Bishop Calls on Christians to Focus Resources on a Vision & Strategy

The newly appointed Bishop of Stafford, the Rt Rev Gordon Mursell, has suggested that Christians in today’s modern world had to utilise their resources better; in particular he spoke of the three focal resources to Christians as being vision, strategy and people.

The comments came as the Bishop of Stafford gave his first sermon in his new position, during a service to welcome him to his new Episcopal region, which lies in the Diocese of Lichfield.

Rev Mursell spoke regarding how Christians had a duty to "turn the world upside down in the name of ‘another king named Jesus’". However, he spoke about how this had to be done without being branded as being fanatical or sectarian.

Especially in the present climate in the UK following the London terror bombs of 7/7 and 21/7, the Rev Mursell spoke about how unity was the way on which evil could be laid down, and a beautiful world built. He said that Christians must work "with adherents of the other great world faiths to resist evil and build a better world."

He continued, "Let me suggest that Christians have three resources to help them achieve this: first, vision; second, strategy; third, people. Christians can and must offer the world a better vision than either fanatics who kill innocent people, or politicians who use violence to promote their own interests and thus make the world far more dangerous."

In addition he said, "The primary thing that Jesus came to proclaim was not a church, or a religion, but a kingdom - that is, a vision that embraced and transformed the entire cosmos. That vision, as this service makes clear, was about worship and prayer; but it was also about justice and care, teaching and nurture, evangelism and outreach.

He spoke about how the Church these days had to be careful not to split up things into separate boxes too much. He pointed out that this is what many of the violent extremist had done with their "narrow-minded supernatural vision of a paradise reserved exclusively for them, and to hell (literally) for everyone else."

Mursell concluded, "And that is what the Christian vision does. In worship, the pursuit of justice, in teaching and mission, Christians try to hold together all the things that both terrorism and a post-modern society try to separate."