An introduction to Willesden Area
“As a Diocese, London has an audacious and ambitious vision to see every Londoner able to encounter the love of God in Christ. To serve this vision, we have committed ourselves to be churches that engender leadership that will nurture people of all ages and backgrounds to live out their faith among those with whom they do life Sunday to Saturday. We want to foster the emergence of a church that is visibly and meaningfully loving her neighbours. We wish to see a church landscape of ever-increasing varied configuration with new worshipping communities emerging in new and different ways alongside inherited ministry within parishes. We also hold to the aspiration of building church communities that will reflect the rich diversity of our city, welcoming all people across ethnic, cultural, and linguistic heritages, and safe places where we enable younger generations to flourish alongside others.
As the Willesden Episcopal Area we aspire to enable innovative expressions of ministry, actively partnering with our schools, chaplaincies and Fresh Expressions of Church. It has been encouraging to explore and develop new opportunities for the resourcing and revitalisation of mission and ministry across the Area. Here in the Willesden, we have been blessed with a rich diversity in theological and liturgical traditions. These have come with some remarkable examples of partnership and mutual support in mission and ministry across church traditions. In Willesden, we exercise a healthy dose of enthusiasm about being part of this fluid landscape and we have identified three Charisms for our Area: Intercultural, Intergenerational and Missional.
Inevitably, there is an element of challenge to this venture, including the need to develop and release more capacity and establish stronger bonds across the rich mosaic of life experiences in our Area. This is something both exciting and daunting but we trust in the God who is able to do even more than we ask or imagine.”