As an avid reader of Tidings, which ranks highly on my reading list of Christadelphian publications, and in view of your editorial in the May edition, I thought you might be interested in the following.
In February 1983, jointly with our daughter and son-in-law (both Christadelphians) my wife and I bought an old farmhouse with attached stables. The stables we converted into accommodation for us while our family lived in the house with their children. Upstairs there was a large room (a former hayloft) suitable for a meeting room, to which there was also access by an outside staircase (‘an upper room furnished’). There were a number of brethren and sisters living in the area who were willing to join us in establishing a ‘house church’.
In June 1983 twelve of us from various ecclesia’s met together to discuss and agree how the ecclesia would operate. The following week the West Sussex Ecclesia (now known as Horley Ecclesia) met and ‘broke bread’ together for the first time and started a Sunday School with nearly as many children as members. Light refreshments after the service gave opportunity for a real family feeling of fellowship and friendship — a practice that has continued.
Over the next few years the number of members and visitors grew and so did our Sunday School; although the meeting room could hold about 40 people, it was time to move on, first to a local village hall; still growing, to three other schools in succession. During these years we have been blessed with the baptisms of 30 Sunday School scholars, three of whom were school friends of our members’ children and our ecclesia now numbers 83.
In your editorial you mentioned ‘mission statements’. About 1 year after the start of our ecclesia we decided it would be appropriate to define our purpose and set out our ecclesial objectives. It was remarkable how easily our thoughts could be summarized into what was, in effect, a ‘mission statement’ agreed by all members and given to all members who joined us. It now forms the preface to our half-yearly programs.
The statement has stood the test of time — 26 years — only added to recently by the inclusion of a sentence on the ‘environment’. Although we propose to call another special meeting, I do not anticipate any major amendments being made.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One