Community Action

Peter Baker | 20:40, Tuesday 28 February 2012

Firstly there's Mission. A Great Commission Church that goes into all the world with the gospel must also be a Great Commandment Church as we love God and our neighbour. 

So the Big Weekend gives expression to those two framework convictions. We are to be involved with the community around us by word and deed, demonstrating the good news which is at the heart of God’s Kingdom.

The "come and get it" of the holy huddle must be replaced by the "go and give it" of the community of grace. For grace is what the Kingdom is about. So carwashing, graffiti cleaning, litter picking, all free in this Big Weekend, is a sign to a world that in God's good news, we really do receive something freely and generously from Him in Christ. 

Among the many things we enjoy free is a sense of belonging to a new community.  That's the other theological driver-  the value and significance of community.  

Have you ever wondered why people matter in your life? Why it is that you need to belong to a network of relationships in which you find joy, fulfilment and love? 

The Christian faith says that we are made that way because we are designed by a God who lives in relationship as Father, Son and Spirit. The God of Trinity undergirds and shapes the nature of all reality. Therefore living, loving interaction between persons is at the heart of everything. Community is vital to our identity and contributes to our emotional and physical well being.

Recent surveys have found that the increase of loneliness and unhappiness is directly connected to the loss and breakdown of such positive relationships and community. The Big Weekend is a great opportunity to join the dots with the actual community of Cathays. For Churches like Highfields provide one of the few remaining, stable environments in modern society where people of all ages and backgrounds can be together.

So when people drop into our Dalton Street Centre and see the Elderly Luncheon Club, or turn up in the Church itself, and taste one of the many community based programmes like English Conversation classes, pre-school music clubs, and of course the Sunday services, what we profile is the new community which God creates through faith in Christ. 

It’s in such environments that we discover what it means to be fully human as we relate to each other and to God. Our Big Weekend celebrates the God of Mission and grace, it flags the Church at the heart of the community, sign posting a new quality of relationship. 

These are reasons to celebrate and get involved. Go to the Sign Up Page and do just that... sign up .. for an hour or two on Saturday. Give and live grace.