Rivertown United Reformed Church

“Because I love them”

Greetings! It is so good to have settled among you. We are already starting to feel “at home”! And once again, many many thanks for all the wonderful expressions of goodwill – and all the hard and generous work that has gone into making the Manse such a lovely home. Thank you very much indeed!

It happened on a beach in Tenby, not long before we moved. We were 4 – Joanna our daughter, Ruth and I, and of course, 12 year old dog Toby. As we played with him on the beach, a couple came up to us and asked “Does your dog moult a lot?” “All the time!” I replied, “he must grow it again very quickly – and thickly – otherwise he would have been bald years ago!”

We are now truly in Autumn, as the green turns to beautiful shades of red, yellow, orange and gold.

On October 13th at 7.30 at Rivertown Church. The start of a six week programme to discuss the world we all want and discover how the Bible can help.

On Saturday 4th October we enjoyed a celebration to mark the calling of Rev. Colin Foreman to the Deeside Pastorate. The service was well attended and well received by all. Our time together included the necessary formalities but the overall feeling was of a special time together in the presence of God.

Our thanks go out to all those people who traveled far and wide to be with us and to be share Colin and his family's special day. People came from his recent pastorate in Milford Haven and others from past days at Rivertown. We were also pleased to see representatives of local and national government supporting us at this time.

Despite the difficulties caused by the roof work and scaffolding we managed to move from the induction service to a time to sharing and refreshments with relative ease!

Thank you to the people who presided, those who shared worship with us and a special thanks to those who took part.

The induction of Rev. Colin Foreman into the Deeside Pastorate (Garden City URC, Rivertown URC and Northop Hall PCW) will take place at Rivertown URC Chester Road West Shotton Flintshire on Saturday 4th October at 3pm.

DIRECTIONS

From M56 Manchester/M6

Follow M56 to the end then bear left onto the A5117 following signs for North Wales. There are currently extensive road works along this route. Follow temporary signs to North Wales until you join the A550. Soon after crossing over the River Dee take the next exit, sign posted Connah’s Quay. At roundabout take last exit right. Bear left through the traffic lights (do not turn left into ASDA) along Chester Road West for about ¾ mile. You will pass Deeside Leisure Centre on your right. Go through a set of traffic lights, passing Pizza Hut and B&Q on your right, then an ESSO garage and the St Ethelwold Parish Church on your left.

The building project is now well underway.

The first phase, to refurbish the church roof has finished and the decorating of inside the church started straight away and is expected to finish by 16th November.

We have finalised the specification for Phase 2 - the revamping of the ground floor layout. The architect will send out the tender documents on 14th November and we expect to get the replies mid-December.

Over the past few months we have focused on the 1st element of the Vision 4 Life process - the Bible - and held a number of 'conversations', following the material provided. In all over 30 of members and friends took part and some common themes surfaced - most notably 'I do not know the Bible enough'. Two special services were held - one to share the feedback and reinforce the Bible's place in our faith; the second to offer our commitment to the the 1st stage of the process which will start in Advent 2008. Rivertown has committed to Vision 4 Life and are looking forward to the times of exploration which lies ahead.

Reverend Colin Foreman has accepted the call to ministry in the Deeside group of which Rivertown is part with Garden City and Northop Hall PCW. Colin and his family will be moving into the Manse in mid-September and his induction will be Saturday 4th October.

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.

The three churches in our pastorate - Rivertown URC; Garden City URC and Northop Hall PCW - have recently decided to give ourselves a name and an identity - it was agreed at a joint Elders meeting to call ourselves the Deeside Pastorate.

We celebrated Easter in our two services on Sunday. In the morning we included a drama and the young people decorated the cross with flowers and young chickens! This was to illustrate the change from the darkness and despair on Good Friday to the new life and light of the resurrection.