evangelism | worship | fellowship | discipleship | ministry

The Vision

Our hopes and expectations of small groups at St Andrew's are 5 fold, and express something which the leadership team of the church would like to see come to birth.

HG = Home Group
Small groups are to be an essential and integral part of church life. Not an optional extra for those really keen, but a key part of church life, that is seen as important by all. Home groups should be a place where church teaching is expanded upon and applied, evangelism is a priority, and the group has a life that is as dynamic and life-giving as meeting together on a Sunday. People should value their home group so highly that they don't want to miss it, because they know they need it for fellowship and support and growth. 

Increasingly it seems that the Lord is calling St Andrew's to become more and more missionary minded. Home Groups are a means of growing churches by reaching out to those on the fringes of our church and society. They should be a healthy, loving, safe place to bring friends and those seeking, and open to receiving new people all the time. Home Groups can be a powerful witness of Christ working within the body also by the way members of the group are cared for. 

The church is currently running a weekly congregation of over 1000 people - in fact probably closer to 1200. There is no way a leadership team of 6 people can know all of those people, let alone pastor them. It is essential there is a 2nd tier leadership system in place so that everyone has a place, everyone knows who their pastor is and can be shepherded accordingly. This is where you come in - we need our leaders our shepherds to take their responsibility seriously and to care for those under them. We need you to become shepherds to shepherd the ever-increasing number of sheep that come through the doors on Sunday 

With this in mind - a huge church - we would like to see St Andrew's running 100 home groups at least to ensure the church body is all pastored. Currently there are about 25 home groups - so we have a long way to go - but the first step is to mobilize the leadership and for us to grasp how important and life giving small groups can be. 

Lastly we want to see the church as a body of people who are equipped for service. Our home groups need to be a place where people can grow spiritually but also a place where they can learn to take more responsibility and can grow into their ministry and eventually becoming leaders themselves. We need to be better at growing leaders and we need to be willing to allow people to be released to serve in different capacities in the church and to become leaders of small groups themselves. 

Robert Warren (C of E's officer for mission) has said, "We need to build missionary congregation". 

AS the Home Groups grow in number, it is essential that they are well-pastored and that their leaders have someone to whom they can go for support, guidance and accountability. With an increasing number of groups this is obviously impossible for one person to manage. In St. Andrew's we have therefore set up a system of Cluster Leaders. Under the supervision of our Associate Minister, they pastor the Home Group leaders and their groups; each Cluster Leader looks after about five groups. Since the Home Group membership and structure is intended to be synonymous with the membership of the whole church (i.e. if you are a member of the church you express that membership within a small group), Cluster Leaders need to be recognised by the church as a whole. They are therefore commissioned publicly by the whole church in order to fulfill their key role of pastoral care.

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