The search for a new home

As a church Grace is looking for a new home.  We've been renting the school hall we meet in for a few years and we have a very good relationship with the school, there is certainly no pressure from them for us to move on.  But there are a number of push and pull factors that are propelling us to look for somewhere new; our Sunday school really needs a bigger space, our opportunities to serve the community are limited by hiring space, especially a school where mid week opportunities are curtailed, and we currently have someone in our extended church family who is effectively excluded from church because of the building we use.  All of that has led us for the last few months to be praying for and searching for a new building.

However, the area we are in throws up a number of extra complexities.  There are no other community spaces in Hayfield and renting another school wouldn't solve the problem of a base to serve the community from the rest of the week.  We've contacted various offices that are for let and have been told they would not let or sell us any space as they don't want to go through the change of use process.  So we have been in contact with Peel Holdings who own most of the land round here to ask if there is some land available they could gift or help us build a building on which we could use for the community outreach we want to do.  As of yet we have heard little back and so we keep on praying.  We have asked the local MP to use any contacts or influence she has, and again we keep on praying.

What can you pray for us, here's some pointers:

1. Pray that as a church we stay united and prayerful as we look to God to provide 
2. Pray that we don't take our eyes off our mission of reaching the area with the gospel even while  we wait.
3. Pray that our God would move those at Peel to provide a piece of land or a building
4. Pray that God would provide the finance we need to build that building and that he would be glorified through his people.
5. Pray for us as leaders to keep people not projects the main focus.

When your community changes

Change is inevitable, often we don't enjoy it, often we'd rather it didn't happen.  How do we as churches deal with it when our communities change?  It's interesting mapping churches on data shine (brilliant census website) and looking at the area in which they are and whether they can or do reach those areas.  Many churches in city or town centres have seen the areas around them change and as a result their members move out to the suburbs and they become commuter churches. They have few or no one living in the area around the church instead their members move in and their mission field becomes their networks.

That's fine if you are happy to reach those who work alongside members, though I can't help but notice that often these same people work a further car trip away from their homes and therefore encouraging colleagues to come to church becomes even more difficult because of the double disconnect and distance involved.  The commuter church often struggles to reach the area in which it has it's church building because it is not connected to the community.  It may drop off fliers and even do door knocking but primarily relational connections are few and far between so few, if any, come from the surrounding area.  Over time the needs of the church differ even more from those unknown in the area around the church and the disconnect grows.  Which is why many churches cannot reach their neighbourhoods.

We planted into Hayfield because we wanted to reach the community here with the gospel and there were those who would only be reached by us being in the community.  Datashine shows significant pockets of the community that have no access to a car, work in manual occupations and are higher than normal on the deprivation index.  But in the two and half years we have been here we have seen the area change.  An new estate of 4 and 5 bed houses is going up fast, when it is finished with over 300 houses the area will have changed markedly in its socio-economic make up.  Datashine won't pick this up until after the 2021 census, but it is very real on the ground now and growing as more houses are built every day.  The challenge for us as a church is to think about how does this shifting changing community affect us and our mission.  We want to be grace in the community to the glory of God.  How do we do that?  Do we do it differently?

Churches cannot just afford to be network churches.  Andy Paterson shared the statistic that 156 people will die without Christ in Yorkshire each day, death doesn't see class distinctions neither does the gospel, neither must we.

Easter Encouragements

It's nearly a year since we moved where we meet as a church to Hayfield Lane Primary School.  It has not been at times an easy year, change is never easy as a church and it is often costly.  The area we have moved to is not an easy area to do church in, there is lots of hostility to 'church' because of deep seated events in the past and wrong perceptions of what church is and who can and can't go.  At times the last year has been among the hardest I have ever known in ministry.

Yet Sunday was one of my favourite Sundays in ministry and not just because it was Easter Sunday but because of the evidence that gradual progress is being made for the gospel in the community we love.  It was with a sense of nervousness and hope that we set church out on Sunday morning for about 80.  The toddler group and coffee morning we have started have begun to see us reach a very needy community and provide opportunities for us to love those around us.  Football club has helped us begin to get to know some of the dads of families around about us.  And as we had invited people quite a few had said they would come.

Imagine our joy when as the service started we had nearly 30 visitors from the community we believe God has called us to, and we were putting out extra chairs.  God had answered all our prayers and broken down some of the barriers people had to coming to church.  I'd love to be able to tell of 30 people repenting and turning to Jesus but that hasn't happened yet.  But what we did see was people hearing the gospel for the first time, people experiencing a church which loved them and their children and an opportunity to connect church with community.

God was so good and gracious to us in bringing people to hear the gospel, in the service of church members who loved and welcomed others very different from them, in the bravery of one giving her testimony, in the hard work of others to BBQ and plan egg hunts, and in God's provision of good weather.  We are praying that God would continue to work to water gospel seeds so these people come to faith.

On your marks?

Its isn't long to go until the Olympics start and we need to think about how we will use this as an opportunity to tell people about Jesus.  The opening ceremony is 27th July, and the closing ceremony on 12th August.

Sport provides lots of ways to bring people together whether through participation or spectating.  How can we be involved?

Here are some suggestions:

• Sports quiz
• Sport related Holiday Club
• Family fun day with various sports
• Sports coaching
• Serving community by laying on a meal and community watch of sporting event

There are loads of other ways to be involved but it would be a real shame to let this opportunity pass us by.