Who we are

St Mary's is a family of ordinary people brought together by the extraordinary, life-changing good news of Jesus Christ. None of us has it all sorted. Everyone is welcome! We come from a range of backgrounds and places. We try to sum up who we are and where we are going in the following statements.

Our mission: knowing Jesus, making Jesus known to all.

Our vision: for St. Mary's to be a united body of worshipping disciples, rooted in the Bible and prayer, growing together in holiness and every-member ministry to become a family of:  

• loving care, welcoming and caring for one another with the love of Jesus Christ.
• passionate proclamation, reaching the people of Wootton, Stewartby and beyond, with the good news of Jesus Christ.
• glad service, dedicated to being salt and light in the world for Jesus Christ.
• global heart, supporting the worldwide mission of making Jesus known, including sending men and women into gospel ministry.
• sacrificial change, giving generously of ourselves to realise this vision.

Our values: we believe that we are reconciled to God the Father through faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore we value:

• the Bible as the written word of God and our supreme authority in following Jesus in the whole of life.
• prayer as the prime expression of faith in Jesus and of our dependence on God’s loving grace and sovereign power in all things.
• church as a family of wholehearted worshippers and disciples of Jesus Christ committed to mutual encouragement, care, and accountability.
• evangelism as the proclamation of the good news of God’s salvation in Christ for all people.
• service as a family of God’s people caring for people in Wootton and Stewartby and beyond, with the love of Christ.

Our identity: we are...

• Christ’s church: the church is the bride and body of Jesus Christ; it is through him alone, revealed to us by the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures, that we know God; it is through the power of the Holy Spirit that we worship and serve Christ; and it is Christ’s future return which is our hope and motivation for life.
• A local church: a full and authentic expression of the universal church, called into being and sustained by God’s word. We have a specific responsibility to proclaim and demonstrate the love of God in Christ among the people of the parish of Wootton. We are also called to involvement with the world-wide mission of the whole church.
• An Anglican church: while we welcome Christians of all backgrounds, our permanent and most visible connection is with the Church of England. We accept and uphold its founding documents (The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal) as authentic expressions of orthodox Christian belief. We are committed to supporting and encouraging biblical faith and practice in the Anglican Communion, both within and beyond the diocese of St Albans.
• An evangelical church: we recognise the convictions of historic evangelicalism as crystallising and expressing the kernel of orthodox Christianity, including: the supreme authority of Scripture; the universal nature of human sin; the grace of God, seen above all in the substitutionary atoning death of Jesus Christ; and the gift of justification and new life in Christ, received and enjoyed only through repentance and faith. We value the examples, among others, of the 16th-century reformers, the 18th-century evangelists, and the 19th-century social reformers. We are committed to gospel partnership with evangelical mission agencies, as well as with our patron, the Martyrs’ Memorial and Church of England Trust, and the Church Pastoral Aid Society.