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Latest News
House of Mission
St Matthew's vicarage, on the Boulevard, is about to get a new lease of life. Keen to see the garden (a precious commodity in an area where most people only have small, concrete back yards) and house saved for use for the good of the local community, Hull YFC and Andy Dorton (area Social Responsibility Officer for the C. of E. and Hull YFC's Chair) campaigned for an imaginative approach to what could be done with this asset.
The Diocese have agreed to trial its use as a community house, for up to 5 years, with a focus on local mission, and we are grateful for the encouragement they have shown and their willingness to risk trying something without guarantee of what shape it will take. In fact, the idea of houses of mission, small missional communities and such like is a growing movement in Britain and across the world, with many people and churches around the country experimenting with all sorts of sharing communities focussed around local mission and making creative and more generous use of empty Church properties.
CMS are playing a key supporting role for many of these communities and we are hopeful that the vicarage on the Boulevard might benefit from this support too.
Hull YFC have agreed to oversee the venture and explore with those living there the potential for its use and their involvement in local mission. Two of the team, Fran and Andy, have signed up to give it a go, so the links with local mission are already firmly established and we are hopeful and excited about what might grow organically here (getting young people involved in growing vegetables in the vicarage's substantial garden would be one quite literal example!). Graham, who has already had a year's experience of a similar experiment at the vicarage on North Bransholme with Liz and Andy Dorton, is also on board and brings with him a huge range of practical and creative skills and an equally big personality!
Community living is not without its challenges, so there will be plenty to work through along the way, but thankfully Fran, Andy, and Graham (and hopefully a few others to follow) are up for learning more about what it means to live in ways that share our lives as well as our resources for the good of the local community and the sake of the Gospel.
* Anyone interested in joining this adventure in vicarage-saving / risk-taking / shared community / local mission for a year? Please get in touch!
Anna
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