You will find enclosed in Greetings this month an important questionnaire on the life of Wokingham Methodist Church. It is hoped that as many people as possible will take time to complete it because everyone’s views are important. Inside is just a single copy but if you require additional questionnaires they are available from the Church Stewards and from the main entrance of the Church or Bradbury Centre. Please invite interested members of your household to complete one.
So why are we doing this? Last month I announced that the Church would be holding a Day of Discovery on 29th June which is hopefully already marked in your diaries. We will be meeting from 1pm to 4pm. We are arranging different groups to cover different areas of our Church and community life and we trust that will be a really exciting and hopeful day as we seek God’s direction for the next phase of our journey together.
Two things are vital at this stage:-
1. That we each pray for the Day and the development of the Church.
2. That we make our views and insights known by completing the questionnaire.
This will help us to take stock and to look forward just over a year after the completion of the Bradbury Centre.
God has presented us with many challenges and opportunities but we need to focus on the most important ones as we go forward.
Some questions we may have:- Do we need to create greater spiritual opportunities for the users of the Centre? Should we develop new ideas for midweek worship and opportunities for people to pray or to find a quiet space in the midst of busy lives?
We have opportunities to develop greater links with young and old alike and to be really creative along the way. So, in preparation for the future, we do value your prayerful opinions now.
I look forward to seeing where your responses lead us and above all to sense God’s guiding hand at the heart of it all.
In the words of the old hymn:-
(HP 277)
“We’ll praise him for all that is past
And trust him for all that’s to come.”
God bless,
Nick
Coffee Mornings in “The Meeting Place”
The NSPCC would like to thank everyone who came along to support
their Charity Morning in April and contributed over £200 for their funds.
Their stalls raised almost £80
and another £130 was taken across the counter, all of which has been handed
over to NSPCC. Many thanks to everyone who worked so hard in the kitchen.
On Thursday 1st May we will be welcoming ‘MIND in Wokingham’ (Wokingham & West Berkshire Mental Health Ass.), a local charity that cares for people who are recovering from mental illness. At their drop-in centre at Station House they provide a range of services free of charge, and rely entirely on voluntary help.
Our charity morning in June will be slightly different as we shall be welcoming three different local charities. Addington School will be holding a Plant Sale outside our central doors, while in ‘The Meeting Place’ Wokingham Trefoil Guild (supporting Girl Guiding in Wokingham), and Wokingham West Forest Town’s Women’s Guild (supporting the Alexander Devine Children’s Cancer Trust) will each be manning their sales stalls. We propose to share our ‘over the counter’ proceeds between the three charities. Thursday 5th June promises to be a busy day!
We look forward to seeing you at these and other forthcoming events.
Rose St. Gardeners
and Ground Force
Thank you for supporting our first Plant Sale, which we held outside The Meeting Place on April 5th - just before the snows came! We virtually sold out of everything we had brought.
Our May Plant Sales will be held on Saturday mornings (10am - 12noon), on the 10th and 31st, when hopefully the weather will be suitable for planting out the less hardy plants, including Trailing Geraniums, Busy Lizzies etc. Several of our regulars and some new customers have already placed orders with us, particularly for Tomato plants, Sweet Peas, Castor Oil plants and the purple Verbenas (given a push by the RHS in April's Garden magazine!), so we are being kept busy. Do let us know if there are any plants you would particularly like to have this season and we’ll do our best to provide them.
For many
years, Christians all over the Wokingham Area and the UK have been doing
fantastic work in their communities, actively loving and serving those
around them. Hope 08 is about harnessing this activity through quality
resources and encouragement, to motivate and enable every church
denomination and person to do more to reach people in their community,
during
this twelve-month period.
Hope 08 is a National yearlong Celebration of Christians serving their community but we want to focus on 24th – 26th May 08 Bank holiday, for the church of Wokingham to use their long weekend to serve their community. We would like other events to happen throughout the year under the same banner but feel it is important to concentrate making an impact in this specific time.
During the May bank holiday weekend we would like to go into the schools in the Wokingham area and serve them in a practical way. With good relationships and foundations formed with the schools from Wokingham Schools Trust and the Big Idea, the schools are very keen for the churches to get involved to help. We may live in one of the wealthiest area of the country but the maintenance of our state schools is not good. We would love the church to offer the schools a free gift of hundreds of people giving them a few hours each of community service to meet their needs.
Hope 08 is a fantastic opportunity to unite the church in bringing lasting change to transform lives of individuals, families and whole communities. Hope is about showing the love of God in a relevant and practical way. Hope is about doing more and doing it together.
Just like in the Big Idea, we would like an army of volunteers of all shapes, ages and sizes to get their hands dirty during the May Bank holiday weekend. We also need you to pray!! Prayer is a vital part of Hope 08. We want prayer to be at the heart of everything we do, and believe that if we stand together we will see far greater and lasting change.
The success of the Big Idea was built on many churches working together. For Hope 08 we would like to see as many churches as possible joining us in prayer, encouraging volunteers, and raising (the somewhat modest) finances required. Will you join us and see what bringing Hope can do to serve and bless our community?
You can sign up to help by going to www.wascwt.org.
