May Vicar's Letter
By the time you read this we will have recently had our Annual Parochial Church Meeting for 2007. The APCM is an opportunity to look back to the previous year and give thanks to God for his goodness to us and to seek to discern what he has been doing in our midst. It is also an opportunity to look forward to the next year and beyond and to seek to discern where he may be leading us in the future.
You will also be reading this letter at the time when we have just started the next phase of looking at our Church Vision:
Together, Growing in Worship, Love and Witness.
During the weeks between Christmas and Easter we looked together at growing in our worship, (and the responses from the housegroups will be considered by the Leadership Team and the PCC over the coming weeks). We now move on to look at our love, care, hospitality and support for each other. I trust we will all discover that this is as important as our Worship and our Witness. God created us for community, to grow together in love and friendship with each other, to support and care for each other when needs arise and to have fun together. This is one of the reasons for the social activities in our church and I hope we will all enjoy the BBQs and other social events over the coming months.
As we look back many will be aware that the PCC took the very difficult decision to close St Barnabas for regular Sunday worship in the middle of 2006. This decision was not taken lightly and came after some time of deliberation and listening to the members of the congregation at St Barnabas. As many will know from our APCM the PCC has also taken some time to consider the future use of St Barnabas and is now at the stage of considering the possible closure and selling of the building and site. More details about this can be found later in this magazine, as well as your opportunity to let the PCC know of your thoughts on the matter before they come to any definite decision on the matter.
I do not know, and will not pre-empt the decision of the PCC, however I do know that whatever it is God has good things in store for every member of our church community, and for those who are not yet part of God’s family. Please pray for our new PCC as they consider where God may be leading us together in the future.
06-05-07 11:15 AM
Hi, we are think of buying a house in your parish and would like to listen to some of your mp3 sermons to get a flavour of what we would be in for! The links are not live, could you restore them?
Cheers,
Nick