There are three special Sundays coming up in the summer.
Sunday, 12th May will see the official launch of our five-year Strategic Plan (2019 to 2024). You will see that the PCC is looking to the future. Ultimately, that will be a future without Raymond who will no longer be in place at the end of the plan. So we want to be ready not just for the vacancy, but for what lies beyond it. The Strategic Plan is part of that future.
We want to approach it with passion and belief and not as a list of things to do. That passion can only come from a strong relationship with Christ.
Therefore, on Sunday, 23rd June we will be having a visit from Rev Roger Morgan of The Mathetes Trust. Roger is a friend of the late Martin Cavender, who was himself a great friend of this church, and a huge inspiration to us. Roger comes from the same stable. He is also married to the Christian writer, Alison Morgan, author of The Wild Gospel. (Worth buying if you have finished The Shack!)
The Strategic Plan can only be a skeleton. We need the Holy Spirit to breathe life into it. We wait to see what God will bring from this new partnership.
In addition, on Sunday 16th June we will have a visit from the Rev Rachael Markham, who has not been here before. She will be speaking to us about Bible Society which is one of our four international mission partners. It’s really important that we keep up to date with its work. Giving money is good, but we also need to pray for the work of this great organisation. You may recall that we have been supporting the work of Bible Society in bringing a new version of the Scriptures in Albanian. Albania was officially an atheistic state last century and its Bible is not in the language of today. We have been part of that for a long time. But the project is finally nearing completion.
So we aim, this summer, to keep the Word and the Spirit together in our worship.