Our Church's Mission

World Mission is central to the life of the church. Mission is taking Gods Word to Gods World by means of both word and deed.

ST BOTOLPH'S CHURCH - SUPPORT FOR MISSIONS
St Botolph's Church takes seriously the task of supporting the work of both overseas and home missions. Its budget for this is reviewed annually by the Missions Committee, which makes its recommendations to the PCC. In addition to this, individuals in the fellowship support such missions as they feel led , and an annual Missionary Shareplan scheme operates to make a love-gift to one or other of our link missionaries.

Missionary Commitee

The current Mission Committee consists of Derek Wade (Chairman), Gill Thornton, Debby Palmer, Mary Morris Jones, Geoff Fawkes, Philippa Simper, Jane Wade and Roger Pedley.

Annual Missionary Shareplan
This is an annual scheme whereby individuals can, if they so wish, contribute towards a financial gift to one of our Link Workers. The intention is that this is a love-gift to the Link Workers personally (rather than their sponsoring mission), for them to spend as they think fit, to help them with either their domestic lives or their ministry. It is a tangible way of saying to them, "We are right behind you in your work". The Shareplan scheme works by individuals committing themselves to purchasing one or more "shares", each share being £1 per month for one year. After that, the commitment ceases unless the individual wishes to renew it for the following year. Each year the gift is sent to one or other of our Link Workers, in rotation, the sum usually being in the region of £1,500. To contribute to the Missionary Shareplan, please telephone 01536 723893 (+44 1536 723893 from outside the UK).

Missions supported

A local church cannot literally go into all the world. Our  interest, support, giving have to be directed if it is going to be effective.In order to be able to give a worthwhile sum to each of the missions supported. It was agreed some years ago to divide the total sum into six equal "pots". One each of five pots is allocated to the five major missions which the Church supports, with the remaining pot kept in reserve for smaller donations and one-off responses to emergency appeals.

The five major missions currently supported are:

CMJ (Church's Ministry among Jewish People) - A ministry to bring the truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Jewish people, both in this country and abroad.

 

CPAS (Church Pastoral Aid Society) - An Anglican mission whose aim is to provide help for churches in the U.K. It does this by, for instance, providing training courses for leaders and by publishing a variety of types of literature and study notes.

St Botolph's is pleased to support this mission, not least because of all the help it provides us with in our work with children and teenagers.

 

Crosslinks - An evengelical Anglican  mission which works in many parts of the world, both by sending missionaries who work with their particular professional skills, and by training and literature projects with the people in the various countries. The work of Crosslinks in which St Botolph's is particularly interested is the work in the continent of Africa.

 

Eurovangelism - An interdenominational mission operating in Eastern Europe, whose aim is to support the work of national churches and individual national Christians as they try to spread the gospel in their own countries. Part of the work of Eurovangelism involves humanitarian aid through its humanitarian ministry EuroAid. St Botolph's also supports EuroAid's annual "Harvest for the Hungry" project, which helps hundreds of thousands of desperate people in Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania and Serbia.

St Botolph's Lay Reader, Derek Wade is a director of Eurovangelism.

 

OMF International (Overseas Missionary Fellowship) - A mission working in the Far East. Much of its work involves the support of "tentmaking", a process where Christians work in a community, in secular employment which is of use to the community. The act of living their lives according to Christian principles is itself a witness which is appropriate in cultures where overt proselytising is unacceptable or even illegal.