As promised, here’s a recap on the most recent Grace Church Family Meeting that was held just this last Wednesday evening.

It has become pretty standard at the beginning of each year, for us to take sometime out to reflect on the previous year, and God’s grace and faithfulness to us and to look forward with anticipation and faith for the year ahead.

2007 has been a year where we, as a church, have experienced God’s abundant goodness and grace. We celebrated our 5th anniversary and we have much to be grateful for. There are encouraging signs and stories all around us of how God has and is at work among us – in our individual lives, as families, and as a wider church family. Just a few weeks ago we heard wonderful testimonies from Ruth and Joel about how God has and is transforming their lives!

Last year was a year, I believe, where God poured out his grace upon us and helped us, by the power of his Holy Spirit:

See people get saved and built into His church.

Grow in our understanding of, love and passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Grow in our desire to see the gospel outworked in our own lives and to see it affect others.

Grow in our relationships together as a church family.

In 2008, we eagerly anticipate the year ahead of us, looking to God for him to continue to build His church, for his glory. But as we announce plans and look to the year ahead, we do so aware of James 4:13ff that we should always acknowledge any plans with “If the Lord wills…”

So, on with the recap…

Firstly, Peter lead us through some administrative details regarding the church finances. He briefly outlined the income and expenditure for 2007, together with an idea of how God has provided for us through increased giving. He also explained that as a church our accounting and financial dealings are internally scrutinized by the board of trustees, and externally scrutinized by the government’s Charity Commission, with whom we must submit annual accounts.

He also asked for all of us who are tax payers to sign a Gift Aid form so we can reclaim so money from the government via this scheme. If you haven’t done so yet, please sign a form this coming sunday and hand it back to Peter.

Peter also asked that each person fill out a form so we can get our address/birthday/anniversary/children records up to date! If you didn’t fill out that form on Wednesday, they will be available on Sunday. Again, please return the completed forms to Peter!

Next came the changes we plan on making to our children’s ministry – Generations.

From 2nd March 2008, we are making the following changes:

Baby Creche (0-2yrs)
Creche workers will now be able to care for babies, providing the baby is able to sit up unaided. However, the creche workers will not be able to feed your baby.

3-4 year olds
The children will be IN the meeting for the worship on the first Sunday of each month, and will be out for the entire morning on the other sundays during the month.

5-10 year olds
We shall be breaking this group down into two smaller groups: 5-7′s and 8-10′s. Peter will be teaching in the 8-10′s group once per month! All the children in this age-range will remain in the worship each Sunday before being released to their classes.

Following Peter, Matt Chapman gave us an update on G2 – our parent-youth ministry – that he leads on a Friday night twice per month. He gave us a brief outline of what takes place and explained the teens and parents were working their way through the youth Christianity Explored programme.

After Matt, I got up and gave a rough overview of where we are headed this year.

On Sunday mornings, we plan on continuing to work our way through the our current series on the Gospel of Luke, but we also want to give a significant amount of time, in the spring, to looking at the importance of the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

Family Matters will conitnue this year, with a Saturday seminar planned for each quarter, beginning on Saturday 1st March 2008, focusing in on marriage.

We also announced that we have booked Tedd Tripp (author of Shepherding a Child’s Heart) to come and undertake a weekend of parenting seminars. We shall announce this further as more details become available! But it’s pretty exciting!

LIFE and M:28 continue monthly on Sunday evenings and on the alternate Sunday evenings we shall be holding our Christianity Explored Course.

More updates to follow…