We're very excited about our new series - IDENTITY - starting this Sunday 4 October. This series was planned for the Summer 2020 term and then postponed due to COVID, so it's been in the pipeline for ages and we're delighted to finally get to it. IDENTITY will ask who God is, and how we get to be in relation to him! In other words, how our true identity as humans is found in relationship with our loving heavenly Father.
The series is partly shaped by the journey Lois Fulton and others in the Prayer and Supernatural Focus Team have been on, as they have engaged with a Training for Supernatural Ministry course, as part of the preparation for our own School of the Spirit. So we're expectant that God will do stuff with us, changing us as a community, as we walk through this new series. We want it to not just be a teaching series but also a changing series!
We already know one thing that God wants to change. In recent weeks God has shown us repeatedly that he is inviting us to fresh intimacy. Our Senior Pastor Steve Jones (currently on sabbatical) spoke about this on 30 August, and since then there have been further invitations God has whispered as part of our worship each week.
So, as we meet week-by-week on Sundays at The King's Centre (and online), we encourage you: come expectant for God to meet us, and change us - both as individuals and as a community!
Practically, there are a few new things happening on Sundays that we wanted to let you know about:
- Sign-up: From October, we don't need you to sign up for Sunday services in advance. We will still need you to check in on arrival (for track and trace), and also are planning to improve our approach to welcome as you arrive at The King's Centre.
- Pre-service prayer: If you can be onsite by 10am, you're welcome to join us for prayer - it's open to all! These short meetings are rich times as we ask God to move in our Sunday gatherings, and a further chance to connect together as church. For those not able to join us in person, we will soon be adding an option for online preservice prayer.
- Conversations: The guidelines on this have been eased slightly, so while you are seated waiting for the service to start, or as you are waiting to leave, please feel free to turn to the people around you and make conversation, without raising your voice or removing your mask.
- Prayer ministry: We're hoping to find a way that we can recommence prayer ministry (COVID-securely, of course) at the end of our gatherings, to allow us to pray for whatever the Holy Spirit wants to do in each other. Watch this space…
- Sunday pages on website: Over the summer we've been tidying up our website - a big thanks to Chris Fulton for leading on this - so you will notice a few improvements. If you have any website questions, please do contact the office.
Thank you to all of you that completed the Sunday survey last week. Your feedback was encouraging - you think we've done a good job as we've had to reshape Sundays during lockdown and beyond - as well as giving very helpful suggestions which we will explore. Some of you had specific questions or suggestions about what we can do with COVID - can we hang around anyway? can we sing? why are we meeting in person anyway? - we've updated our COVID page to comment on those.
One headline: 86% of you said "It means a lot to me that we gather in person as church". We are encouraged to continue to work hard to facilitate COVID-secure gatherings, that enable us to meet as church, encourage one another, and 'lift our heads' to see what God wants to do in us and through us.
