Diocesan News05 Jan 15

Cathedral Ablaze With Light As Bishop Harold Miller Leads Diocese Into A Year Of Mission

St Anne’s Cathedral ablaze with the Year of Mission ‘For you’ logo

The steps of St Anne’s Cathedral were ablaze with light on New Year’s Eve as Bishop Harold Miller led the Diocese of Down and Dromore into a Year of Mission.

Following an evening of celebration, the bishop led the 500–strong congregation into the street as spotlights shone into the night sky and St Anne’s became a canvas for the Year of Mission logo, ‘For you’.

The lights and environmental projection were just one element in an event which celebrated the end of a full year of continuous prayer and looked forward to 2015. There was something for all ages with good food, crafts for kids, live music and worship before the symbolic act of leaving the building as ‘Lights to the World’.

The diocese has been preparing for mission for 18 months and, as Bishop Miller said in his address, the ‘For you’ logo has a clear message.

“‘For you’ is a declaration that the church is here not for the sake of itself, but for the sake of the outsider,” he said. “The church does not primarily exist for itself or, like a club, for its members – it exists to transform the world, and especially the community in which it is set, for Jesus Christ. Archbishop William Temple famously put it like this: ‘The church is the only society on earth that exists for the benefit of its non–members’”.

‘For you’ will appear on banners around the diocese from New Year’s Day and the diocese has also launched a microsite, www.churchforyou.org to allow people to easily connect with local churches and to be impacted by stories of faith.

Photo 2: Bishop Harold leads the congregation