Pastoral letter


November


As many of you know, at the beginning of last month I attended a refresher course at our conference centre in Windermere.   The theme of the course was ‘missioning to the gentiles’ and was led by Professor of New Testament History from Cambridge, Laurence Owen.   He used the mission journeys of Paul as examples of how we today can mission to the unchurched, our modern day gentiles.

 

Key to this mission was not expecting the people to come to the church but to take the message to the heart of where the people are: in the markets, workplaces, and places or recreation.   He made the point that Paul was much more like a non-stipendiary minister than any thing else we have today.   He asked the question as to how we, the church of today, are reaching out from the buildings we are entombed in, to meet the people in their everyday places.

 

I was happy to tell about our Good Friday, Pentecost and Christmas services in the heart of our town.   Following the Lent course two further projects are about to start.   The first is a project to assist the homeless who come to our church doors looking for support and shelter.   As this mainly falls to the ministers to cope with I am leading the project to plan for dealing with such emergencies.

 

The second is a project to mission to the young people of the town who do not
have their needs met by the Teen Project - the 5 to 13 year olds.   On 3rd
November at 7.30pm in our church we will be holding a “testing of the waters” meeting to see if we can get this going under the name “Messy Church”. The speaker will be the leader of the Dawlish Messy Church.

 

Messy Church is where children come to a venue after school for a few hours to play and eat and in so doing learn through their play about Jesus.   We have several such Messy Churches already going in the area at Dawlish, Babbacombe and Brixham.   They require some funding from all the churches and a lot of leaders and helpers to undertake supervision and some cooking.   Messy Church meets several times a month and has been a great success in the places where it has been held.

 
I ask you to pray for all these new projects.               

TB 



Notes from Church Treasurer – Bernard Pallett

 

As always at Church Meetings, we spent some time on the 15th of October,
 
discussing the financial position of the Church.   I explained that we are currently spending more than we have as an income – our shortfall is probably more than £100 each month and despite making economies and despite increasing our lettings of the building, we still need a bigger income to survive.

 

There are several things we can do:

  • Pray for help, support and guidance.
  • If we pay tax on our income or pension, please allow the Church to reclaim that tax on gifts that we make.
  • Please examine the possibility of raising our own giving.
  • Come up with ideas for raising our income.
  • Ensure that the minibus covers its cost - about £26 / week.
  • Help by cutting down energy use – lighting, heating etc.   Please switch off when not needed!




MINIBUS TIMETABLE

9.40       M Withey, Dawlish

9.45    J & J Taylor, Portland Ave

9.50    J & S Arnot, Landscore Rd

10.0         J Hunt & P Secker, Hr Brimley

10.03    N Wolfenscroft, Glenkealey

10.05  P Seaton, Yannon Drive

10.08    J Jackson, Hazeldown Rd

10.09    E Scullard & B Cribble

Higher Holcombe Close

 10.12 S Uglow, Woodway
 10.15 N Bursey, Barnpark Road

 

Please remember in your daily prayers

 Ethel Action,  Millie Fitch,  and Norman Wolfenscroft,

 

Elder Emeritus.

 

Congratulations to Eileen Scullard for being installed as Elder Emeritus.   It recognises her many years as an Elder, Treasurer and Secretary and, of course, the contribution of Eileen’s late husband Ben.   At one time Ben was Secretary while Eileen was Treasurer – nothing moved if it was not approved in Higher Holcombe Close!

 

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