Thank you so much for the mission grant which has enabled us to build a new church community with the local people of Stockbrook in central Derby meeting every Tuesday from 12.30 to 7.30pm.
We meet every Tuesday at the local community rooms which have been made available to us free of charge. Ruth Rice trained us and we then spent 2 months praying. We have adopted the Renew model creating a space for local people that includes a craft area, a quiet reading or colouring area, space for games and a jigsaw puzzle and a prayer space where we have said prayers three times a day.
We have had more than 35 visitors in that time and 16 people from our church have participated along with people from two other local Baptist churches. Our publicity material simply says it’s ok not to be ok and we have had many local lonely and vulnerable people come to share coffee tea and cakes brought along by guests and hosts. On Christmas Day we will have a Christmas lunch together made possible by donations from other local community groups.
There have been some wonderful times. One of the guests loves jigsaws and completes a puzzle every week, he also enjoys dominoes and gifted a set of ‘nines’ to Renew which have proved very popular. Another guest is a retired Russian teacher who has taken great joy in teaching craft. A guest with many challenges wrote and read a poem to everyone one week. Birthdays have been celebrated and there has been lots of laughter. We have learnt that we are not there to serve others but to participate with them allowing them to serve us and teach us things. There has been a clear sense of God’s presence and some have already found their way to our church building.
We were delighted to receive a Respect Award from the local council for our care of vulnerable adults.
One host said, ‘For years, outreach has felt like going way out of our comfort zones, here it is being with real people, being real ourselves’. Other hosts have enjoyed being able to greet people on the streets locally, being recognised because of Renew.