OUTREACH

William Temple, an Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1940s, put it really well when he said, “The Church is the only organisation that exists for its non-members.” This sums up our attitude. We don’t believe that the Church should be a club for Christians.

Our vision is to be a church that couldn’t close and no one would notice. We want to be a positive force in our networks and communities – both as individuals and collectively as a church.

The Church has a radical message, but unfortunately for one reason or another many people think of the Church as boring and irrelevant. However the good news that God is passionately in love with each of us, that he is on our side and that he wants to invite us into the abundant life he created us to live, is exciting and relevant to all of us.

The Church has tried all sorts of means to communicate this message, sometimes doing more harm than good. We believe that a message of love needs to be spread with love, which is why you won’t find us Bible-bashing, shouting condemnation or scaremongering.

Instead we believe love is best seen when it’s sincere and demonstrated. We take our start from Jesus’ words, “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

We believe that God’s life-changing message is best seen demonstrated by people whose life is being changed by God, which is why our outreach is always relational. We throw lots of parties and fun events to allow people to experience something of church life without having to come to a church service. These events include things like pub quizzes, barn dances and our special family events at Easter and Christmas.

We also have some ongoing work to help us reach out and help those who are struggling.

The HANDS Team

HANDS stands for Helping AND Supporting. This is a team of practically minded people from the church who like to demonstrate God’s love with their sleeves rolled up. We work alongside local support agencies to help referred families who need some practical support.

In the past we’ve gardened, cleaned, decorated and moved furniture. We're not really Changing Rooms or Ground Force though. The family have to help do the work with us and we just bring some extra manpower, expertise and motivation.

Phil, one of the people we’ve helped had this to say, “It was extremely helpful, because at the time I was feeling really down … and the help gave me a step up at a time when I really needed it. At first I was unsure [about having strangers come into my home] but they took us as we came. After I got to know them they were very kind, in the end they became friends.”

We help anyone, regardless of background or faith and we do not treat it as an opportunity to Bible-bash!

Click here to see some photos of the HANDS team in action.

The Vineyard Volunteers

We've adopted a local residential rehabilitation and elderly day-care centre in Whipton.  Every week our team of dedicated volunteers push around a trolley selling a few luxuries and necessities, as well as hanging around for a chat.

We also help maintain the gardens to give the service-users and staff somewhere nice to sit out in and we hold Easter and Christmas services for the residents.