Our Vision
The vision of Christians in The Royal Bank of Scotland Group is to serve both Christian and non-Christian colleagues and the organisation, which is growing and currently includes the following: Citizens Financial Group, Coutts, Direct Line, Green Flag, Lombard, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), NatWest (NW), RBS Advanta, Streamline, Tesco Personal Finance, Ulster Bank and The One Account etc.
‘The Church of today should be like the mustard seed that grew into a mustard tree with its roots firmly grounded in its Christian heritage and its branches reaching out with indiscriminate generosity expressing the inclusiveness of the kingdom of God’ Joel Edwards, General Secretary, Evangelical Alliance, 2002
This parable of the mustard seed and the full grown mustard tree conveys a graphic and challenging message that depicts the Kingdom of God as being open and inclusive to all who choose to use its branches. It also speaks, as Joel Edwards suggests above, to today’s Church where it exhorts us to express that same ‘indiscriminate generosity’ as that of God’s Kingdom. Too often the Church can be perceived as being closed to the point where the barriers to entry are to high for those ‘un-churched’ people in the world to enter and therefore not seen as being inclusive and open.
Jesus said in John 3 v 16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life’. This is such a familiar text that most of us could easily recite it but often we fail to live it out in practice. Often what we preach and what we do is seen by an outside observer as contradictory where the church is faithful in preaching God’s indiscriminate Gospel of love but fails to practice it in its behaviour. Hence people are disillusioned and excluded as they perceive the church to be hypocritical.
The Website: In light of the above, when considering the vision for our Internet site, we decided that we should create a space similar to that of the branches of our Mustard Tree. Where the indiscriminate inclusivity of its branches is mirrored is in the way web-browsers can enter and use the site’s functionality as well as avail themselves of its resources. We want people to discover the inclusive nature of God’s message of love and to find a place where, in a non-threatening way, they can engage with and discover more of this love.
Please pray for this vision and please enrich it further with your feedback which is vital to the future of both the fellowship and its outreach and mission.