A church is no good if it is not showing the gospel and love of Christ out in the community. There is an awful lot we could do. We strongly suspect that many of our community think that the church is always asking for money but doesn’t do much for anyone except its own  members and the odd wedding or funeral family. Whether that is accurate or not that perception must be changed so that what we do for the poor, the sick, the needy, the very young and the very old marks us out as a blessing to the community and points to God.

We are a long way from that and so this year we shall be exploring how we can expand our pastoral ministry to those both within and without the church. The vicar cannot do this with multiple parishes and jobs – and nowhere in the gospel does it say that we should dump all the responsibility for looking after the needy on one or two people. As people of Christ we are called to care and those who are particularly gifted are particularly called!

One of the areas where we do already serve the community is in Braunston School and so this year we will strengthen those links, inviting one or two more church folk to join the assembly team and maybe even become a school governor. If you are interested in helping at the school then let us know.