St John's Seven Kings: New developments

There have been several encouraging new developments for the mission and ministry of St John's Seven Kings at the beginning of 2012.
The photos above are of our refurbished Fellowship Room. Work began before Christmas to raise and relay the floor and to redecorate this room. That work is now complete and the room back in use again. The work, which provides level access throughout our building, has been made possible by donations/grants from the family of Philippa Page, London Over the Border and the AllChurches Trust. We are exploring options for locating a new project within this space and will give thanks for the refurbishment of the room when the Bishop of Barking visits us on Sunday 15th July.

Bishop David will be visiting us on that Sunday to commission the new Ministry Leadership Team which we have formed at St John's Seven Kings to develop strategies for Children and Youth, Mission, Pastoral Care, Peace and Justice, and Worship.

Other new developments include a monthly Communion Service at a local Supported Housing complex and the opportunity to input to RE lessons at Seven Kings High School. We have also been able to announce that a new Title Post Curate will join us in July.

We are also hosting a community campaigns meeting tomorrow. Seven Kings has had a number of well organised and effective community campaigns in recent years. Some have been single issue campaigns while others have been organised by community campaigning groups like TASK and the Seven Kings & Newbury Park Resident's Association (SKNPRA). Many of these campaigns have also benefited from the support or involvement of local councillors and/or MPs.

However, some of the energy for these campaigns has dissipated more recently as, for a variety of different reasons, the founding members of TASK are no longer able to take that grouping forward. As a result, I have suggested holding tomorrow's open meeting at which anyone interested in community campaigning in future to improve facilities in the area can discuss a new way forward.

There are several options, such as: keeping TASK going; using existing groups like Resident's Associations, only doing single issue campaigns, joining a broader campaigning coalition like The East London Communities Organisation (TELCO - http://www.citizensuk.org/chapters/telco/). The idea of the meeting is to discuss the options open to us and to see whether there is a concensus able to provide a way forward.

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Evanescence - Bring Me To Life.