As I write this we are in the final stages of the refurbishment. It has been a long journey with numerous challenges, not least supporting unstable walls, moving stained glass windows, a war memorial that refused to be prized away from its existing position, and finding chairs suitable for everyone’s leg length! But God willing, we will be celebrating Easter Sunday in our new worship area, and what a celebration it will be!! As you can see, we have a new logo too. With the opening of the worship area, it seemed an opportune time for an Emmanuel logo that can be used on our correspondence and publicity, and our resident artist, Cheryl O’Connor, has beautifully conceived this for us.
Preparing to move back into the Church has given us the opportunity to reflect upon new ways of reaching out to our local community, so please pray for the new initiatives ‘Together on Wednesday’ and ‘Little Fishes’, that will both be launched in May. We are currently in the season of Lent, when we take the opportunity to reflect upon our relationship with God and our response to Jesus’ call to be his disciples. We also look forward to our ‘Talking of God Together’ sessions, which have resulted from our newly formed ‘Faith Forum’. Everyone will be welcome and we would encourage you to bring friends along to these sessions as through scripture, poetry, artwork and testimonies, we can come together, informally, to simply talk about, and deepen our relationship with God.
As a community, embarking on a new chapter in the life of our Church, I thank God for the opportunity to continue to Minister here at Emmanual, and pray that as the body of Christ, we will continue to encourage one another in our faith, serve our local community and experience the joy of the resurrection of Christ our Lord.
May God continue to bless us all this glorious Eastertide
Sue.