Kingfisher Family Newsletter - December 2021 by Kingfisher Church

K I N G F I S H E R FA M I LY Where else but church? I was recently talking about this subject at King sher Westgate in one of our morning services. It was in answer to the question, ‘Why do we bother with church?’ My answer was that we bother with church because it is utterly unique and as we meet together as the church, we are blessed in incredible ways. I told a true story which underlined this: which went as follows

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Jan and I were speaking at a church conference one time, and during one of the breaks, Jan got talking to a woman, who seemed quite down and withdrawn. Jan offered to pray for the lady, and she agreed. So Jan started to pray, 'Lord, I just lift Julie to you now...' and so on. At the end of the prayer, this lady, Julie, asked Jan if people had been talking abut her. Jan said that no, she had never met or heard about Julie before. 'Then how did you know my name?' asked Julie. Jan had to admit that she didn’t have a clue - she just somehow knew that this woman was called Julie. The session restarted, and afterwards, the pastor of the church approached Jan to tell her Julie's story. Julie was depressed and withdrawn and felt that she didn’t t into church. She hadn’t wanted to come on the church weekend away, because she didn’t really connect with anyone at church and wasn’t too sure about what she felt about God. The Pastor had been trying to convince her to go because he believed God would

ISSUE 32

DECEMBER 2021

have a word of encouragement for her. 'What’s the point?' She said. ‘If I went, I doubt anyone would even know my name!

As we live in times of great deception and great loneliness, we have the opportunity to be the community that shines the light of Christ and welcome in the lost, the lonely, the confused.

He doesn’t scatter them in a random fashion - He places them. Carefully. Where there is a high likelihood of that lonely person being cared for as an accurate re ection of how He cares for them. There are so many false trails for people to go down as they wander around lost and lonely. Just four doors away from King sher Westgate a new shop has opened that has a pentagon as it’s logo and with the slogan ‘Come and enlighten yourself with the dark’! There are so many ways in which lost people can become even more lost.

Life-giving community, where we come to nd that we are truly known and valued - that God knows our name and that His people genuinely care for us is a precious thing. We all need to know that we matter, that we are noticed, that we are known, loved and accepted. Where else but church? As we approach Christmas, that time when we celebrate just how passionate God is to nd us, to rescue us and to start a relationship with us, and as we live in times of great deception and great loneliness, we have the Where else but church? Where opportunity to be the community else do we see God drawing the that shines the light of Christ and lonely, the lost, the confused into welcome in the lost, the lonely, the healing, accepting, af rming confused. Where else but church community? But perhaps the more this Christmas? Do you know probing question is: Why would someone like Julie? Someone who He choose us? What would is wondering, ‘Would anyone even motivate Him to entrust someone know my name?’ like Julie to our church, to our community? Psalm 68:6 says that Where else but church “He places the lonely in families”.

News from Pastor Ollie at King sher Tredworth

The rst two phases of the work agreed have now been completed. Heath Bowden of 8 Construction has been overseeing the project. The gabled roof to the rear of the building has been stripped, the old battening and felting has been replaced, new insulation has been installed, and the roof completely retiled. The old, damaged at roof, which has been the source of leaks and water damage over the years has been fully stripped and replaced, some brick work has been repointed, coping stones repositioned and lead work completed. New facia boards have been put in place and internal ceilings have had new plasterboard tted where needed. In addition to this the building has recently had a full re review, a new re bell has been installed in the main hall, as well as a new re panel, and we’re almost there with the work that was identi ed in our re risk assessment last

year. New re doors have been tted at the front of the building, the ceiling in the re exit has been replaced, which leaves one last job, which is to ensure our internal re doors are working as they should, or to get them replaced. We have also had all the electrics checked in the building and apart from a few advisories we are safe and good to go! The trustees are not looking at the next phase of the regeneration project until the New Year, but in the meantime decorating is continuing, please go and look at a mural in the Little Fishes room that Debbie Bartlett is currently working on. Also, if you would like to get involved with the maintenance team, and share the workload then you are invited to download an App called ‘Trello,’ and under King sher Church Tredworth you will nd all the smaller repairs and xes that are needed, just pick one, set a time with Fi Farrington our administrator onafarrington@king sher.org.uk, and you are good to go, and can

Having has a full building survey done over the summer, it’s been great to nally make a start on the repairs and maintenance that are needed to get our church building more t for purpose.

News from King sher Church

mark off a job once it is completed. Thank you to everyone who has given so generously towards our building fund so far. In January, Neal and the trustees will update us with how we progress, and what we would like to do with the rooms that we have. It has been exciting to see people from our locality coming in more through our community days, but we also now have HomeStart running postnatal groups on a Thursday, and launching another group in the week from January, offering support to local parents and feeding them into our parent and toddler groups. This is all part of our plan coming out of lockdown to be more visible in our community and to be a church that reaches this community of Tredworth, and that acts as a community resource, providing increasing opportunities to show the love of God. So let’s keep praying, keep giving, and keep getting involved so that we can truly make a difference! Pastor Ollie

News from King sher Church On the road to Emmau Thoughts from my journey with Jesus - by Sandra Ashenford

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, said the poet William Blake. It’s a quote I use fairly often when commiserating with friends about choices and decisions that turned out to be the wrong ones But hindsight is also allowing me to see how God has always had a clear plan for my life even though I couldn’t see it when I was experiencing disappointments as my own plans seemed to go awry At 16 I had to relinquish a longheld ambition of becoming a vet. However hard I tried I knew that I was never going to achieve the necessary grades in A level sciences I have a brain that is excellent at recalling stories involving people – I can tell you who has been married to who in EastEnders and name all of the queen’s grandchildren and most of her great-grandchildren – but my brain simply doesn’t care about the nucleus of an atom

