Are You Ready?

That’s not supposed to read as some panic inducing question, querying whether you’re geared up for Christmas. It is however one of the lingering thoughts shot through the season of advent – what does it mean to be prepared for an encounter with Jesus?

 On one level, we hope that is a daily experience. On a different scale, advent reminds us that there will come a time when there will be an even greater immediacy to that encounter. In the meantime, prayer and stopping to take breath are good ways to ready ourselves – so that when the time does come, we will meet a friend, not a stranger.

 To help, there will be an Advent Quiet Evening on Tuesday 11 December, 7:00-9:00pm. Take the opportunity.

A Call to Prayer

Bishop Christopher, the Bishop of Southwark, has put out a plea this week for churches across the Diocese to pray for the end of knife crime and serious violence in our communities.

 Together with London Diocese, Southwark have been hosting the Pan London Churches Serious Violence Summit. It may seem like a distant reality in West Wickham, but the increase in knife and gang related deaths in the last few weeks has been taking place in communities not so very far from where we live. The Bishops are seeking ways to work with others to find ways to combat this spike in knife crime, but would love these discussions to be underpinned by prayer – prayer for an end to such violence, as well as healing for all those who have already been affected by this painful trend.

Meeting at the Assembly Rooms

On 18 June, our 10am service will be at the Assembly Rooms, rather than in the church building, with a picnic afterwards. The plan for the morning is to look in more detail at our vision as a church, and particularly, the three priority areas for the coming season. If you missed the APCM and haven’t caught the notes, the priorities are as follows:  

• Equipping People to Engage Where They Are;
• Developing a Culture of Hospitality;
• Serving the ‘18-35’ Age Group More Effectively.

 We’ll flesh out in more detail what we mean by each of these, but the hope is that we will come up with specific goals we will pursue to develop these areas of focus.

 If you get the chance to think and pray about it in advance, all the better.

'Children & Youth Review' Update

We hope you are aware that the PCC recently considered the main findings that emerged from feedback we received across our children’s and youth groups. If you wish to see the headlines from the responses, we have posted them on the church noticeboards. One of the immediate challenges is to find leaders to replace those stepping down from 14 plus and Club 2000. We are having discussions with people about this, but if you feel you might be able to help in the future in a supportive capacity (rather than overall leadership), then do have a chat with Jon, as we need more helpers.

A natural conclusion from the review is that our work with children and young people cannot flourish in its existing format without someone who has the dedicated time to oversee it. The PCC are agreed that we must act now. We need to decide whether we employ someone to this end, and so an extraordinary meeting of the PCC has been called to pray into this and arrive at some conclusions. We will keep you posted as this unfolds, but in the meantime the leadership values your prayers and welcomes any insights you may wish to share.