18th May 2025 

Partnership in the Gospel

As I look ahead to the life of HTSJ in the coming year, the word which keeps turning over in my mind is "partnership". We have spent three and a half years learning to be partners with one another - the communities from the two legacy churches coming together, working together, discovering the joys, the (occasional) frustrations and, ultimately, the enrichment to both sides of growing partnership in the gospel.

In this season of Resurrection, at the start of a new year for the PCC, the opportunities for partnership in the gospel continue to grow. You are likely to hear very soon news on our Mission Partnerships, on our partnership with St Paul's, Brackley Road to develop opportunities for our youth, on our growing partnership with the community lunch on a Thursday, on our partnership with experts in their field as at last we start some of the building works we've been talking about, and on how we can work in partnership with the Diocese in the working out of the new Diocesan Vision.
 
In Philippians 1, Paul thanks God for the Philippians' partnership in the gospel. As the letter progresses, we see that partnership worked out in relationship, through prayer, through service, through financial support.

Partnership is a Kingdom concept. Indeed, it could be argued that partnership stems from God's very being, as Trinity - God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit working together, in partnership to create, redeem and sustain the world. And, from this, we learn that God has a mission in God's world - and that God invites us to work in partnership with him in the working out of that mission. As we seek God's will for the coming year, we believe that the partnerships we are being invited into are of God and from God - and that, by working with others, we can better join in with God's kingdom work.

Thank you all for your partnership in the gospel over the past year. As I said at the APCM, I can't think of a group of people I would rather partner with. I pray with Paul that, in the coming year, as we work in partnership together and with others, "that our love may abound more and more... that we may discern what is best..." and that God, "who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion by the day of Christ".