Our Mission as a Church in the Grenoble region (primarily) for English language speakers involves

1 Worship - celebrating & praising God and expressing our response to him, which involves every aspect of our lives. (“Love God”)

2 Service - showing God’s love through practical care. (“Love your neighbour”)

3 Evangelism - presenting Jesus and the Christian faith to those who do not yet know him personally. (“Make disciples”)

4 Fellowship - building relationships of love between members, in which we are known, cared for, held accountable and encouraged in our spiritual journey. (“Love one another”)

5 Discipleship - helping people to grow to maturity in Christ.  Healing our hurts, identifying our gifts, strengths and calling, and encouraging and supporting us as we minister to others, both inside and outside the Church.  (“Grow in grace & knowledge of our Lord”)

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1st Service

Objective: To fulfil our mission within the Anglican framework of worship and ministry, so as to connect with those of a more traditional Church background.

Assumptions about attendees: Are seeking a service which is based on the rich heritage of the liturgy of the Anglican Church.
Feel comfortable within a structured environment for worship, which emphasises reverence to God and corporate responses.
Appreciate traditional hymnody as well as contemporary music.
Guidelines: Will use Anglican forms of worship from the Church of England’s “Common Worship”.  Services will generally include penitence, bible readings, prayer and a credal statement.

Music will normally include 2 or 3 hymns of traditional style. Guitars for songs will be acoustic (“unplugged” style).  A regular repertoire of hymns & songs will be built to encourage familiarity.  A choir will sing during communion whenever possible.

The Anglican bible reading plan will be followed from Advent to Trinity, and this will generally guide the preaching.  The Bible will be clearly seen as the source of Christian teaching. 

Prayer may be structured and use written sources.

Notes

We must decide how many of these services will be of Holy Communion and the format for others (2 or 3 HC; 1 Morning Prayer style; 1 Quieter, reflective ‘Service of the Word’ perhaps).

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2nd Service

Objective: To fulfil our mission in ways that resonate well with contemporary life and are accessible, relevant and attractive even to un-churched and non-Christian people.

Assumptions about attendees: May have deep, little or no Christian education or background.  May or may not accept or be ambivalent or cynical about all things Christian (people, practices, beliefs, institutions. Are inquisitive, wondering and seeking to understand how God can apply to their daily, secular, practical lives. May be uncomfortable with written, traditional liturgy.  Prefer contemporary music & message styles and personal responses.

Guidelines: Services will be sensitive to those who are not used to Church, so that people feel comfortable & confident to invite others to attend.  Church jargon will be avoided, and no assumptions made that attendees have read any of the bible or are familiar with the Christian message.  Service style is “free”, without written liturgy.

Music is contemporary in style, with amplified guitars & drum kit..  A regular repertoire of songs will be built to encourage familiarity, but this will be updated constantly with current material.

Messages will be theme based, in series, with no formal Lectionary being followed.  The Bible will be clearly seen as the source of Christian teaching.

The use of multimedia, art, personal story & testimony, drama, visual aids will be encouraged.

Prayer will be free and natural, related to the service.

Attendees will be encouraged to ask questions at the end of services.

Notes

When Holy Communion is offered at this service people will be invited during sung worship to move in their own time to one of several points to serve themselves (or each other) with bread & wine (or grape juice).  We hope this will enable those who are not Christians to feel more at ease in not taking communion.

Collections at this service will be taken via boxes, with visitors not asked to give.  Teaching about Christian giving will be given as appropriate.

People to help with giving messages will be sought amongst local English speakers in other Churches and missionaries working in the area.

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Our Aim is to help everyone to enjoy a relationship with God in Christ & the Holy Spirit, and to grow to maturity and active membership of the Church of Christ, so they can experience the fulness of life which Jesus came to bring us (John 10v10).

