us to:
- Make, train and equip disciples who love and serve Jesus, who love and serve one another and who love and serve their neighbours
- Be the church across SW London through central celebration and local mission
- Plant churches across the capital, by training and equipping potential church planters and by sending and nurturing those called by God
God has called us to make, train and equip disciples who love and serve Jesus, who love and serve one another and who love and serve their neighbours
Bible
Over 2018 we will continue to use Sundays as our primary opportunity to train and equip disciples through regular and faithful teaching from the Bible and the whole counsel of Scripture. In the spring term, we plan to teach a series entitled ‘Rhythms of Grace’ exploring ways in which the ancient practices of the spiritual disciplines can help us deepen our relationships with Christ, His Church and His Cause. We will mark various elements of the church calendar including Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Advent and Christmas to remind ourselves of the narrative of the Scriptures and the larger story of which we, as Christians, are a part.
Prayer
Prayer must remain the underpinning of all that we do as a church and over the coming year we plan to continue teaching regularly on the subject as well continuing more formal opportunities for people to gather together and to pray. We are delighted that we will be once again joining with churches across the nation in the Archbishops of Canterbury and York’s ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ call to prayer. This wonderful initiative, supported by Churches Together, is an invitation to churches of all denominations to join with the whole family of God in prayer, to pray for the empowering of the Holy Spirit, that we might be more effective witnesses to God the Son, Jesus Christ. Again, we will be inviting all members of SW London Vineyard to make prayer a priority as we continue to support and encourage a whole host of prayer groups across the whole SW London region.
Naturally Supernatural
We remain fully committed to signs and wonders and look forward to further encouraging church members to be ‘naturally supernatural’ in all aspects of their lives, stepping out of their comfort zones to invite the Spirit of God to speak, bless and heal their friends and neighbours. In particular, we plan to encourage a greater emphasis on prophecy both at church on Sundays and across our local communities through the rest of the week.
We plan to develop ministry training opportunities across the church in a variety of ways over the course of the year and look forward to seeing this strengthen and equip those who are already following Jesus as well as those who don’t yet know Him.
Students
With Charlie Nohre having joined the Staff Team in November 2017, we are looking forward to developing closer links with Roehampton University over the course of 2018 through the excellent work being done by the Chaplaincy, the Student Union and the Christian Union.
In February, Charlie will host our first Student, 20s & 30s Weekend Away and we look forward to seeing both how relationships and ministries develop from there.
We will start a range of Small Groups and social activities specifically intended to be accessible for local students as we seek to build with this group over the coming year.
We plan to continue building on our existing relationship with the Chaplaincy, Student Union and Christian Union on campus and hope to have a presence at the university through their Local Faith Partnership programme. Given the relationships Charlie is developing with the Student Union we plan to work more closely with their Volunteering Co-Ordinator to explore ways in which students can get involved in serving in church ministries like Foodbank, Job Club and a range of other areas.
Youth
With the numbers of youth and young people in the church and surrounding area around the Ark, Charlie, Matt & Lydia plan to both disciple those young people the Lord has already sent us as well as win the lost through outreach-focused ministries including sports, socials etc. They plan to use the recently updated Youth Alpha Film Series to equip and engage both those young people who have a faith as well as those who may have questions about faith.
Charlie is building excellent working relationships with the teaching staff at Ark Academy and in 2018 plans to roll out a student support programme for pupils at the Ark. This will include setting up a mentoring programme, inviting people from SWLV to speak at school assemblies and events, create work placement opportunities with those from SWLV and offer careers’ advice. After Easter Charlie hopes to set up a ‘Revise’ tutoring and coaching club for pupils in Year 10 to help them reach their goals for next year’s GCSEs.
We will, of course, continue to run a range of Small Groups and activities for youth including DTI and Soul Survivor.
God has called us to be the church across SW London through central celebration and local mission
Central Celebration
Evening Service
Following the success of our Evenings of Worship and given the diversity and range of people coming towards the church both in terms of socio-economic background and age & stage, we have increasingly been feeling the Lord leading us to add a regular additional service to our central celebrations on Sundays. Rather than recreating an additional Sunday morning service we are keen to pilot an entirely different style and feel evening service at the Ark.
The plan is to pilot this service after the Easter holidays and run it during term time over the next few terms to see if it proves beneficial. To help us create diversity of style we plan to run a series of different focussed services each week of the month. These would include an evening of uninterrupted worship, one framed around a theological discussion, one focussed on training and equipping in spiritual gifts and the other with an emphasis on developing life skills relevant to the demographic.
This kind of evening service would also provide an excellent space to train and develop a new tier of leaders, giving them the opportunity to run and lead things in ways that don’t currently exist.
Local Mission
We will continue and further develop our focus on local mission as we plan to both grow existing areas of ministry and pioneer new ones.
We will continue with our compassion and justice ministries such as Foodbank, Job Club, Counselling, Little Fish, English Language Classes etc. and will continue to use the connections built through these opportunities to serve those in our local communities to invite more and more people along to church on a Sunday or to our Small Groups.
Over the coming year we are planning on working more closely in partnership with a range of local organisations to help make the borough a better place to live. For us this is a reflection of the kingdom of God breaking through and we look forward to seeing how we can more effectively work together to achieve this goal. Our hope is that we will work alongside local organisations including Hestia, the Besom, Glass Door and the Katherine Low Settlement in supporting and developing initiatives to benefit those most in need across our communities. These would include refugees and asylum seekers, the homeless, those escaping domestic violence and local families in need.
God has called us to plant churches across the capital, by training and equipping potential church planters and by sending and nurturing those called by God
International Church Planting Resourcing
As part of our on-going commitment to church planting and development, we will continue to work with our International Mission partners over the course of 2018 with a specific focus on resourcing and developing International Church Planting.
We will continue to build our relationship with the Yangon Vineyard and over 2018 will begin a leadership training and coaching network to support the church planters and their leaders. We will begin to work with them as they explore further church planting in Mandalay and as they build together with the region and explore church planting in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. Our hope that this will be the beginning of a missional partnership to the region and look forward to seeing how this unfolds.
As part of our on-going commitment to international church planting and development we will continue to develop relationships with Vineyard churches in Denmark, Spain and are beginning to explore ways in which we can support the rapidly emerging church in Iran.
Whilst we do not anticipate any direct church planting from SWLV we plan to use our resources and expertise in this field to help other churches fulfil their church planting and church growth potential.