Mission statement

Our mission statement sets out what we are working towards together as a church.  Below we have provided links to three talks explaining what our mission statement means, and a briefer written explanation.

Mission statement

The Good Shepherd Mission exists to:

  • make Jesus known locally,
  • submit to His Lordship collectively and
  • walk daily with Him individually.

Talks

To find out more, you can listen to three sermons by our pastor Vincent Buchanan on the Mission statement:

Explanation

By “making Jesus known” we mean proclaiming Biblical truth about Jesus Christ and encouraging unbelievers to accept Him as their Lord. By “locally” we mean within the surrounding area of the church building (i.e. the area bordered by Old Bethnal Green Road to the north, Whitechapel Road to the south, Brick Lane to the west and Grove Road to the east). This means that we ask members of the Mission to commit to the work of serving Jesus’ command within this small patch of Tower Hamlets, whether they live in close proximity to the building or not. We are not suggesting that they neglect the opportunities to share their faith and life with those they live around, or friends or family; to do this would be to ignore the third part of the mission statement. But in our busy and demanding lives we often need to choose between committing time and resources to different potential evangelistic opportunities. We ask each member of the Mission to think through how they can contribute and support the local outreach work of the Mission; for those members of the Mission living outside the surrounding area of the church building this will mean “commuting” to evangelise and resource the work of the Mission.

By “collectively” we recognise that there is real significance in meeting together and engaging with each other as God’s people on a regular basis, whether on Sundays or during the week. Submitting to the Lordship of Christ in this context means using our gifts to encourage and hold each other accountable through the study and application of the Bible so that we may as a body grow into maturity with Jesus as our head. We think that part of this involves a new definition of what it means to be a member of the Mission, so we can all be clear as to our responsibilities towards each other as a body. The Leadership Team will in due course be producing a further document setting this out.

By “walking with Him individually” we recognise that, alongside our responsibilities to serve Christ as a body, we each have a responsibility to serve Him individually. We are encouraging members of the Mission to commit to individual prayer and Bible study on a daily basis. We need to recognise that our fallen nature means that we are likely to lapse back into sin, and that working out our salvation requires individual commitment on our part to ongoing and active repentance and faith, even as God’s Spirit works in our hearts to conform our thoughts and actions to God’s purposes.