Community Church Robertsbridge

 

• A 'pop up' church celebrating its third birthday in June 2018

• Providing informal seasonal celebrations for harvest, Christmas and Easter, along with monthly 'missional community' craft sessions with a Thought for the Day

• Financial support from Home Mission has enabled this church to build links with its community

Community Church Robertsbridge (CCR) is a 'pop up' church and will celebrate our third birthday in June.  We are 'pop up' as we rent our premises but we are embedded in the community of the village.  We gather together in the Youth Centre for Sunday worship and the Village Hall for our weekday activities.  We need to be very flexible and so, as the Tiddlers and Toddlers have grown into nursery and school, a Parenting fellowship group has grown and we have provided Parenting courses for parents and family supporters. Through this group we are supporting young people on the autism spectrum.
 
The weekly coffee morning continues to flourish attracting 25-30 people where we also have informal seasonal celebrations for Harvest, Christmas and Easter which we combine with film shows for families, most recently the cartoon version of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at Easter.

Since September we have been forming a new monthly 'missional community' known as Craft Creations to provide a stepping stone between coffee morning and our worship service, and this has attracted people we have not connected with before.  A different craft is taught each month with a Thought for the Day included.
 
We have also begun a new link with Tools with a Mission which saw a good response from the Village, enabling us to donate a car load of assorted tools in the spring.
 
Another new challenge has been conducting a funeral in a village hall where we were able to welcome many villagers to a different type of sacred space.
 

Prayers of thanks

• For the love gifts from Rye Baptist Church and Battle Baptist Church that have resourced all our different types of outreach
• For the Parenting fellowship group and Craft Creations
• That CCR has been able to gift to Home Mission and BMS

Prayer Request

• Two of our four leaders are moving (Church Secretary and sound / super-handyman). Please pray for new people to be called to CCR
• That we would continue to build relationships in the village and beyond
• Our verse for the year is “Come, follow me”. Please pray that we would follow the Lord’s leading 

Practical needs

One of our ongoing challenges is storage.
 

Plans for the coming year

CCR hopes to host our Family Fun event in August and would like to start a Bereavement course in the Autumn. CCR is very grateful for the all the different types of support we have received from Home Mission, from SEBA churches, from SEBA and the BU.
   

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