I had grown up on the novels of James Herriot, and I wanted to be a female version of this famous Yorkshire vet so when that wasn’t to be I had to choose between my next two options –

becoming a journalist or becoming a teacher I chose journalism because if I couldn’t be a vet like James Herriot I could at least be a writer like him. Sadly, journalism does not necessarily lead to a career as a novelist and after 20 years I turned my back on writing to train as a primary school teacher I loved teaching and believed that this was my true vocation, but quickly realised that it was the children who didn’t t into the system who interested me the most So instead of getting a sensible job in a school with a nice salary and a good pension, I took a series of interesting but not terribly wellpaid roles that involved teaching children in creative ways Some 15 years later I felt that my “career” had never really taken off and although I had always had jobs that I had enjoyed and felt were worthwhile, my choices meant that I had never climbed a career ladder, rather jumped from one to another on the bottom rung

Sandra Ashenford is a member of the King sher Church family at Tredworth. She was introduced to Jesus at primary school but has spent most of her adult life in the company of sceptics and non-believers. This is a series of light-hearted blogs in which she re ects on the challenges of growing in faith and sharing the Good News amidst the pressures of a modern life

Then came the opportunity to lead sessions on a small farm that welcomes children from inner cities for a week of getting to know how a farm works and where their food comes from I believe that God was there in every choice that I made that eventually led me to this role. I love working with the animals but even more than that I love seeing the children blossom during a week of being outside, of facing challenges and working together to achieve their goals So I’m not quite James Herriot or even the Yorkshire Shepherdess, but I’ve de nitely found my niche and there is de nitely plenty of stories to share.

News from King sher Church Successful community days at Tredworth Our community day in September was so successful that we held another one at the beginning of November! Both days involved a table top sale in the hall with refreshments, including some lovely homemade cakes, and plenty of places to sit and chat. We also had a team of volunteers who went out into the park and surrounding areas to pick up litter.

church, the local councillor and our local PCSO’s. The rst community day raised money for the church roof and the second day raised money for our Harvest appeal. Thank you to everyone who came to help and to those who came to browse, buy and chat.

We had lots of people from the local community drop in, including families from the football team that meet on the eld behind

Baptism service at King sher Tredworth

Our latest baptism service took place on Sunday 21st November and Alison, Sandra and Gavin took the plunge!

News from King sher Treasure Seekers Celebrating all things Disney at the Cavern! In November we held a week long Disney event. We enjoyed crafts, competitions, dancing, dressing up and a Disney inspired menu. To end our week we had Disney themed karaoke hosted by Princess Belle and Princess Rapunzel!

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this event. Ohana means family and we love our cavern family so much

News from King sher Treasure Seekers News from the Lighthouse Our day time opportunities centre for adults with learning disabilities has gone from strength to strength and the last few months have seen more activities being added to the programme. During the summer everyone worked really hard to get a new allotment together and the students have been learning how to manage a vegetable plot and so far have grown tomatoes, broccoli, courgettes, cabbages, french beans and brussel sprouts!

The students have also started learning basic cooking skills in the

Wiggly Worm kitchen and also learning about food hygiene, cleaning skills and meal planning. The next step of their learning will include more dif cult skills such as grating and chopping. Other new activities such as ten pin bowling, attending the gym and crazy golf will also be added over the next few months

News from the King sher Family This years’ Harvest Appeal On Sunday, October 31st we launched our 2021 Harvest Appeal. Responding to a very real and ongoing need, we have chosen this year to help build a Rural Community hospital in Malawi, in partnership with King sher Church in Limbe, Blantyre. This church is led by Pastor Andrew Mithowa, who has recently completed his degree in nursing and midwifery at the Catholic University of Malawi.

In the weeks since the launch of this Appeal, we have managed to raise this amount and are now praying about taking this further. This is an amazing opportunity to be part of a legacy that will still be saving lives in years to come. We look forward to commissioning the building in person when it is completed, hopefully by 2025.

It is his vision to build a hospital which will provide vital medical needs for the villages in the general vicinity of Limbe. Our Harvest Appeal is to raise £3000 in order to enable 100,000 bricks to be made for the walls of the building. When the building is constructed, a medical licence will be applied by the Government and medical supplies and staff will be provided.

Update from Pastor Joseph in Zimbabwe Calvary greetings from Zimbabwe. Am pleased to let you know that we have now fully resumed physical church services in Zimbabwe. It's now two months. The second month has seen a lot of church activities in place. Thank you brethren for continued prayers, support and spirit nourishment.

This week from the 28 -31 October 2021 had four day Revival service. It's has seen 22 people giving their lives to Christ Jesus as their personal saviour. Sunday the 31st we conducted baptism service also. The encouraging issue is we had an 87 year man Pedro Chumbu and Clara Jumbo, 83, being baptised

and 18 more - in total we had 20 people baptised Much love from Zimbabwe Joseph and Agath

GET INVOLVED WITH THE NEWSLETTER In order for this newsletter to grow and develop, we need your help! If you go to any King sher event and have taken a great photo, then please post it on our Facebook page or email it to Kirsty at kirstydalley@king sher.org.uk. The copy deadline for the next issue (due out in March 2022) is 17th February If you would like to get involved in the production of the next newsletter then email us with your particular area of interest. Hope you enjoy hearing all that is happening across the King sher Family!

King sher Churc Moor Stree Tredwort Glouceste GL1 4N www.king sher.org.uk info@king sher.org.uk +441452 30433