15.01.2018
Archbishop Brings Come&C Initiative to Diocese of Jerusalem
Archbishop Michael Jackson is currently visiting our partners in the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem to share information on the Come&C programme with them.
The Come&C initiative has been growing in Dublin & Glendalough since 2014. It is designed to equip people for discipleship and deepen their understanding of their own faith and is centred around the Five Marks of Mission of the Anglican Communion.
While in the diocese, the Archbishop will speak to a number of groups about Come&C. He preached in All Saints’ Church in Beirut, which is in the Diocese of Jerusalem, yesterday (Sunday 14 December). The church welcomes both Arabic and International Congregations and yesterday they shared a joint service.
In his sermon he said in a simple way the Come&C initiative drew participants into the life of the first Christians through the life of today’s Christians. Based on St John 1.39: ‘Come and see, Jesus replied. So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent the rest of the day with him. It was about four in the afternoon,’ he said Come&C invited everyone to be children of the Land of the Holy One. “The inspiration and the motivation comes from here and, like the message of Pentecost, the song goes to all four corners of the earth,” he stated.
The Archbishop said that the initiative was based on the Five Marks of Mission of the Anglican Communion which, in Dublin & Glendalough had been distilled to the five Ts:
TELL: to proclaim God’s Kingdom
TEACH: to teach, baptize and nurture
TEND: to respond to human need
TRANSFORM: to transform unjust structures
TREASURE: to safeguard creation.
“Each of these gives voice to opportunities and scope for responsibilities in our everyday lives as followers of Jesus Christ. Relationships that we have with one another, relationships that we have and aspire to have with our neighbours and our enemies – these are encompassed in the way in which these Marks work. First, they give us a strong sense of identity; secondly, they give us a strong sense of outreach; thirdly, they give us a strong sense of concrete achievement; fourthly, they give us the joy of celebration; fifthly, they give us the transfiguration of our human lives by the light of divine glory. They are sufficiently open–ended to be applicable in any context; and it is your context of life and witness that we all want to garner and to celebrate through this shared engagement,” Archbishop Jackson explained.
He added that while Come&C is Christian in its marks and aspirations, it is also an offering to anyone who is human from a Christian perspective and with a Christian openness to engagement and dialogue.
“These are the gifts we believe and understand God to have given to the world in the sending of his Son and these are the gifts of which we as Christians today are custodians and carriers. We need to identify and to celebrate the fact that we are already doing this in our communities; we need to let the world see that we love the world, however much the same world may hate Christ and hate us. Hatred is not an option for us as Christians and we do not want to be marched along this road of negative power by friend or foe,” he stated.
You can read the full text of the Archbishop’s sermon here