Messy Church

It has been quiet around church for a few weeks with so many being away! We hope everyone can enjoy a time to relax and recharge the batteries over the holidays, whether at home or away. If you will be around for the first week in August, there will be a lot of exciting things going on as we get ready for our launch of Messy Church.

Messy Church Logo Copyright Bible Reading Fellowship© 2011

Messy Church is a once a month time when families come together to enjoy creativity, music and eating together.

The aims are:
• To help families feel they belong in church and to each other
• To help people have fun and be creative together   
• To introduce Jesus through hospitality, friendship, stories and songs

Find out more at www.messychurch.org.uk.


We have set aside the first week in August to plan, prepare for and practise Messy Church. Monday and Wednesday mornings we will meet in the church at around 9.30 am for two fun filled, faith building sessions targeted at all ages as we look to God to stir up our creativity and our passion for connecting with our communities. We'll start with coffee and juice, and eat lunch together before finishing around 1 pm. Everyone is welcome, but if you have a particular excitement for families then please come along! Tuesday we will have a picnic in the Glen (11am -1 pm). Meet us in front of the Andrew Carnegie Museum if you would like to join us. Thursday we will try out Messy Church from 11 am - 1 pm in the church! And on Friday there will be a church barbecue (5.30 - 8.30 pm - venue to be arranged).

Here are some future Messy Church dates for your diary:

Saturday 27th August
Saturday 24th September
Saturday 29th October   
Saturday 26th November     

@ the Link Church, 4 - 6 pm   

Athens Link Visit

The Athens team returned home on June 13th after a busy week of fun, sharing and praying together, daytrips to various places and some good work done around our building. Most of us enjoyed the chance to catch up with at least some of the team during the time they were here. We have heard some encouraging testimonies of how God has touched lives and we’re sure there are even more stories to tell.

Many thanks to everyone who helped make this visit possible by hosting, providing transport, helping with the catering and giving us homebaking for the team and the various different events, joining in with the work projects around the church and generally welcoming the group and helping them feel at home among us! A big thank you too to all involved in the huge BBQ, and for all the hard work that went into planning and holding our ceilidh.

We hope this will be the first of many trips to and from Athens! Here are some photos from the week (thanks to Diana Zylow!)

Some photo's of our building's journey! Enjoy! We are!!

Our kids and their grown up are loving having this room back! The ceiling looks great!



Ahhh!!  A very happy home for our toys!



This is just fab... a joint US and UK little hands project with some help from big hands.
Can you spot Mercy and Courage?



An additional project is in progress!



Youth Room kitchen!

New shelves need a bit of organising!!

Floor back in and carpet down!

Our prayer room cleared of clutter and open for prayer- a life lesson in there for us.

Progress!!

What an incredible few weeks we have had.  It has been busy...... the lack of blog posts is testament to that.
The building work is finished, well that is to say the work on the building to restore the flood damage is finished.  We have been hugely blessed by teams that have come into our building and have worked to a really good standard, have worked fast and have been friendly and helpful.  We are grateful to them.  The rooms look great and soon we will post a whole blog of photo's.
Wednesday night last week we turned everything the right way up again.  What a joy to have the creche room back with a lovely ceiling and a most beautiful cupboard!  Our prayer room has needed to be a store room for the last few months.  No more!  It is ready and open for prayer.
We have also been able to press on with the work on the back wall.  Remember this quote from Charles Wesley.

Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees, and looks to that alone;
Laughs at impossibilities, and cries, “It shall be done!”

We have seen God's provision! 

This week our building is full of noise again but this time not hammers and saws. There is loads of chatting and laughter. We have 17 visiting for the Athens Link.  Picnics, prayer, and  mountain hikes are just a few of the things going on.

The kids do their bit.

You know that story in the bible where the wee boys gives his lunch to Jesus and Jesus gets on with the business of feeding the 5,000.....? Well our kids at church have decided to do their bit for the building project and give what they have......... their pennies and their creativity. 

So they have turned your average Pringle can into a work of art and are collecting their pennies and asking for your help. Would you be willing to collect your loose change, fill the can and add it to our building fund?

We have some challenges ahead but we really want our building to be acessible for everyone. Check out this blog post for photos of what needs to be done. http://linkchurchdunfermline.blogspot.com/2011/03/praying-and-believing.html.

We have had really good news about a possible solution to wheel chair access to into our building. We are just checking things out and then we will be bringing you the details!

Building repair work- phase one

The Youth Room- there is no access at all to this room just now, for obvious reasons. We may be able to repair the creche ceiling but not if anyone falls though it!!




The floor boards were lifted and all the deafening. What you are seeing is the creche ceiling.

 


Any guesses?  The creche cupboard!




The creche cupboard is at the moment open to the stairs.




Creche ceiling




Stairwell

 The areas of the building damaged by the flood have been completely stripped back.  The guys that have worked in the building have been a real blessing.  They have worked hard to reduce the inevitable mess, hoovered like pro's,  arranged to have skips at the building for twenty minute periods, ( the permit to have it stay on the road would not be granted until next week and they were not prepared to leave us in a mess), offered to make me a cup of tea and carried all the boxes up and down for toddlers today. A huge thanks to them!   Here's praying the rest of the squads are so easy to work with and around.

Even with all the work to minimize the mess and the cleaning afterwards there will be a bit of stoor (might be a big bit!) that will settle over the coming days.  If you want to lend a hand with the cleaning at any point just let us know. The youth room is a no go zone.  These pictures let you see all you need to. Safety is paramount.  The creche room remains closed. The stairs from the creche room down to the kids room are usable but we will have our kids use the ones at the kitchen end just now as the banister has been removed.

It struck me today how important it is to get things cleared out and stripped back to allow complete restoration. Sometimes we look for quick fixes in our lives.  God isn't into patching us up. He is into wholeness. We just need to be willing to let go of the bits that are damaged and not fit for purpose so he can do his work to make us whole.

Maureen

Update 2 from Zimbabwe

(As this is being typed there is the joyful noise of hammering in the building at Priory Lane. The work has begun!)

The conference at Muzarabani went really well. Iain described it as a very "rich" time.  All four of the team were involved in preaching and sharing. They have seen God move in healing.  Jim had to battle through a reaction to his malaria tablets leaving him feeling unwell. Not easy to preach after an hour long journey down a bumpy road from their accommodation when you are not feeling at your best.  After the conference they then had a long journey down to Karoi where they again have been preaching and sharing in, with many hungry to hear and receive from God.  They finish at 3pm this afternoon and are immediately into a 3-4 hour journey before starting the Leader's conference in Harare at 9am tomorrow morning!

They ask that we continue to pray for  God's anointing, for stamina, health and travelling mercies in this intense and busy  schedule.

They have been working hard on the orphanage sponsorship programme and 30 children have been identified. There are many stories of children really suffering with the loss of parents and relatives.  Children denied basic education as there is no-one able to pay the small fees required.  They have made a really good local contact who will be travelling to Harare for the leaders conference when they will be able to work on prioritising this list.