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| Reports |
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| January Men's Breakfast, Family Service |
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| Family Service and Cheque Presentation | |||||||||||||||||
 As part of our attempt to provide a toilet for our church, we were pleased to receive a generous grant of £9,000 from the Gloucester Historic Churches Trust (GCHT). There representative, Mr Ben Woods, accompanied by his wife, attended our Family Service on 22nd January to present a cheque to our Churchwarden, Mrs Jean Eversham. (Return to Top)
The theme of the Service, therefore revolved around buildings, with a Reading from the Bible about the man who built his house on firm rock and one who built it on shifting sand so it collapsed (Matthew 7:24-27), and we sang the hymn 'The Church's One Foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord' and the combined Senior and Junior Choirs sang an anthem based on a familiar hymn, 'Lord of All Hopefulness' but to a new tune written by a contemporary composer. (Return to Top). |
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| Men's Breakfast | |||||||||||||||||
 The first event of 2012 was on 7th January, another of our popular Men's Breakfast in the Beauchamp Arms Pub. 17 men met to share a Full English Breakfast (Fried bacon, and egg, sausage, etc) and a chat, before we heard from our guest, Mike Curtis, the founding director of Gloucester City Mission. (Return to Top)
Mike explained that he'd worked in the print industry for many years, but when he was made redundant for the fourth time some years ago, he wondered where his life was going and felt called to go to theological college, even though, in his own words, he wasn't 'particularly academic'. He said he found it hard going but he passed and became a pastor looking for a ministry. He then felt called to minister to the homeless, and those with drink and drug addicts on the streets of Gloucester city, and has turned an initial one-man mission with a haversack into several pastors and assistants working out of a small office with heated trolleys providing soups, pies, and toiletries and pastoral care for the many homeless and addicts in Gloucester. (Return to Top) He acted out three scenarios of typical people they meet with plausible excuses asking for money, which will usually be used to buy drugs, and asked how would we respond? He explained they offer to take them to the station and buy the ticket for the proposed journey or go to the Landlord and pay the outstanding rent, but have only had to part with the money once! They also had to learn to communicate in 'street parlance'. For example, someone asked for 'help with their hearing' so he prayed with them that it would improve, only to be told that the (court) hearing was next Tuesday. (Return to Top) He went on to describe the sort of problems they meet and some of the help they've been able to provide both on the street and in prisons etc, and the way they work with the other providers such as the Salvation Army and institutional church authorities. He hoped that they would eventually be able to create a forum of providers so they could co-ordinate the work better. Asked how it's funded, he said entirely by donations from God's people (church-goers). (Return to Top) |
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