Our Vision
We are a large Sheffield-based missionary church, with a vision to ‘call our city back to God’. This means that we are working for a regenerated, healthy, prosperous city with strong and open communities and freedom from addiction, crime and violence, as well as opportunities for people to choose to follow Jesus.
We feel called to:
· Build community around our homes, fostering an ethos of mutual care, friendship and support in our local neighbourhoods.
· Support our schools and community centres, working with children and youth to promote positive values and behaviour, as well as an understanding of the Christian faith.
· Invest in students and young adults, working to raise up the next generation to become men and women who will impact our nation for good.
· Build relationships in our places of work which allow high productivity with strong teams of colleagues, while also deepening friendships and support.
· Work with the poor and the marginalised, including addicts and sex workers. We have a number of members choosing to live in some of the more deprived areas of the city in order to live in community with those people.
· Invest time, money and effort into the city of Sheffield to help regeneration and growth.
We like to operate with the values of ‘low control – high accountability’.
Low Control - St. Thomas’ is organised into missional communities who gather together around a common vision such as reaching out to a particular area of the city, sharing certain interests or even doing similar types of jobs. These groups naturally grow as people express the vision they feel that they have for their life. We encourage our members to start groups as they feel a sense of calling to do so.
High Accountability – Leaders of missional communities meet regularly with each other and with members of the staff team, holding each other accountable about what they do in their groups and how they do it. The basic principles for this accountability are described by Lifeshapes.
To read Paul’s Vision Sunday letter to the church for 2009/2010, please click here.