Today we hold our Annual Vestry Meeting (following morning tea after the 10 am service). As always, this gives us a valuable opportunity to reflect on how we are tracking as a church, and to pray for God’s guidance as we move into the coming year. You can find the full package of the 2021 Annual Vestry Meeting reports here.
Our vision is to “fill the church with disciples of Jesus Christ”. As I have reflected on how we are going with this, I am grateful to God for enabling us to weather the COVID storm as well as we have. When Sunday services were closed (a year ago tomorrow), our faithful members showed amazing commitment in reaching out to those who were isolated, engaging with our online services, and indeed getting involved with producing our online services!
When in-person church was able to return in July, I was amazed at how positive and grateful everyone was to be here, even though some aspects of the service (notably music) were not able to be the same under COVID as before. As a result of this, our core congregation has remained stable, although there are some whose routines have been knocked around by COVID and so have struggled to make it back to church.
Another great blessing is our relationships with many people who are not yet church members, through Youth, Kids’ Club, Playgroup, our Early Learning Centre, ESL and other ministries. This was demonstrated through the Carols picnic we held late last year, with over 300 people enjoying a time of fun and celebration in our grounds. God really has been blessing our efforts to reach out with the love of Christ.
The task before us, then, is to build on the relationships we have, to show people how attractive it is to follow Christ, and to give people opportunities to make steps along that path of discipleship. Our new all-ages informal congregation plans are a part of this, as are the gospel courses we run from time to time. However, it is a task for all of us. I want to keep encouraging you to invite people into our community. It is so encouraging to see this happening. It is also clearly what the Lord wants us to do.
More on all of the above at today’s meeting!
In brief:
- Please get involved in our letterbox drop, right away! We have only two weeks to get 5000 leaflets to the Randwick community, but we can do it easily, if 25 people took 200 each. It’s all mapped out and easy to understand.
- The graveyard has had its annual trim and is looking splendid. Have a walk down there, and, while you’re there, don’t forget to drop by the sculpture.
- Working bee this coming Saturday!
- We need Easter Eggs for the 4 pm Easter Sunday egg hunt. Please bring in your donations.
- Next Sunday is Palm Sunday with Bishop Michael Stead. Looking forward to seeing you!