Pastorates – Coming Soon to a Neighbourhood Near You.
Dear St. George’s,
By now you should have received an email from your Pastorate Leader inviting you to the first meeting in your region. While I will be at Christ Church Plano next week helping to lead the Anglican 1000 Summit, you will all be at the front of my prayers.
Since our information meetings a few weeks ago I have been reflecting on this new ministry initiative. I rejoice at being part of a church that is moving forward with the gospel into our communities. I am also profoundly grateful for the way these pastorates came to be. It has been a year of seeking God’s direction and working together. I now pray that everyone will participate in this effort to develop deeper fellowship and regional mission.
So much prayer, time and work has been invested in moving these pastorates from an idea to reality. Having said that, there will be bumps along the way. We fully expect issues to pop up that we had not considered. Please remember, we are in this together and together we will work through any matters arising from our first week of meetings.
Already a few concerns have been raised. First, the Southern Pastorate is too large. If everyone shows up we will have 100 people in that group alone. The ideal size would be less than half. We are working to address this need and expect to divide the group as soon as new leaders can be identified and trained. We are also looking seriously at geographic trends. There may be other pastorates that should shift boundaries or even divide soon, so they, too, can work well.
This is all good news! This could mean that before long we go from having 4 regional pastorates to 6. All glory to God.
In a nutshell, I am writing to ask a few things of you:
1) Pray for your Pastorate Leaders, your Pastorate meetings and your city.
2) Plan to attend your Pastorate meeting next week.
3) Expect that things may not be perfect, but participate fully exercising Christian charity and help us to identify issues with prayerful solutions.
God bless you, St. George’s. I eagerly anticipate how the Lord will use Pastorates in our chunk of Southern Ontario.
With love,
RD
P.S. If you have not yet received an email from your Pastorate Leader please contact the church office to determine where you belong and the details of the meeting next week.
