In this era of remote working, any opportunity to come together as a staff team is immensely valuable…and even more so if a Christmas meal is involved!
This month our amazing ECS staff team converged on Market Harborough for our Christmas staff day. Amid much change as an organisation, it was good to spend some quality time refocusing on the basic but fundamental things at the heart of ECS’ mission.
Focusing on mission, vision and values
We started the day with Phil Topham, FIEC Executive Director, leading us in a time of devotion, using passages from Scripture to remind us that we live between perfection lost, and perfection promised, that there is much struggle now, but one day all will be made right when our Lord Jesus appears.
Grounded on that wonderful truth, in our next session our Managing Director, Gemma Adam, took us back to the heart of ECS, to our mission and core values. In particular, Gemma spoke about the tensions inherent in our mission and values – we’re a Christian charity, yet also a fully-regulated law firm; we seek to offer the highest quality legal expertise, yet at the lowest possible cost; serving those we are here to support with accessible legal expertise, yet ensuring we operate sustainably.
Gemma helped us to see more clearly how when we move from an either/or to a both/and mindset, these tensions, these paradoxes – far from being a hindrance – are actually key to the uniqueness of ECS and help us to offer something immensely valuable to those churches and organisations we want to serve: Christ-centred legal expertise.
On the ground gospel impact
We then dug down into some of the ‘on-the-ground’ ways in which our unique brand of legal advice is having a positive gospel impact. Three of our Charities Team members – Lynn, Liz and Mary – spoke on the gospel impact happening through our work on CIOs, for evangelical Anglican churches and organisations, and with non-church and para-church organisations, respectively. While it was difficult to hear of the complex challenges facing many of our clients, it was encouraging and exciting to see:
- how becoming a CIO is helping churches to have the tools they need to govern themselves well, to build transparency and trust, and to raise their visibility as they seek to reach their community;
- how setting up robust legal structures is helping Jesus-loving, Bible-based Anglican churches and organisations to further the work of the gospel within the Church of England; and
- how we are increasingly able to reach out to more large charities and Christian organisations and walk alongside them to provide for their legal needs.
As we closed this time together, we prayed thanking God for His sovereignty and wisdom over all, and praying for His help and guidance as we seek to meet the needs we’d heard about.
We had covered plenty of ground, but there was still plenty of time thankfully to enjoy a fabulous Christmas meal together, sharing some invaluable time of fellowship, friendship and food.
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If you are a Christian lawyer and the work we have described above excites you, we would love to hear from you. Or if you are a church leader, charity trustee or director at a Christian organisation with a need for sound, biblical legal advice, again, we would love to hear from you to see how we might be able to serve you.
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Banner photo by freestocks on Unsplash