Rivertown United Reformed Church

In the coming weeks we have a number of special services to look forward to. On Sunday 4th May we will hear about the work of Health Help International and share in some worship materials provided by the charity. On Sunday May 11th - Pentecost - it is appropriate that on the birthday of the Christian Church we will launch Vision for Life during both the morning and evening services. We will be outlining the vision for the overall programme and also focus on the 1st part of the 4 year schedule - Transformed by the Bible. During the service a number of people will take part in an informal discussion on their experiences in using the Bible. People will be encouraged to take part in open sessions in early June to explore and learn together how the Bible can be a transforming influence on our lives.

We have received some great news - a call has been accepted by a minister for our pastorate. More news will follow once we know that the news has been shared with the minister’s existing pastorate.

We rejoice and are delighted to know that God has included a minister in our plans. We look forward to growing together.

Rivertown has created a small working group to consider how we can best approach the URC Vision4Life programme (vision4life.terapad.com). We met for the 1st time this week and our aim is to explore and respond to the opportunities presented in the Vision4Life initiatives ‘transformed by The Bible’ – ‘transformed through prayer’ – ‘transformed for evangelism’, engaging as widely as possible within all three churches in the pastorate.

We agreed to promote the Vision4Life programme as a whole, and focus initially on ‘transformed by The Bible’; engage with people in worship, through established fellowship and study groups, in open-invitation talks, and, if needed, through at-home conversations. We will invite Rivertown fellowship / study groups, Garden City and Northop Hall congregations to join any of the arranged open invitation talks.

We have successfully launched our building project after a great response for donations from our members and friends. There are many challenges ahead of us and unfortunately we have just encountered our first one - we will need to find a new project manager/building controller as the current one has withdrawn due to extensive work commitments.

There are three main working parties - building; fund raising & grants; communications and a number of meetings have already taken place. A survey of the building has indicated that we are in ‘good shape’ and our two early priorities will be to replace the roof and to modify the rooms at the rear of the Church. Lots of fund raising has already started - Autumn Fair; e-bay selling; social events and individuals making and selling craft work - greeting cards, knitwear and crochet; Christmas Stockings and much more. For the year to April 2008 we have brought in just over £2000.

Welcome everybody to the new Rivertown United Reformed Church website. I hope it provides both promotion for the church and a productive community environment for you to create useful and interesting articles & information.

This is a new venture for the church, and I hope that as more of the congregation get used to new technologies such as the internet and e-mail, we’ll increase the amount of content on the site, create a website editorial team for managing content and find more and more uses for the site other than simply an information repository. Already on the cards if the site takes off are:

• ability to subscribe to events, so you can be reminded of an important happening via e-mail or mobile phone;
• a secure, on-line version of the Rivertown Directory for church members;
• improved article submission: members will be able to submit stories and photos directly to the site, with a simple moderation check by the team of site editors;
• an improved weblink directory

So just because the site is now live doesn’t mean its finished! Anybody can contribute to the site. If you have any articles, news, ideas or suggestions, please contact myself or Chris Byrne. Additionally, Chris will be looking to find additional editors and site moderators to help manage the site content, so if you’re computer-literate and up for it, let us know!.

The site has been developed by Dylan and myself at leafish.co.uk, and I will be monitoring the site and making improvements as the site’s content grows. Your feedback is, of course, wanted if not required to help make the site a success. You can contact us directly at support@leafish.co.uk

Please read the notes below (or click here) for a brief introduction to some of the features of the website.