April 23 Monthly Message

Dear Church Family,

 

It seems like every time I wrote one of these messages there’s a lot to report to you all. We are now firmly back in the church building and settling into a new worshipping rhythm, although I know some of us are still struggling with knowing what’s happening each week. Suffice it to say apart from the first Sunday of the month, things are pretty consistent with a 9 am Traditional and an 11am Contemporary Service.

 

Having said that, things for April are changing because of Easter, and so we’re shifting our monthly 10am Joint Service to Easter Sunday on 9th April. Alongside this there’s a couple of other services happening in Holy Week as we journey towards the cross and resurrection. Details for all of these are in the weekly news. Please do join us when you can.

 

Community Kitchen Coffee Mornings are going from strength to strength – this past Friday we had to get out more tables to accommodate everyone who came. From May we will be moving to a standard pattern of running the coffee mornings on the 2nd and 4th Friday’s of the month. We think it will help for them to be regular and predictable. To enable this, we need to increase the team that makes it happen. If you can help in the kitchen or be a friendly face in the hall once a month, then please let Mike Hearn, Juliet Wareham, Tina or Chris know.

 

With the removal of the scaffolding around the church we are looking at the opportunities to open the church to the public over the week. One of those is on a Thursday morning on market day. We’re proposing to re-start a mid-week communion on the Thursday morning’s twice a month on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays (alternating with CK Coffee Mornings) at 10am. The hope is that people feel able to join us for worship as they come into the town for the Market.

 

Over Lent we’ve been running the Going Deeper evening in church on a Thursday. These have been very special times together with a real sense of the presence of God, and the number of people from across the church that have come along has been encouraging. The Leadership Team recognise that there is a need for something of this nature to continue. Alongside this we have been looking to start a monthly evening worship gathering – with the objective of resourcing churches from across the wider central/north-Dorset area. So from May we will be transitioning Going Deeper to a Sunday evening on the first Sunday of the month – starting at 6pm. Please do invite friends from other churches/places that want to come along.

 

The next United Service is on 30th April – and will be happening on the Blandford Camp in the garrison church. Due to security procedures you will need to book your space for this via churchsuite by the Wednesday before (26th?).

 

Lastly, the Coronation weekend is the first weekend of May. We’re proposing to have a service celebrating the coronation on Sunday 7th at 10am – which the whole town is invited to. On the Monday we’d like to invite the town to partake in afternoon tea on the church lawn (facing East St). To do this we need to have as many church members as possible available to serve – this is our chance to show the wider community that BFPC is a real blessing to the town and wants to make a difference to all. It also gives us an opportunity to show the town the re-opening building and invite them along to Sunday worship. What an opportunity! I’ll be talking more about this in the weeks to come.

 

Many thanks for all the everyone is doing. I’m so encouraged by all that’s happening in the life of the church. It’s busy, but it’s also exciting to see the community grow and people coming to faith.

 

Have a great Easter everyone. May you know the Lord’s resurrection power at work in you, and working through you into the lives of those around you.

 

Many Blessings

 

Chris