Hey church family,
So we had another PCC meeting last Monday, only 3 weeks after our away day. It didn’t feel like very long at all since our day out, but in some ways this was a good thing, because we spent quite a bit of the meeting running through our proposals so far on our new mission focuses. Please be assured that we are spending quite a chunk of our time and prayers working through the detail of this to make sure it’s right for us moving forward. For anyone involved in a leadership capacity at church you will have received an invite from Dan to join us in the next Leaders evening, this Sunday 25 March at 7.30pm. We will be starting the process of sharing our thoughts on mission priorities during this evening, so I would really encourage you to join us if you are free. We would love to hear your thoughts. The short time we had left in the rest of our meeting we whipped through some quick updates on buildings and safeguarding. A big shout out goes to Chris Lockwood who has done a sterling job during our pre-planning application to do as much work as he can to negotiate prices down - saving us considerable amounts of money so far! We concluded our meeting with a quick retrospective of how the meeting went, and a hotly debated topic was 'when do we want our meetings to finish?'! As you can imagine, with a packed agenda and lots of opinions and debate we do often find ourselves running over time quite a bit! In case you're wondering, the verdict was 9.45pm! Cheers, Helen
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An invitation from Dan to our Easter services and Annual Meeting (23rd April), plus an update from Katy about pastoral care. Morning all,
So for our last PCC meeting we cancelled our usual Monday evening meeting for an away day instead. We spent the day at Brockenhurst church hall. I had a bit of a nosy around the church hall as the building is a new extension on the existing church, with a hall, meeting rooms, offices and a creche. Good to see an example of a church that was done this well! Something for us to bear in mind as we continue working on our buildings proposals. It was a great day where we had a lot more time to spend reading God's Word, praying and having fellowship with one another. We had one primary item on our agenda for the day, and this was to spend time on our mission priorities. From all the research that was conducted with you, other local churches, and local government/council some proposals were drawn up in advance by the strategy group. We reviewed the proposals and discussed the finer details and logistics around them. As you should be aware, whatever changes we implement will see some existing groups grow, some new groups start to shape up, and unfortunately other existing work start to wind down. So it is really important that we get this right! We will be spending a bit more time on this before communicating our proposals. Whatever happens though, please know that we are here to support you through this change, and explore the opportunities available to you. Till next time! Helen Some of the Beacon wrapping Easter Hampers Last Year. Over the past 3 years, the Beacon Missional Community has been giving Easter Hampers of chocolate eggs, cakes and other food treats to families and individuals, in and around Shirley, who are struggling with their finances.
We are working alongside local organisations like SCRATCH, Christians Against Poverty and Southampton City Mission and are seeking to build relationships through our bi-monthly Supper Clubs. As we try and bring hope, help and support, we are aiming to demonstrate the love of Jesus and our prayer is that in time we will see people come to faith. Can you help by donating some food items for Easter Hampers this year? We are planning to package everything up on Wednesday 21st March in the Parish Hall from 7pm. Any donations can be brought to church or the Parish Office before that date, clearly marked “Beacon Hampers”. Please check that all items have a use by date that is after Easter, as it may take us a week or so to complete deliveries. We’d also love it if anyone would like to come and help us pack; we’ll be chatting and eating cake as we gift wrap the parcels! Offers of help with deliveries are also appreciated. Last year we made up about 20 hampers and we anticipate making a similar number this year. If you are aware of an individual or family, whether inside or outside of church, who would appreciate a package, please email beacon@stjamesbythepark.org |