TRY Dear Friends, It does not seem like a year ago that Jules, Ethan, Daya, Seth and myself moved to Knaphill to begin this adventure with you. Over the year we as a family have felt loved, blessed and included into the church family here. Immediately after my licensing Bishop Andrew invited all clergy to a presentation about the Diocesan vision called Transforming Church, Transforming Lives during which he unveiled twelve transformation goals. As a parish we were asked to pray and decide which goals we felt the Lord leading us to focus and move forward on. The Church is not meant to be a social club, but the means by which the Good news of Jesus Christ and the transforming power of the Spirit is spread throughout the world. A Church that holds onto the ancient truth of Jesus and moves forward, seeking the Kingdom of God first and striving to share Jesus afresh in every generation, community and nation. Transforming Church, Transforming Lives encourages us to keep moving forward, to be a thriving church family who sees God meet and transform as many lives as possible. As a church we spent time praying about the twelve goals and feed back to the PCC over the pot luck lunches, prayer gatherings and various personal conversations. With all the different feedback, comments and opinions the PCC met for a day in January to work through and decide what goals we should be pursuing as a church. In this meeting it became clear that the first two goals (1) making disciples (2) Increasing believers were unchanging goals for every Church. They are how the great commission in Matthew 28 happens through the ages. Alongside these, the PCC also added two more goals that would aid decisions for the future. These additional two goals were (3) Growing youth and families (4) Improving our church buildings. Various working groups, made up of church family and PCC members, have been meeting to pray and develop goals 3 & 4. The Improving our church buildings working group has a large remit and have already made a superb start on refurbishing the hall. Thank you to Mike Veness and the team for all they did in making this happen. Furthermore Mike, myself and Clare, our church warden, have already had a positive meeting with the DAC about how we can improve our buildings. Another two working groups have been meeting to look at how we can further reach families in Knaphill and Brookwood. It would have been easy to fire off ideas of events and activities that could reach people, but felt it was right to develop our worship services first because; (1) this is where new people make initial contact with the church and grow as disciples (2) in an ever changing culture with varying demands on families we want our times together to help families grow as followers of Jesus and (3) to continue to create an ongoing openness to the work of the Holy Spirit for everyone.
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In order to start to make in-roads on goals 1-3, as I did in the sermon on the 16th July I want to highlight a number of new and current ventures that are happening from September. PRAYE R Prayer & Fasting Week (4th - 9th September) As a Church we are called to pray. In Luke 10:2-3 it says, “And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Therefore pray
earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.” The call to prayer is clear, especially when we read the words of Jesus in John 4:35 when He says, “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest”. As we seek to step out and see God’s kingdom come in our community we need to continue to pray and increase our level of prayer. To this end we want to call a week of Prayer and Fasting. On Sunday 3rd September I will be teaching at Holy Trinity about fasting and prayer. From Monday 4th September we’d love everyone as they feel appropriate to join in praying and fasting. There will also be opportunities of prayer together at Holy Trinity; (1) Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday mornings of that week, from 9-9:30am. (2) In the evenings of Monday to Saturday we will gather together at 7:45pm - 9:00pm. I do encourage you to pray and try to come to some of the gathered times together as we continue to ask God to show us the harvest and to send us. Without prayer nothing happens. THIRTY: Morning Prayer (Holy Trinity, starting on Monday 4th September) Thirty minutes of prayer every Monday, Tuesday & Thursday at 9am.Come along and join us as we seek God and pray for nations, our community and lives to be changed and know Jesus. 8:00am Saturday Prayer (Holy Trinity Lounge, starting Saturday 2nd Sept) If you didn’t know, every Saturday a number of people gather to pray. Roy leads this and always wants more people to join him. W ORSH IP SE RV ICE S Wednesday Service (Holy Trinity Church, starting Wednesday 13th Sept) A space in the middle of the week to seek God. Every Wednesday morning we will hold a short 30-40 minute spoken reflective service. Every 1st and 3rd Wednesday we will celebrate Holy Communion together. It will start at 10:00am and we hope to see you there.
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Praise & Tea (Holy Trinity) Every month on Sunday 17th Sept, 15th Oct & 19th Nov at Holy Trinity there will be a ‘Songs of Praise’ style service for whoever wishes to come along. It will be a time to celebrate the songs that have inspired our worship in the past. It will start at 3:30pm followed by a tea at 4:30pm. The 4:35 (Holy Trinity, starting on Sunday10th September) With many parents and young people facing work commitments and the draw of sports activities on Sunday mornings we are starting a new weekly Sunday service called 4:35. In a relaxed atmosphere this service will start at 4:35pm with a tea followed by an informal service at 5pm. The service will end around 6:30pm with further opportunity to connect with each other over drinks, table tennis, board games, table football and other activities. Holy Trinity Morning Service (starting on Sunday 10th September) The history of the morning services is known to many of us and doing anything to a service can be quite emotive. The 9:30am service time was, from what I understand, introduced as a more contemporary service. This was put before the already existing 10:30am service which in turn was moved to 11am and was more traditional in format. Unfortunately, due to low attendance the 11am service ceased leaving the 9:30am to continue. However, it seems that 9:30am is quite an early start for a number of people. Some parents arrive flustered having rushed to get children up, fed, ready and out to church, all the while trying to prepare themselves for worship. Even some of our older church family members find 9:30am a little early. By the same token a 10:30am start time can be seen as too late. So we want to try something different; not a major change but a little shift. To help alleviate the morning rush we want to serve breakfast from 9:30am. Nothing fancy, some pastries, fruit, coffee and tea. This gives opportunity to eat together, talk to new people before the service, and for those who feel the rush to catch their breath. We will then start at 10am prompt. During the service everyone will spend time together worshiping God in song, confession, prayers and reading. When it comes to unpacking scripture, we will go to our different groups. Adults will stay in the church building and the children and youth will go to either Glo, Spark or Illuminate (please see the flyer explaining these groups). After about 30 minutes of teaching we will gather back together to either celebrate Holy Communion or continue to respond to the word of God and allow the Holy Spirit to continue to minister to us. There will be children’s and youth work every Sunday (except for school holidays), and our heart is that as we worship as a family and grow as a family, we begin to model the life of a disciple to the children and young people in our Church family. The different working groups, staff and myself have already been working, and will do in September, to make sure that that all these new ventures start as effectively as possible. Anything different can feel strange at first, there will be teething problems,
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refinements made, tweeks and reviews, but we need to ‘TRY’. I think of how Jesus gave the early disciples authority and sent them out while never quite knowing what they would say or do. Yet as He let them go and try things happened to others and themselves; the Kingdom grew. So I am encouraged that as we try things in obedience to the Lord’s prompting we may be surprised by what God does. If you are wondering what is happening at St Saviour’s, a working group has been meeting and is continuing to look at how we can build on the current ministry and grow as a church in Brookwood as we seek to nurture those in attendance and reach out to even more people. So as we start a new term in September, myself, the PCC and the staff team are all excited by where God is leading us. It is daunting but as our summer series has shown us, following Jesus is not void of risk. Let us go for it. As I have said to a number of people, when I talk to other clergy who seem to have problems of negativity and discouragement from within the church I count myself blessed to be part of such an encouraging and Kingdom seeking church. I look forward to sharing all the highs and lows with you as we serve God and pursue kingdom growth together. With every blessing, Neil (& the staff and PCC)
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