THE COVENANT

Of: The churches in Alsager and district

1. We believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour according to the Scriptures.

2. We affirm that "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself" [Col.1:15] and has entrusted the continuing ministry of reconciliation to the church of which we are a part.

3. We recognise with gratitude the hand of God in our past history. Our various traditions emphasise important truths for our understanding of God and God's purposes for the world. We acknowledge in penitence, however, that the unity of Christ's church has not always been honoured through our denominational allegiances, and that Christ's ministry to the whole world has been hindered by our disunity.

4. We rejoice in the many ways in which we have already been given opportunities to work, worship and witness together in obedience to God. In the power of the Holy Spirit, we now joyfully come together in covenant and undertake by God's grace:-

To deepen our communion with Christ and with one another

To proclaim the gospel

To serve humanity

To extend God's kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven

To do together all that we can.

5. Thus we seek to make visible the unity in Christ we already enjoy and so to bring glory to the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

6. In making this covenant, we resolve to commit to God the rich variety of our Christian heritage, our patterns of worship, and our service to others, so that we may grow together in faith and action in His name.

What It Means in Practice:-

1. To plan & share together
We will communicate with each other so that individual church events do not compete for time and attention. Opportunities for sharing together should be identified at the earliest possible moment. We will seek to find occasions on which an increasing number of our individual members can be involved in fellowship and activity.

2. To pray together
We recognise the importance of prayer in the individual and corporate lives of God's people and will create opportunities for Christians of all denominations to join together in prayer and meditation.

3. To worship together
We acknowledge and value the joys and blessings that come from being able to worship together and will promote regular opportunities for shared worship that respects the differences between us while celebrating all that unites us in Christ.

4. To learn together
We will make opportunities to learn of God's plans for us, studying our common heritage of scripture and seeking to understand the riches of ideas and practices reflected in our denominational traditions.

5. To engage in mission and witness together
We realise the appearance of a divided church is confusing to those whom we wish to reach in mission and does not accord with Christ's wish for His Church. Therefore, we commit ourselves to inform our partner churches of any local mission activity, and to give every appropriate support to each other in our involvement in mission and witness. It is our intention to proclaim the good news of the gospel together to the town of Alsager.

6. To serve the community together
We acknowledge our call to serve those in need in our local community and across the world. We will be alert to respond to the needs of the elderly, the lonely, the sick, and the oppressed. We attach special importance to work which we can do together to serve the young people of our community and to enhance their Christian education.

We recognise that as time and circumstances change, the practical expression of our covenant together may need to be redefined. To that end we commit ourselves to a further review in the year 2005.

7. A statement of intent.
To reach the stage where we can add to the covenant under section four last line the words shown here in brackets - removing the brackets when adding them to the covenant.
[and only to do on our own that which we cannot do together]

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