Dear Friends,

It seems incredible to me that on 28th October 2004, almost exactly 14 years ago, we opened our worship centre with a celebration led by the Bishop of Lynn. Since that time tens of thousands of feet have crossed our threshold as we’ve opened our buildings to people who come to encounter God. In that time we’ve seen some wonderful transformations, a great  deal of change and growth, signs and wonders and a good number of people who have come to faith for the first time. Considering the growth we’ve seen and the constant juggling of the church diary it was no surprise that earlier this year we felt it was time to refurbish our place of worship. You’ll be glad to know that the plans are developing well. Our design team have put forward some proposals that were shared at a recent Leader’s Breakfast and they look wonderful.

I thought this would be a good opportunity to let you know how we see things working out over the next few months. At the end of this month the 2 projectors and their screens will be replaced with 2 new 75” LCD screens. Following that we expect that the carpets, tables and chairs will be replaced in April 2019 and we hope to achieve that by closing the church for a couple of weeks to allow the work, which will include repainting, to be completed.  It will mean that as a church family we’ll probably miss one Sunday together to focus on meeting in smaller groups, as missional communities or in outreach of some kind depending upon your particular interest or calling. As you can imagine trying to find a suitable opening in our busy calendar has been extraordinarily difficult, hence the long wait. But on the positive side it also means we have time to make sure we spend your generously donated funds as wisely as possible. Our design team have already done a tremendous amount of research, visiting manufacturers and talking to a wide range of experts, and will continue to work towards sourcing the best solutions possible. We will announce the dates for all this in due course but in the meantime please bear with us while we seek the best options.

While this has been a good time to reflect on how the Worship Centre is used and how we engage with God in our buildings it is ultimately our spiritual connection with God that’s really important. Being in the position to create an environment where people feel comfortable to come and rest in the presence of God is a real privilege but as a minister I realise that the most important thing I can do is to help people connect with God personally so that they can hear His voice for themselves. Bearing in mind that we all come to Him from different places in life and with different experiences of both God and the world that’s a pretty big task. So as we work on our worship environment I’d like to suggest that we also work on our focus on God. It would be really great during these next few months to spend some time thinking about the way we each address the issue of how we accommodate God in our lives. What works and what doesn’t. Are our quiet times truly places where we hear from God, where our focus is on Him and what’s in His heart for us? Is our spiritual furniture a bit worn out and in need of replacement or are we happy to bumble along as we are without worrying too much about the frayed edges and the odd scratch or scrape. And how is our worship? How are we going about the business of  worshipping Him in spirit and in truth? Does our worship and prayer life strengthen us to demolish principalities and strongholds or are we walking round the walls without making a dent. Are we honouring God by using the gifts He’s given us well? So let’s take a little time to refurbish our spiritual lives while we address the issues of wear and tear in our Worship Centre.

With love and blessings,

Paul