Since starting Re:Imagine, we have met regularly as a leadership team to discuss and pray about where God is leading us.
The word “simplify” has been mentioned many times. We have been challenged to look at areas of church life which do not serve the purpose of bringing people to faith and are therefore not necessary.
Alongside Re:Imagine, we have been reading the book “Simple Church” by Thom S Rainer and Eric Geiger and as a result of this, we have developed a simple statement which is becoming the foundation of everything we do and are about, as a church of people at Milton Baptist Church:
“Love God, Love each other and Love Weston-Super-Mare”
Love God is the ‘up’ i.e. our worship to God through Sunday services. These are currently on YouTube!
Love each other is the ‘in’, through small house groups. These have become increasingly important through lockdown.
Love Weston is the ‘out’, where we seek to serve our local community and reach out to those in need.
We have begun to recognise the huge impact that COVID 19 is having on people’s mental health and this has spurred us on to follow our dream of opening up a Renew Wellbeing Space in our local area. We had previously discussed the possibility, but nothing had fallen into place until just over a month ago and we’re now in the process of securing a shop on a local high street!
This will be opened up, hopefully working alongside existing businesses (a mental health charity shop one side and a café on the other) and will be a place where people can come and just ‘be’. They can take part in activities which promote good mental health e.g. colouring, art, crafts, chats etc. There will prayer times throughout the day where people can join in if they feel they want to and volunteers will be trained to be able to come alongside people who enter the building.
We also recognise the need to provide something for young people, to support their wellbeing in these difficult times. With this in mind, one evening a week will be set aside for this age group.
We are very excited about the future of this venture and through the Re:Imagine process, we have a clearer picture of who we are/who we want to be as a church and where God is leading us to be effective in our local town of Weston-Super-Mare.
Milton BC are on of the churches working through the Re:Imagine process together. For more information on Re:Imagine, click here.
Wow, that is great news about a place being made available for the Renew Wellbeing Space, in such a great location too.