Your church needs YOU!
We talk about the Church being the people and not the building and of course in one sense that is true. Yet we do meet in a building, a beautiful one, that is a testimony to the faith of those who built it and to the work of those who have maintained it ever since. The building in which we worship today was opened for its first service on 2nd May 1906 (although there had been a Methodist Chapel further up the road from 1869 which our current church then replaced*). However you measure it, that is a lot of years of being a Christian presence, fellowship and witness in Sandhurst!
There are costs to running any church – financial ones of course but not only those. A church needs its people to give their time, their talents and their prayers if it is to not just survive but to flourish.
Money: elsewhere in this newsletter you will see the balance sheet for the accounts for this last year, and the year before as a comparison. You will see that the giving has increased, for which we thank you, but so also has the expenditure and we are running a very tight budget. Lesley does everything she can to promote the hire of our halls which brings in revenue for the church, but the greatest percentage of our income comes from you, our congregation. Please would you consider prayerfully reviewing your giving? If there is any way it could be increased – even by a small amount – that would help to both cushion us against future maintenance expenses and also boost our mission and outreach into our community. For example, we would love to employ someone for a few hours a week to extend the work we do with families. (The circuit would fund 50% of the cost.)
Time and talents: we also need your time and talents. Here are just a few suggestions of ways in which you could help:
– lending a hand regularly/occasionally with property matters
– being on the rota for serving refreshments after the Sunday service
– helping on the tech desk (training will be given!)
– reading or leading prayers in church
– becoming an Assistant Steward or a Pastoral Visitor
– an important and imminent vacancy: doing the weekly notices – a job that we are so grateful to Barbara for having done for lots of years, but she is retiring from it at the end of August. Could you be the person to take that role on, maybe sharing it with someone else?
If you think you might be interested in any of these but are not sure what is involved, please ask one of the stewards. Or maybe you have a talent or an idea you would like to share with the church that has not been mentioned here – please don’t hide your light under a bushel.
Prayer: I have placed it last but actually it is the most important thing any one of us can do. As we get older we may find that we are not able to do all that we used to do and offering our time or increasing our giving is not viable – but praying certainly is. Everyone can pray, whatever their situation. So please:
– pray for the church that we will follow God’s leading in all we do
– pray for the activities that take place in the church or are associated with it
– pray for the people who serve in it and work hard to make it the wonderful place it is
– pray for one another that we will continually grow in grace and abound in love
I’m sure, like me, you would love to see our church – God’s church – prosper and flourish. This church is in its second century. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to think that how we act now and what we pray for today could help it continue for the next 20….30….50 years? Do we dare to dream big and pray even bigger that it might still be bearing witness to Jesus Christ into a third century?! I like to think that, by God’s grace, it could be so.
Sharon
*Historical information courtesy of: A Winding Lane in the Wilderness, a local history compiled by Elizabeth Godden. (I have four spare copies of this lovely little book if anyone wants to borrow or buy one.)