St Faith's Church, Away Day 2010

‘AWAY DAY’ UPDATE

St. Faith’s Away-Day on 17th July 2010 in Barton-le-Clay, at St. Nicholas’ Church Hall. What a beautiful venue we had for our day. The purpose of the day was to reflect, and discuss the next 5-10 years of the life and mission of St. Faith’s.

We were so fortunate to have Richard Cano, Head Teacher of Purwell School to facilitate the morning workshop. He invited us all with empathy and sympathy to look through someone else’s eyes of St. Faith’s 10 years from now, and in our groups of five put down what they maybe saying about the Church, eg a choir member, a young family, a JCC member etc. This was written onto flip chart sheets of paper and displayed around the room.

In our next session (after a coffee break), we were asked to underline and endorse those suggestions that we felt attracted to.

After a hearty lunch! we were joined for the afternoon by district councillor Ray Shakespeare-Smith. This part was chaired by Philip and Charmaine. We discussed the mornings workshop, looked and noted the suggestions that attracted the most endorsements eg All Age service changed, JCC more involved in Church life, better communications in the news sheet, use of modern technology (tape services for housebound).

Our discussions then moved to working together to complete our integration as a Local Ecumenical Partnership with ministry and membership. There was a unanimous agreement that this was a worthwhile endeavour and to work towards a goal of achieving this by September 2011.

The Circuit and Parish, at Superintendent and Rector level, are involved in these discussions and helping to move this forward.

For those who missed the Away-Day and would like to be involved, there will be a briefing on the days events on Sundays 15th August and 5th September, after the 9.30 am Service.

Everyone is invited to be involved - don’t miss out on the opportunity.

Charmaine and Philip