Who we are

St Mary's is a family of ordinary people brought together by the extraordinary, life-changing good news of Jesus Christ. We come from a range of backgrounds and places. None of us has it all sorted. Everyone is welcome.

We try to sum up who we are and where we are going in the following statements:
 

Our Mission

Knowing Jesus; making Jesus known to all

Our Vision

St Mary’s 2020 - 2024 will be:

One body of wholehearted worshipping disciples, ever more deeply rooted in the Bible & prayer, growing together in holiness and every-member ministry to become a family of:

- loving welcome, caring for one another with the love of Jesus Christ nurturing, teaching and training one another for lives of holiness and love

- passionate proclamation, committed to reaching the people of Wootton, Stewartby and beyond, with the vital good news of Jesus Christ for a lost world

- glad service, dedicated to being salt and light for Jesus Christ in the world

- global heart, BOTH prayerfully  and practically engaged in the worldwide mission of the church, AND training and sending men and women into gospel ministry within and beyond the parish

- sacrificial change, giving generously of ourselves, our money, and our talents to realise this vision

Our Values

We believe that we are reconciled to God the Father through faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, and therefore we value:

The Bible         
as the written word of God and our supreme authority in following Jesus in the whole of life.

Prayer              
as the prime expression of faith in Jesus and of our dependence on God’s loving grace and sovereign power in all things.

Church
as a family of wholehearted worshippers and disciples of Jesus Christ committed to mutual encouragement, care, and accountability.

Evangelism
as the proclamation of the good news of God’s salvation in Christ for all people

Service
as a family of God’s people caring for people in Wootton and Stewartby and beyond with the love of Christ.

Our Identity

We are...

Christ’s church: the church is the bride and body of Jesus Christ; it is through him alone, revealed to us by the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures, that we know God; it is through the power of the Holy Spirit that we worship and serve Christ; and it is Christ’s future return which is our hope and motivation for life.

A local church: a full and authentic expression of the universal church, called into being and sustained by God’s word.  We have a specific responsibility to proclaim and demonstrate the love of God in Christ among the people of the parish of Wootton.  We are also called to involvement with the world-wide mission of the whole church.

An Anglican church: while we welcome Christians of all backgrounds, our permanent and most visible connection is with the Church of England.  We accept and uphold its founding documents (The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal) as authentic expressions of orthodox Christian belief.  We are committed to supporting and encouraging biblical faith and practice in the Anglican Communion, both within and beyond the diocese of St Albans.

An evangelical church: we recognise the convictions of historic evangelicalism as crystallising and expressing the kernel of orthodox Christianity, including: the supreme authority of Scripture; the universal nature of human sin; the grace of God, seen above all in the substitutionary atoning death of Jesus Christ; and the gift of justification and new life in Christ, received and enjoyed only through repentance and faith.  We value the examples, among others, of the sixteenth-century reformers, the eighteenth-century evangelists, and the nineteenth-century social reformers.  We are committed to gospel partnership with evangelical mission agencies, as well as with our patron, the Martyrs’ Memorial and Church of England Trust, and the Church Pastoral Aid Society.