On Saturday, we had a morning together to look back on what we have done in the past, what’s going on now, and what we want to do in the future.
We started off looking back from 1973 to today, remembering what has gone on at Beechwood Chapel since the day that the congregation first started meeting at the Manor Primary School on the estate. It was great to look back and remember many encouraging times, to see what God has done to bring us to this point.
Next, we looked at what the Bible says about church – what is it for? Why do we meet together? We came to the conclusion that there are three really important things the church is to do according to the Bible. They are to worship God, to teach one another and grow as christians, and finally to share the message of the gospel.
After that, we thought about the future. In light of what we had just discussed, what did we want to see happen at Beechwood Chapel over the next 15 years? We wanted to be ambitious and bold, thinking of what God might do within our church and in peoples lives on the estate and the local area.
Finally, we spent some time coming up with a vision statement to help direct our strategic planning in the years to come. We came up with the following statement which describes what we exist to do:
Introducing people to Jesus and growing together as his followers for God’s glory.
See our Who we are page to find a breakdown of this statement.
So, we are now ready to face up to our current challenges, encouraged by what we had time to look at, directed by the message of the Bible, and equipped with our new vision statement.
Beechwood Chapel 