Author: Laura Thomas

The new St Michael’s Church and Community Centre is now in use.

The first sections of the new building are complete – with the main auditorium, the reception area, the church office and the first of several new meeting rooms all now in action.

The St Michael’s 10.30am Sunday service this weekend (26 April 2015) was held in the new auditorium and attended by over 260 people. The building was also used by 170 members of St Michael’s for our annual church weekend together.

St Michael’s 10.30 service this weekend

The new church and community centre is part of our ambitious Heart of the Community project – which is enabling us to fulfil our vision of Living to Make a Difference. The project also includes the refurbishment of our historic church building, the upgrading of the Old School Rooms facilities next door, and funding numerous outreach and anti-poverty initiatives elsewhere in the UK and around the world.

The same view in October 2013

The new centre has been built over the last 2 years on a derelict land in the centre of Stoke Gifford. Our fundraising efforts and our commitment to pray and trust God continue as we seek to raise the final £1.5m needed to complete the project.

In the weeks and months ahead the new space, combined with our existing facilities, will enable us to welcome, serve and provide meeting spaces for more and more people, young and old, from across this community and beyond.

 

Since Sunday 26 April 2015 two of our weekly congregations have begun to worship in the new church and community centre auditorium.

10.30am

The 10.30 service now begins with everyone – all ages – worshiping together in the main auditorium. After the first 20 minutes the children and young people go to their groups in the Old School Rooms as before. (The changeover is a lot quicker now – because the dividing walls are already assembled and teaching and craft materials already in position.) The grown-ups stay in the auditorium for more worship, teaching and prayer together.

The service finishes at about 11.50am as before, when we can all share coffee, tea and biscuits in the coffee shop.

6.30pm

The evening congregation also now gathers in the new auditorium at 6.30pm for our most informal weekly celebration as a church.

The church building

The 9.00am service will continue to meet in the church building every week. And our monthly service of Evensong is also staying in the church building. Prayers, baptisms, weddings, funerals and all kinds of other services will continue in the church building as well.

Journeying together

For the first few weeks there will be extra people welcoming, signposting and making sure we all know what is happening during our services in the new space. We will be discovering together what works really well and what needs to change a little to make the best use of the new facilities.

Some of us relish the opportunity to try something new. Others find change more challenging.  We will all need to take extra care of each other during this transition. And there will be opportunities to feedback about our experience of worshiping together in the new building.

We begin this exciting new phase of life at St Michael’s remembering that the church is not the building. It’s us – God’s people. Wherever we gather to worship, each one of us is a vital part of the body of Christ.