Mission strategy is a multi-year program of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts for congregations growing in mission. Some of our mission work is a response to the Millenium Development Goals.
As members of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts we believe God in Christ is working everywhere in the world to heal, to reconcile, to love every person and all of creation into wholeness. Through the life, cross and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, the power of sin and death has been broken; life and hope is the new reality. It is our mission to join in God’s transforming mission. We will form our children, our young people and our adult members, through prayer, worship and Scripture, to become followers of Christ, that we might discern where God is carrying out this mission in our world. And we will send our people to serve with Christ, inviting everyone and all of creation to share in the just reign of God.
O gracious and loving God, you work everywhere reconciling, loving and healing your people and creation. In your Son and through the power of your Holy Spirit, you invite each of us to join you in your work. We, young and old, lay and ordained, ask you to form us more and more in your image and likeness, through our prayer and worship of you and through the study of your Scripture, that our eyes will be fully opened to your mission in the world. Then, God, into our communities, our nation and the world, send us to serve with Christ, taking risks to give life and hope to all people and all of your creation. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Inviting: We will bear witness to God’s reconciling love across boundaries of race and class, generation and language.
Forming: We will work, study, pray and give for our lifelong conversion in Christ.
Sending: We will send one another in the power of the Spirit into the ministries of our daily lives.
Serving: We will show forth the just reign of God in advocacy and action.
By 2013 we will:
Why should a church enter into a partnership with another local church?
This four session series is designed to help parish members answer this
vital question.
In response to the havoc wreaked on the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the government's inadequate response, Bishop Bud Cederholm and a group of concerned volunteers formed the Gulf Coast Task Force. The aim of the task force has been to provide medical relief, aid and labor for rebuilding and pastoral assistance to the people of Mississipi and Louisiana.
Young people are the future of the Episcopal Church, so Bishop Shaw and the diocese have made strengthening campus and young adult ministries a priority. There are currently 6 campus ministries in the diocese, with plans to establish more in the next 5-10 years.
The Jubilee Ministry is a group of individuals, laity and clergy, who
come together in the community of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese
of Massachusetts to help to repair the suffering inflicted by the
HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Creating a different church – different faces, different voices, different perspectives on what it means to be church.
Languages, cultures, colors, rhythms, histories, dances, traditions, music, races...all are made manifest in our cities. We commit ourselves as a diocese to develop the human, financial and programmatic resources necessary to bear Christ’s life and witness in urban centers so that we all might be transformed in the body of Christ.