By Earl Storey

One of the ongoing key commitments of par-ishes in the United

Diocese of Derry and Raphoe is to find ways of serving need within local communities.

To this end, two special conferences were held recent-ly on successive Saturdays in The Everglades Hotel, Londonderry, attended by a total of over 500 members of the Diocese - approximately 10 representatives from each parish, led by their rector.

The conferences - an imp-ortant part of Derry and Raphoe’s Strategic Plan for the future - were designed to ena-ble participants both to reflect on the variety of needs which existed within their commu-nities and to identify creative ways in which parishes could use their gifts and strengths to address these needs.

The overall theme of the conferences - Transforming Community, Radiating Christ - was designed to capture the essence of what the Diocese aimed to live out at parish level. Speaking ahead of the first conference, the Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, the Rt Revd Ken Good, had asserted that “the Church must be an agent of positive transformation in our local communities”.

The first part of the theme - Transforming Community - was designed to describe a diocesan commitment to community transformation and to express the belief that Church life was never meant to be static, but rather, always growing and developing. It also captured the idea that churches were called to be

agents for positive change in their local communities.

Radiating Christ described the core aspiration of the Diocese, as lived out at parish level: to communicate Christ in everything done and said.

The conferences reflected on three central diocesan val-ues in order to achieve the aim of the theme: • We seek growth: a belief that growth is possible and can be expressed in the depths of one’s relationship with God and with one another.• We serve in teams: a belief that growth can best be achieved by people working together as a team in parishes, rather than by one person.• We encourage leaders: a belief that leadership helps people to imagine what the future might look like and how

to get there.Each conference comprised

a mixture of worship, keynote presentations, drama and group work, through which members of the Diocese - with a tangible sense of energy and excitement - began to plan how the three values could be lived out in the future at local level.

One of the key messages to emerge from the confer-ences was that central to the concept of Christian ministry was acts of service within local communities.

Following the first confer-ence, Bishop Good comment-ed: “The Church brings a mes-sage of hope which it is called to express in acts of service to others. In Derry and Raphoe, we are committed to demon-strating this by finding ways of

serving need in the communi-ties of which we are part.”

Describing volunteering as being “an important part of the life of every parish,” the bishop continued: “Right across the Diocese, there are inspiring examples of church members volunteering their time and energy for the well-being of their local communi-ties.

“These diocesan confer-ences are not only means of recognizing the service that already takes place but also important opportunities to ‘imagine’ how we can take new volunteering initiatives.”

That both conferences ran so effectively was due in no small measure to the Revd Mervyn Peoples who carried out the planning for each event.

GazetteThe Church of Ireland

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Church called to bring ‘message of hopein acts of service’ - Bishop Ken Good

Bishop Ken Good (centre) chats at one of the Derry and Raphoe conferences with some mem-bers of Aghadowey parish (from left) Rosi Skuce, Deborah Robinson, William Robinson and Stanley Forsythe.

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