Dear Church Family,
As we commence our long awaited and much needed building refurbishment, I am writing to you to advise of, and explain, a temporary change of venue for our Sunday morning 10am services.
After prayer and careful thought along with our Churchwardens, and with permission from Bishop Andrew, it has been decided that from Sunday 22 September our 10am Sunday services will be held each week at the Royal Kent School.
As a church our vision is to ‘Grow in Faith, Grow in Number, and Serve our Community.’ The Diocese of Guildford’s vision is to ‘Grow Disciples, Grow Diversity, and Grow Community’. We are committed to providing a warm welcome, excellent ministry with families and children, wonderful hospitality and strong fellowship, particularly around our main 10am Sunday morning worship service. The limitations of soon having no running water, very basic chemical toilets, and only the main worship space in church will cause significant challenge to achieving this.
Fortunately, we have the very kind offer to use the Royal Kent School for Sundays – a venue which has all the facilities we need – meaning we are able to hold onto these important characteristics and priorities as a church together in this season.
Moving venue will not mean a change to our current style or pattern of services – and we will keep this decision under constant review – returning to the church building as soon as it is ready and able meet the needs of our worship, mission and ministry within our vision and values.
I recognise that this is not what we all would ideally prefer – however, I believe that the benefits of moving temporarily to the RKS do outweigh the disadvantages. For those who would much prefer to be in the church building for worship, our Mid-Week Communion each Wednesday at 11.30am will remain at St Andrew’s, and the worship space will be made available for prayer during the week. We will also ensure that certain ‘special’ services do take place at St Andrew’s – including a Memorial Service at the end of October, and an act of Remembrance in November.
Interestingly, I recently discovered that regular Christian worship was taking place at the Royal Kent School (on its site in the High Street) for many years before St Andrew’s Church was built – so it is somewhat fitting to return to the RKS’ present site for worship as our church’s building is renewed.
As I mentioned in my sermon on Sunday 8 September, we are a family as church together – God’s family – and it is love that makes the family work. It is my prayer, therefore, that we would turn the inevitable inconveniences and irritations into opportunities to live out generous love toward one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.
With much love,
Patrick