april 08a

Dear Friends

YOU may remember, a couple of months ago that we asked members of both, congregations for help to find a 'Vision Statement' for our linked charge of, Holytown and Wrangholm Kirk. So many organisations and groups - including churches - have vision statements nowadays. Someone has said this: 'Aim at nothing and you. hit it every time', A Vision Statement gives us something to aim for. It attempts to put into words what we believe we are all about in the life of the church.

When our COSY Groups began last June, each of the 4 groups - Caring, Outreach, Support and Youth - was asked to find a Vision Statement for themselves. However, it was also suggested that it might be good for us to have a vision Statement for the whole congregation, a statement that pulls together the essence of, the 4 separate COSY statements.

There were a number of, efforts to create such a statement culminating in owe COSY, conference in January when two statements emerged as the favourites on that evening, but we needed to find out which statement members of the congregations thought would be best. It was then that we asked you to complete a survey indicating which statement you preferred. We took the results of that consultation to the February COSY Conference. One of the statements had a very large majority voting in favour of it (35 to 12) and the COSY Conference agreed to propose to both Kirk Sessions that we adopt that statement, with one alteration. As a result of our discussion and consultation the following statement has been approved:

There is a huge lot in that statement and I suspect it might take us a while to take it all in! However, our prayer is that this statement will inform our decision, making, our activity, our life and work and witness. Our prayer is that this statement will inspire us in our efforts to find out what God wants us to do so that we might indeed be the church at the heart of our communities. Our prayer is that God will help us as we seek to celebrate worship, offer support, provide a welcome and share the good news of Jesus. This vision statement encourages us to ask a lot of questions about what we are doing and what we want to do. It will give us a lot of things to work on as we move into the future together.

When we combine this 'Vision Statement with the Kirk Sessions' 'promise to each other' which was agreed at the end of last year, we have some very powerful and exciting principles to guide us. The ''Vision Statement' gives us our aim, and 'Our Promise to each other' helps us know the spirit in which we will work together to achieve it.

My prayer would be that as members of both congregations we will be able to rally round these statements and work together for Christ's kingdom in our communities.

Every blessing.

Iain