Meeting Wed 17th July – MU project: Metamorphosis
Our Churchwarden, Janet Chettle, was our invited guest and spoke about the MU project – Metamorphosis.
Janet started by explaining that she thought the MU would be interested in learning a little bit about herself before talking about the MU project Metamorphosis. She was born in Cheshire, but she and her family moved around the country a lot due to her husband’s job. This led to her belonging to many different churches. She highlighted the impact these had on her life,
particularly the Rector of Dunblane, a very inspiring man, who encouraged her to further her education. Due to this when the family moved to Lancashire, she was able to work at Lancaster University as a lecturer, latterly moving to the University of Central Lancashire where she was a Senior Lecturer in Human Resources Management until she retired last
year.
This April she was invited by a friend to go on a weekend of contemplation and prayer at the Hays Christian Conference Centre in Derbyshire. It was a wonderful weekend which supported her in deepening her faith and was excellent preparation for taking on the role of Churchwarden. While there she met representatives from the Mothers Union who introduced her to their initiative – Metamorphosis.
Janet then explained that the aim of Metamorphosis is to think about how we as a Church can grow and engage with our community by considering how we can implement changes to achieve this. Janet said that some really good work has been done already at St Luke’s but there is always more to do.
The aim is to empower and envision you to step out in faith. To discern God’s call for you and your Church and to understand your community as you work together for change.
Metamorphosis is a six-stage process to support us in building our confidence and skills to engage with the local community:
1. Listening to God ourselves and others – This links to the reading from 1 Samuel verses 3-10 which as we heard Samuel didn’t realise at first that God was calling him. Janet asked us to think about how often we listen to God and what he is calling
us do.
2. Discovering our vision – the definition of this is “long term goals or purpose” she asked us to think about what we want to achieve as a MU.
3. Celebrating our resources – Identifying the skills and knowledge that we have within our MU.
4. Building relationships – Janet asked us to think about the relationship we have with other groups and institutions within our community.
5. Understanding our community – some questions she asked us to consider – Do we know what the needs of our community are? Do we understand the issues that people in our community face? How can we come together to meet these local needs. Janet linked this to Nehemiah 1-5 where a community came together to meet a need. They all contributed and together achieved something great.
6. Stepping out in faith – having completed the first 5 steps we are ready to act.
Janet then gave some examples of actions from other MU’s around the country and asked members to write suggestions of community needs on Post-it notes which she will pass to Carole for the MU to consider at a future meeting.
She summarised by saying that there are a range of things already where we are reaching out into community, but it is about building on these and growing in faith so that St Luke’s is at the heart of the community and that we as Christians are seen as reaching out into our community and supporting it.
Janet finished her talk with prayer.
Our next MU meeting will be on 18th Sept in St Luke’s Church Hall at 2pm, entitled ‘Bring and Buy Bible’. Bring an article you can find in the Bible and tell us where you can find it and any information you can find out about it.
Hope to see you there but if you need any more information please ring me on 07942 900292, or HC 533882.