Rivertown United Reformed Church

25th April

Over the coming weeks Rivertown fellowship will be asked to 'pos' their BIG QUESTION. What is it that puzzles them along their faith journey? What question remains unanswered or appears to be unsolvable?

Some of the questions will be incorporated into a Sunday service as we, together, explore what the answers might be - or maybe raise even more questions!

Several people from Rivertown attended an excellent evening at Dyserth to better understand the Vision4life process. On 30th January a number of us met at the Manse to consider some ideas emerging:

1. Using the NIBBLES at worship as a run up to the full Launch of V4Life
2. Having a Grand Event 4 times a year
3. A regular Tea Event

Although this report illustrates our current ‘thinking’ it will be further discussed by the Elders later in February.

Rivertown is a very active church and rather than create too many special events we would embrace Vision4Life e into existing items in our church life & witness; incorporating the brand “Vision4Life” into Worship, Bible Studies and Social Events. The hopeful outcome of this is reaching more people who may realise “it’s for me”. We agreed to bring “Vision4Life”into life in the next 2-3 months and have a pre-Easter introduction, addressed to the entire church family with the strap line “we believe that God can help us, through the Vision4Life process”.

Followed by: • using Vision4Life ‘Nibbles’ in worship, probably at Family Talk time; • Music Group using Scriptural Choruses and Songs; • Visiting people at home to enthuse them about Vision4Life and urge their prayer for it; • Possible involvement of Sunday School in practical expressions of faith; • Testimonies in worship, and reactions to these, as and when appropriate; • Use of groups in worship; • Enacted Stories – from the Bible.

Our aim is for Rivertown to compare and contrast the Vision4Life of the Bible, the world, and ourselves; with a challenge to come up with a “Vision4Life” for our church.

After Easter, there will be a series of questions for the whole church to consider; possibly one per fortnight, leading up to a Sunday service to bring it all together in a short talk. Questions, such as ‘Is God scary?’ could be submitted by the congregation via a “Post Box”.

In the long run, this could lead up to one special day event during the year or help to encourage fresh expressions of Worship including café Worship which we are planning to hold on Pentecost Sunday.

15th January

Colin, our minister, and several members attended the meeting to 'unpack' the Vision4Life material on Wednesday 14th at Dyserth and we came away with a better understanding and full of excitement and enthusiasm. The authors had certainly put a lot of thought, imagination and hard work into preparing the booklet - 'the feast'. We came away with a number of ideas which we will have to develop in the coming weeks - using the nibbles and starters in junior church and worship time; perhaps launching the whole menu of courses at a meal for the fellowship and much more.