Serving Christ in Kirk Ella
These notes sketch out a vision for the St Andrew’s Church Family, serving Christ in Kirk Ella for the next century, as for the last ten centuries. St Andrew’s church building has been at the heart of Kirk Ella for almost a thousand years. St Andrew’s church family exists to renew the heart of today’s Kirk Ella, strengthening the family, caring for the elderly, encouraging the lonely, raising our gaze from time to eternity, sharing God’s kindness with everybody. As we meet together with God on Sundays, our overall purpose is to make ourselves useful to others in God’s service from Monday to Saturday.
Fewer than half the children in the UK are growing up in a household where their father is married to their mother. As a church family, we are committed to doing everything in our power to strengthen new families, to support young families, and to stand alongside broken or hurting families.
We encourage young people as they approach marriage, and welcome families as they celebrate the arrival of their children. We provide marriage preparation workshops, a baby club, Mums & Tots, a pre-school music and movement group, and parenting courses as the need arises.
We offer a crèche at our Sunday morning services, where there are also small groups for three to fifteen year olds. We offer wholesome Christian instruction, and constructive friendship, for the younger generation, on Sundays and in the growing numbers of small groups that meet during the week. There is a particular focus on boys, with a Friday evening group for boys between five and ten years old.
We have strong links with the local primary and secondary schools, which we are constantly looking to develop further.
We arrange a regular Men’s Breakfast, where we can have fun together and eat sausages for England, while talking frankly about the particular difficulties that men experience at work, before turning to God’s word for help. As we meet together regularly, we aim to strengthen every family represented around the table.
Friends on Friday is a group of women who meet twice a month to talk about family life, friendship and faith in today’s world, and to strengthen each other in their own family lives. (back to top)
We are living in a community – and a country – where the population is ageing. More people are living for longer, and the numbers of elderly people, as a proportion of the overall population, are set to increase for the foreseeable future.
As a church family we are committed to caring for the elderly, providing suitable settings for spiritual development and social activity, as well as visiting as many as possible of the increasing number of people who are no longer able to leave their home.
We do our best to care for the elderly members of the church family, and beyond them to provide friendship and support for numbers of elderly people in the wider community. We hold regular monthly afternoon meetings for those who are free during day, now limited by the size of the house in which we meet. We take recordings of our Sunday services to a number of people who are no longer able to join us.
Churches have sometimes arranged special ‘activity weeks’ for the elderly members of the community, other groups have developed effective on-line chat rooms for older people. We are keen to arrange more regular meetings, gentle sporting activities and special events to provide friendship and support for the elderly people in our community. (back to top)
There are all kinds of people living in Kirk Ella with good reasons for feeling lonely, for some the other members of their family live far away, others have no family, or find themselves estranged from their families.
Sunday by Sunday and during the week we meet in small groups of different sizes and for a range of different purposes. We aim to make every activity and small group as easy as possible to join.
For example there are practical working parties that meet from time to time to clear up the churchyard. No specialist skills required, simply a willingness to get stuck in. A practical working group of this kind, followed by a drink in the pub, can be a gentle way to make a friend.
The singers meet weekly to practise on Sunday mornings, the musicians meet monthly on Wednesday evenings, the church cleaning team meets monthly on Friday lunchtimes, the Flower Guild meet on Thursdays… different people make friends in different ways.
There are regular short courses addressing the questions that we all find ourselves asking sooner or later: Why does God allow so much suffering? Is there anything more to faith than a feeling? What about science and Genesis? Did the resurrection really happen? And so on! Some people make friends most easily by thinking aloud in a group, talking, debating and discussing.
We could do more! The existing Probus lunchtime groups for retired men, as well as the groups for professional men and lunch clubs for women, demonstrate the value of regular opportunities to make friends easily.
In as many different ways as possible, we are encourage the lonely to make new friends and, if it suits them, to find their way into the life of the church family. (back to top)
Raising our gaze from time to eternity
The church at the heart of the village stands as a permanent reminder of the kindness of God, in giving us life, breath and everything else. For major moments in the life of our country, for landmark moments in the surrounding community as well as personally, in times of joy and sorrow, and especially at the point of death, St Andrew’s church building has been at the heart of the village for centuries.
For hundreds of years, villagers from Kirk Ella have gladly come to St Andrew’s, to swear their love and loyalty to one another, before God and their friends, their neighbours and family members, the bells ring out the good news for all the village to hear, and every married couple remember their own vows, their hopes and dreams, their fears and prayers.
Parents have been bringing their children to St Andrew’s for ten centuries, thanking God for the latest safe arrival, committing themselves to meeting with God and his people Sunday by Sunday.
Wives, husbands, parents and children, friends, neighbours, colleagues, all through the years, have come to St Andrew’s to say farewell, to thank God for a life now over, to remember before God a particular character who has now moved on, and to cry out to God through the pain of an unexpected early death.
The calendar contains its own special moments, every Autumn we thank God for feeding us for another year, every November we remember the men and women who gave their lives in the service of their country.. every December we live again through the Christmas story, every Good Friday we remember Christ’s agony, every Easter Sunday we look beyond the chocolate to the new creation.
In these and in many other ways, we are committed to raising our gaze from time to eternity, Sunday by Sunday, in times of crisis, as well as on high days and holidays. (back to top)
Sharing God’s kindness with everybody
The New Testament underlines that faith without deeds is dead! A lot of talk with nothing to show for it has always been deeply unattractive; so, as a church family, we are seeking to live our Christian faith within Kirk Ella, showing God’s kindness as far as possible to everyone living around us, while reaching out into the city with practical assistance, and across the world, wherever we can make a lasting difference.
St Andrew’s Church family members are deeply involved in the life of the village, watching out for neighbours, helping out in practical ways across the city, as well as for example providing support and education for poorer children in other parts of the world.
We invite you to join us, we urge to help us, to pray with us and to work alongside us to achieve the vision of a renewed Kirk Ella, a kinder Kirk Ella, a village with stronger families, a village with elderly people who are highly valued and well cared for, a village where lonely people find themselves lonely no longer, a village where it’s usual to look up from the diary and gaze into eternity, a village where God’s kindness is gladly shared with everybody. (back to top)