Mission Statement Commentary

Our mission is to discern God’s loving and inclusive will:
            we nurture faith and build community,
            we confront injustice, create sanctuary, and deepen relationships.

The Mission Statement sets out how our values and vision take shape in the world, and it is divided into three sections: the ‘cause’ (line 1), the ‘action’ (line 2), and the ‘effect’ (line 3).

The ‘cause’ is focussed on the key Baptist congregational distinctive that each church has the liberty, under Christ, of discerning God’s will. So it is here that we set out the basis of our mission - we discern together. What do we discern? God’s loving and inclusive will: this is the God we believe in, a God who is love, and who welcomes all people into that love. Our commitment to inclusion is an expression of God’s love.

The ‘action’ articulates what we do in order to fulfil the ‘cause’. At the heart of Bloomsbury is our mission to nurture faith - to discover the seed of faith that God plants in all hearts, and to nurture that faith to life. Through worship, prayer, preaching, teaching, creativity, music, discussion, relationships, and action: we nurture faith. But God does not call us to passive faith; we discover the love of God through our relationships with others, and so we actively build community, both within and beyond the fellowship, drawing others into the love of Christ.

The ‘effect’ is where discernment, faith, and community take shape in the world, to bring the world to life. Bloomsbury has a long tradition of confronting injustice, both locally and further afield, and this continues as we actively engage the needs of the city, whilst working in prayerful partnership with others around the world. Our worship space is called the sanctuary, which expresses the commitment to holiness that lies at the centre of both our building and our community; but sanctuary is not just a space, it is an action - it is the offering of safety, a commitment to welcome, and an expression of God’s love for all. Relationships give strength and depth to our actions, and our commitment to each other is an expression of God’s love for all.