newsletter building God’s house through Christ Church and St George’s — Stamford Called


For many at St George’s, the news that Dave and Kim Maylor are moving on to pastor the Barnack group in February came as a great surprise. As I have been closer to the action as it were, I have seen this calling growing in Dave alongside my own ministry in the Barnack group at Wittering. I was involved in a previous round of interviews to find a minister for the Barnack group which came to nothing. All the time this was going on God’s call was being placed in David’s heart for this post.


Encouraged


I am greatly encouraged at how the Lord is growing the vision of using St George’s to build His House in the wider area. If you remember back to my original sense that God was calling us to 10 congregations in 10 years, as we look back we can see how he has opened up the s e possibilities in ways which we wouldn’ t have guessed if we had tried.


Minster Model


We talked in the past about St George’s being a Minister Model or Resource Church to the wider area and over the last 18 months he has o p e n e d u p t h e r e s p o n s i b i l i t y o f partnering with Christ Church and now a new relationship with the whole Barnack group


through our relationship with Dave and Kim. These opportunities are not about St George’s getting bigger or taking over, but about helping to resource and grow other local churches in the area through mutual relationships, thus helping to build God’s House together. It is going to be very good to have Dave and Kim so close!


Rebuilding the staff team


With Dave moving on and Margaret Chirico retiring we now have an opportunity to rebuild the staff team for the next phase of ministry at St George’s. Even before we knew that Dave was moving on, we had decided to bring together an element of Dave’s ministry and combine it with pastoral care to create a new post for an ‘Associate Minister for Small Groups and Pastoral Care.’ This will be a senior post in the church and we are looking for someone who has leadership gifts and experience in both growing a small group ministry and pastoral experience. We are praying for God’s person whether they be lay or ordained.


At the same time the PCC at Christ Church has agreed that it would be good to look for a part time minister to be pastorally responsible up at Christ Church. They have increased their budget for next year to help contribute towards this and I will be applying


www.stgeorgeschurch.net bGh_


to the Bishop to access some of his mission fund to enable this to happen. Please pray about this post as well. We are so grateful to all that Peter Hart contributes up at Christ Church but we do need to release him from th i s r e spon s i bi l i t y sometime in the New Year.


Mind the gap


In the mean time we need to plan to cover some of the gaps that will appear in the New Year as we wait for new staff members to come on board. We are talking to a short term ‘ministry apprentice’ who is considering ordination about joining the staff for a six month period. I will be meeting to talk and plan with the musicians, the 4:30 congregation, the small group leadership team and others involved in pastoral care before Christmas so that we can ‘mind the gap.’ Please do pray for us as we have these discussions and make decisions.


Thank you for all you are doing to help in the building of God’s House.


December 2011 Inside this


Edition … Page 2 & 3—Mission News


Staff Vacancy Sermon Series


Page 4—Calling Grandmothers Christmas services


Page 6—Book Review


Diary Dates Page 7—Poem


Page 8—What’s on… Happy Christmas,


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