2024 Bracknell Vision
Last Sunday, Beccy and I had the privilege of sharing where we believe God is leading us as a site in 2024. In order to gain perspective, with the advantage of hindsight, we started by taking a look back at what God has brought through in 2023…
SUNDAYS IN 2023: We felt God saying to try out some new things in order to grow our space- as we were starting to get pretty busy numbers-wise at the back end of 2022.
Here are some other 2023 highlights!
We also had other larger fun-filled community events such as the Summer Picnic and our New Years Eve celebration!
We also got back to a rhythm of Half-Nights of Prayer, one on Good Friday and the other at the beginning of October. They’ve been a great catalyst for getting this 2024 rhythm of prayer in the diary, with the upcoming week of fasting and Prayer starting on the 29th of January and another half-Night of Prayer on the last day, 2nd of Feb. Great way to start the year!
SOCIAL JUSTICE IN 2023: The Revive Cafe has been a great place for community, especially for our Revive clients and people who want to get out at Tuesday lunch time and make friends. There’s an average of 35 people each week. In Bracknell Foodbank, We’re grateful that you’ve been responding to the appeals for specific requests. In December alone we received 12 tonnes of donations which included non-food items. of which 6.6 tonnes of food was given out to clients.
Another midweek super success has been Our mega busy Monday under-5's ministries, Sparklers; which has birthed the Baby Sparks, and Thursday Café. HIGHLIGHT FROM BECCY: “The number of families from these communities that came to our Christmas events - every time I met a Sparklers parent they were telling me how many tickets they’d booked!”
The Trash to Cash is a project we’re supporting along with Tear Fund as one of our Creation Care projects. Situated in Yola, northern Nigeria, the project aims at gathering plastic waste and recycling it into saleable products, providing income and employment opportunities for young people from marginalised communities.
SERVING IN 2023: A good number of us took up the opportunity to served across various ministries on Sundays and midweek — some even serving in more than one ministry. We continue to encourage serving just 1-in-4 weeks, to avoid burn out and also create room to draw other in to come and play on our teams too!
SHARING THE GOSPEL IN 2023: 49 Guests came through Alpha last year. Praise Jesus!
Kerith Kids had four outreach events last year — Easter Trail, Easter Movie, Christmas Experience Trail & Christmas Eve.
There were also the new Sunday 4pm All-In Meetings for families & Weekday Sparklers Toddler Group. Our Revive Team had three Social Justice outreach events — 2 Quiz Nights and a Revive Christmas Party. Our Christmas Experience sold out with over 1,000 people booked-in!
FINANCES IN 2023:
Building Fund by the end of this year we want to have installed our new white LED lights not these old, now horrible, greenish ‘Shrek’ ceiling lights we have now! (clearly visible when we turn off the theatrical lights)
After an initial quote of £20,000 to sort our lights, a further review gave us an estimate that we’d really need closer to £70,000. That meant that our budget for the Bracknell Building Fund ended up coming to £190,000 instead of the £140,000 we first announced. This budget is all aimed at sorting out our lights, PA system and environmental survey.
We raised £76,005 of this last year. At the end of 2023 we were able to:
We’ve replaced the microphones — which were already acting up (those cost £15,000).
Environmental/Carbon Footprint Survey: completed. Waiting to get results at end of Jan/early Feb
So, in summary having raised approx £76,000 in 2023 we’d like to raise the remaining £114,000 and get these projects completed.
2024 Kerith Bracknell Vision
For those who have been around a while you will have seen the writing on the wall. We are FULL on a Sunday . The wisdom on church research is that 80% auditorium With an auditorium capacity of about 650 80% auditorium = 520
Kids/Youth spaces are at capacity
Car park 7th Jan > 235 cars plus double parked in our- car park
BUT Its Not just the Physical Space its the Community space too. We are not able to mill around and chat after church or before without bumping into each other!
A picture to help us understand where we are at from Beccy..
This year I planted beetroot seeds but didn’t go back and thin out the beetroot- so by the time I dug it up for Christmas some beets were tiny and others huge- some grew into others and squashed them – had i just replanted early on in the season to give each of the plants space as they grew i would have got a much better harvest!
Think about each of us a seed that God have planted in the Kerith garden – right now we are all growing close together, but any gardener will know there's a time in the farming process where seeds need to be thinned out.
This is where you go along and move the seedlings from where they are – normally one big seedling tray and you transplant them into their actual spot spaced out with more room for growth to a large plant.
“Thinning crowded seedlings ensures that your plants have plenty of room to grow into strong, healthy, mature plants. If left un-thinned, crowded seedlings will compete for nutrients, water, air, and root space, and that will ultimately stunt their growth.”
We have this moment as a church to replant ourselves with space to grow well- and that looks like multiplying the morning meetings again
Pelumi shared with us the passage where the israelites are at the borders of the Promised Land and they are deciding whether to enter .
Numbers 13:21-33
Report on the exploration
26 They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 They gave Moses this account: ‘We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. 28 But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.’
30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, ‘We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.’
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.’ 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, ‘The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.’
“How did the people of Israel feel when they had this challenge before them?” “How are we feeling with this idea of two meetings?”
Let’s remember what Caleb said to try and encourage the people about the good land they were considering.