Ministers of Spiritual Care

Yesterday I visited a Baptist Church at Calahonda, near to where we are staying.  It's an international church, with people drawn from as far away as South Africa and America.    It's nice to worship somewhere in Spain where the language is English and a Baptist Church to boot.

The preacher was one of the Elders, Ken Oke, a Canadian.  The sermon was from Ephesians 4 verses 11-13 ¹¹ So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, ¹² to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up ¹³ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

He noted that people often function most effectively when they have a defined role - even an office, or title, so he suggested that each person in the church might have a title of Minister of Spiritual Care.   Whereas Christ gives us people in very specific roles - apostles, prophets etc, they are not the ones that do everything, merely to equip everyone else to do works of service so that the body of Christ is built up.    We often think of these leaders as responsible for building up the body, but it's actually each of us that have responsibility as Ministers of Spiritual Care.

We are responsible for each of those alongside us and around us, both in the church and those who don't know Jesus yet.  We have the title but it's up to each of us to fill in the blanks as to how we minister to others and we will need to pray for, pray with, help and reach the lost.   And its our being responsible to one another that will build the church up.   We do not do the work of God alone - we have been given one another.   

Whereas there are those in leadership who get trained, ordained, appointed or whatever; each of God's people is a minister and God's power is with each of us and at work within each of us and He will use us to touch other people's lives.

God has made each of us important - we are all ministers and are here to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up  until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Josh Hunt's Commissioning at the Academy

Chaplain Commissioning Ceremony (March 2015) from Felixstowe Academy on Vimeo.

Churches Together in Felixstowe AGM Reports

 Here are the reports presented to the Churches Together in Felixstowe AGM and Forum on 12th May.  They make encouraging reading.

 

 

 

Academy Chaplaincy Update from Boost 

 

In September 2014 we launched a new chaplaincy partnership with Felixstowe Academy. Thank you for your support. This project has opened up many opportunities and is gaining recognition at a regional and national level, and remains the first partnership of its kind in Britain. 

 

Josh has been involved in a number of new events at the academy as well as offering pastoral support and contributing to assemblies and lessons on a regular basis. Feedback from staff and students has been overwhelmingly positive, as seen at Josh’s commissioning service at the academy with Bishop David before Easter. 

 

Finance remains a challenge for us. The academy are unable to contribute to the funding of this role and although we have seen support grow recently we still need more regular giving to make sure this project is sustainable long term. 

 

With the potential of interacting with 1,300 students on a daily basis, Academy Chaplaincy is not only good value, but also is leading the way in creative partnerships between churches and schools, and rediscovering what modern youth work and ministry looks like. 

 

Thank you for your continued interest and please do support us if you are able.

Walton Parish Nursing

  

We had a particularly successful information morning during Unity Week. 

Marilyn Flower stepped down as our Parish Nurse OT at the end of April as she prepares to relocate to Bournemouth. So we are recruiting for another Parish Nurse, preferably with community  psychiatric nursing experience, to join Lorna & the team (deadline for applications is May 22^nd).

Our wonderful team of volunteers has grown to 19 which includes some from churches outside Walton.

There is a new drop-in health clinic at The Laydens Project, Langley Avenue, which is proving popular.  

Two volunteers are to train as leaders for chair-based exercise classes with a vision to start a second class in the near future.

We have a dedicated Management Team & a set of Trustees that includes the three Ministers of the Walton churches in this ecumenical partnership. 

 

Look at our new website www.waltonpn.org.uk.   We have valued the support from other churches & 

wish to acknowledge kind donations received over the year.

Felixstowe Listening Service (FLS)

 

Now well into our fourth year, we continue to provide short-term listening as well as professional counselling for adults who are experiencing life difficulties. With a team of 10 trained volunteer listeners and counsellors, we are now running up to 16 individual sessions a week on Wednesdays and Thursdays, both at the Library and at Hope Trust and aim to see prospective clients for an initial interview within two to three weeks. We are committed to offering listening as a free service (although we do actively encourage donations) and low-cost counselling related to people’s ability to pay. 

With the majority of the people who use the service being on low incomes and our need to develop the service further, we are experiencing financial pressures and are constantly looking at ways of increasing our income without in any way compromising our Christian ethos. 

Our longer-term aim is to have our own premises, possibly shared with another Christian group. We greatly value our relationship with the local churches and welcome opportunities to speak to church congregations and groups to explain how our service works in partnership with local church ministry. For more information on FLS, please contact Margaret Bale on 07896 326459 or e-mail felixstowelisten@gmail.com.

Felixstowe Town Pastors

Thanks for your prayers, love and support for the work of Felixstowe Town Pastors. On the 10^th of April 2010 Felixstowe Town Pastors stepped onto the streets for the first time to serve in the night time economy, defusing and de-escalating difficult situations, listening, caring and serving – so yes, that means we are now 5 years old!

Our statistics for 2014 regarding the 1864 incidents handled give one picture of what we’ve handled, but our experience and one to one engagement have many hidden stories about loving, caring, bringing peace, building bridges, serving, mopping up mess, sweeping up broken glass, dried tears, laughing, hugs, high fives and answered prayer.

Last year we said goodbye to Philippa Kichenside as Coordinator (but still a Town Pastor), and this year we’ve welcomed Jan Bedford who joined us to look after the day to day running of TP’s in Felixstowe. Our greatest ongoing need – more volunteers! Especially base pray-ers, and also female town pastors. If interested in finding out more, please see Jan Bedford or Liz at the CTF AGM, or email coordinator@felixstowetownpastors.org.uk

Every Blessing!

Peter Livey – Director, FTP