Recognising the different cultural backgrounds and expectations of Church members and of those outside our Church, and in a desire to connect with as many people as possible, we resolve to offer two Sunday services in place of the current one.  These services will have different styles and emphases, but be part of the one church, and we seek to maintain unity and mutual support amongst all those who are part of St Marc’s Church.

It is important that all Church members should be helped to understand the vision which motivates this change, and to support it with their help and service for the sake of one another, whatever our personal preferences.

Timing: We believe that there is little demand for an evening or afternoon service, and that the logistical difficulties of our building, personnel and other arrangements would make it unproductive to run two services in parallel.   Given that our building is used on Sundays by the Eglise Reformée (in the Red Room) from 9h00 to 10h00 and by the Roman Catholics (in the Grand Volume) from 09h30 to 10h30, any overlap of our worship with theirs will need to be by the quieter 1st Service.  (We shall have to consult with both these Churches.)  We propose that our two services should be linked by a half hour refreshment time between them, to encourage sharing & fellowship between those attending either or both services.  Possible timings would be:

Option            A                 B                 C                 D

                     09h30          09h45          10h00          10h15         1st service

                     10h30          10h45          11h00          11h15         Refreshments

                     11h00          11h15          11h30          11h45         2nd service

                     12h00          12h15          12h30          12h45         end

A survey of current Church attendees should be undertaken to determine the choice of timings.

Attendance: Everyone will, of course, be free to attend either or both services whenever they wish. An advantage of two services is that those helping in crèche, with children’s work, cooking, etc. can attend the other service, whereas presently they miss out on most of the service.

Children’s work: Our children’s work is vitally important, and must be strengthened by our decisions.  We propose offering separate children’s groups alongside both services, and will look to committed Church members to offer their help to enable this, perhaps attending one service and teaching children during the other one.  A survey will be needed to see who will be willing to help how, and if this therefore is viable (offers will be vetted by Stephen).  The youth group will most probably have a common Sunday school time during one of the services, enabling them to serve or pursue another activity during the other service. This will be a matter of discussion between the group, their parents, and the leaders.

Sacraments: It may be possible to normally offer Holy Communion every Sunday at one of the services, and thought should be given to whether this would be helpful to any.  Baptism can be administered at either service.

Family Services: It seems that our children do not generally enjoy or find these helpful, and we have not yet discovered people with a gift for leading them.  It is proposed therefore that they will only be offered quarterly at Church festival times (Harvest, Christmas, Easter) and perhaps during the summer if personnel are too few to run separate classes for children.

Church meals: We believe that our monthly shared Church meal has been an important part of our Church life, and would like this to continue. We would propose continuing to hold this on the first Sunday of each month (except August), following the 2nd service.  A survey should be taken to see who would be willing to help with this (perhaps attending the 1st service and preparing the meal during the 2nd), and who would stay on from the 1st service to attend (perhaps helping prepare, attending the 2nd service as well, or returning for the meal), to establish the viability of this proposal.

Midweek meetings: No Sunday services can fulfil all of our Church’s mission.  We strongly encourage people from both services to become members of midweek groups meeting for fellowship, bible study, prayer and ministry.  Outreach, social and other events will supplement these.  We hope that this will encourage mixing and learning from each other, and strengthen Church unity.

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Proceeding from here:  Church Council to be sent this document for debate on 9th June.

Distribution of this document to everyone after approval/amendment by the Council.

Stephen to preach on our Church’s Mission & vision to the Church in July, and to put this document into that context.

A number of Church members to be prepared to visit all Church members to talk this over with them, and to get their views for our survey, especially finding out what parts they will be willing to play to enable this to move on - offers of help with children’s work, music for each service, practical aspects of setting up, input of ideas for the multimedia aspects of the 2nd service, etc.  Also getting an idea of how many people would expect to attend which services, and especially of which of the timings will work for the most people.

A group of those interested in the 2nd service to meet to plan the themes for the first three months of services, and to begin to collect the material needed.

The new pattern of services to start in October 2004.