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St John’s—the way forward |
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AT THE P.C.C. AWAY DAY on 8th September, we felt that there were three ways in which God was calling us to go forward.
The first is to give attention to the spiritual state of the church. We shall never find guidance if we are out of touch with the Guide. We recognized that we are not in a strong condition at the moment, particularly having lost so many key people over recent months and years.
With these big challenges facing us, it is vitally important that we do not go off in some direction of our own choosing, but that we put God first, and commit ourselves to follow wherever he leads us.
That really is an overarching principle which must control these other two matters – first the issue of a helper, and secondly, the church centre project.
A helper: a very vague term, because this could take all sorts of forms, from someone giving a gap-year after university, to a paid staff member as Tim was. There is a range of options, and churches in different places are finding different solutions.
We felt that it was important that at whatever level this project was financed, we saw it as an on-going commitment rather than something for which we could raise money for a few years. We need to raise the level of regular giving so that we can make the provision of some sort of help a regular part of the life and ministry of St John’s.
The church centre project: you should have read in last month’s magazine John Grainger’s summary of the proposals made by our architect, Derek Kemp. One idea that has come up is to take some of his ideas and develop from them a different option, one that could be built in two main phases, where the first phase could be broken down into a number of separate stages, each of which, it is hoped, would meet some of our most pressing needs.
Each stage could be financed separately, and it would mean that we could start quite quickly on some of them with the money that has already been given and pledged.
At this stage, these ideas must necessarily remain rather vague, but they were discussed at the last P.C.C. meeting, and a few members are going to talk them over with Derek Kemp.
Please keep asking for God’s guidance in all these matters and join us in the week of prayer
Stephen Bowen
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Way Forward