In praise of church treasurers !

 We had a church vision meeting on Sunday.We have these about once a quarter. They are a chance for people to get get together  to worship,pray, talk,eat lunch  and ask questions ,about the mission and ministry of the church.
If I am honest some are better than others!
I was not especially looking forward to the one yesterday because it was all about money. What we have ,what we don't have, what we can do with it and what we cant afford to do.I feared it may be quite gloomy .I need not have worried
In fact it turned out to be an excellent meeting ,lots of sensible questions, some brilliant suggestions , an excellent presentation of the facts by Rob with loads of pictures and slides so even I could understand the situation! All in all a very positive response by people
We left the meeting with an understanding of just how much God has done for us ,how he has provided  and knowing that doing what we feel called to do will be a stretch and it will mean commitment (but that is what faith is all about )but with God all things are possible
Of all the tasks in the church being treasurer seems to me the one I would least like to do ,it seems a large amount of work ,you  have to keep up to date with constantly changing legislation, and at times it must seem a worry, but over many years I have worked with some excellent treasurers people full of faith and with great skill and vision. I am grateful to them all and all who help them  Thank you!

Being thankful!

Those of you who have followed this blog for any length of time will know that we are building a new town centre building, in order to fulfil what we believe is our God given vision of having one church with two buildings.
We believe this is a specific call God has given us, and the last few years  have been spent pursuing this goal
To that end we have cast a vision ,adopted values ,and priorities that we think reflect those found in the Bible and that are about building The Kingdom
We have been determined not to be a cosy club where we huddle together against the storms of secularism and materialism and atheism but a community that shares the message of life,that serves people ,that is organised around mission
Over the last few years we have been to see various other ministries and churches as we have thought through our vision and tested it thoroughly. We have learnt a lot this way

Today therefore it was a great joy to have people from another Baptist church come to us-.It was good to hear what God is doing among them and  a privilege for us to share something of our story

In the busyness of the past few years perhaps I have not stopped often enough to reflect but in preparation for today I did just that. The result is that I am amazed and deeply thankful  at what God did and is doing.

The timing of everything ,the wonderful provision is nothing short of a miracle, and hopefully I will get round to writing the full story of the past few years, in a series of blog posts in the future.


Anyway we showed our guests round the building today and I also returned there later following a meeting with the developers, so here as promised are some pictures!

outside

entrance lobby

downstairs room

upstairs looking towards Market hall

upstairs looking towards Rowleys house

upstairs

prayer room

upstairs kitchen

upstairs with guests