Wow, looking at the website you’d think that was the quickest summer ever. For anyone under 18, it probably felt like it too. I remember the days…

Anyway, Sun 5th marks the last week of our summer schedule. After that we’ll be back to everything as usual I think.

JAM and The Edge  restart on 10th, and the evening services restart on the 12th. Prayer meetings and Mums & Toddlers never stopped.

Oh yes, and the new toilets are open!

We’re not quite finished with some bits of the new building, like the car park and offices. We have plenty to finish off, but we’ll announce the date of the dedication and celebration soon. Probably a Sat at the end of the month, but we have to let Dave recover from the wedding before we sort that out.

Sunday services will be 10:30 as usual in the morning, but will only last about an hour. There will be no sunday school, but the younger children (primary school, or thereabouts) will have somewhere supervised to go during the preach with a drink and games or a video etc.
There won’t be any Sunday evening services during the rest of July or Aug. With the numbers having been fairly low the last few months and traditionally dropping over the summer, we thought it best to give those who spend the effort putting them together a rest. We’ll look at putting a more programmed schedule in for the autumn to hopefully encourage people to come along.

The Edge finished last Fri Update: I’ve just been told that apparently there’s something this Fri for the Edge – maybe a sleepover

JAM finishes tomorrow (22nd) with ice cream and ‘sports day’.

Mums & Toddlers will continue for the summer, with probably a week off at the end of Aug to allow the car park temporary toilets to be removed etc.

Wednesday prayer meetings will continue as usual.

House groups I confess to being unsure about. A lot of the Southbourne gang are having babies, so we’re taking a break. Check with the leaders for the other groups.

The website will continue, but might not get a sermon update every week. I’ll post those that have something recordable (I expect a few may be more visual/interactive which doesn’t really work on mp3, and I’m not up to video every week).

The Pier to Pier swim was a great success – of 8 starters, 2 didn’t make it the whole way but 7 made it to the end.

Yes, I know the maths doesn’t add up, but we had a late starter 2/3 of the way through.

See some of the photos at http://www.flickr.com/groups/springbourne/

So we’re now on Twitter and Flickr – there’s a facebook account as well , but I’m not involved in that so can’t tell you much. I’ll get the details and put them up, but I’m sure you can find it if you’re a facebooker (and who isn’t these days, apart from me?).

Listen in to the morning here and the evening here.

Good Friday (2nd Apr)

10:30 Service (approx 45 mins)
Neither Mums & Toddlers or JAM are  running on Good Friday.

Easter Sunday (4th Apr)

10:30 Family service.
No evening service

Easter Mon (5th Apr)

No Discipleship Explored (the course finished last week).

Fri 9th & 16th Apr

Mums & Toddlers will be running as usual.

JAM is not on as it’s still the school holidays.

“The prayer meeting is the most important meeting of the week”. That’s one of those sayings that you hear thrown around a lot, but when you turn up to a meeting like the last couple it really starts to feel like it’s true.

Unfortunately in many churches, it’s often also one of the worst attended meetings of the week. We’ve really picked up on attendance at our meetings over the last year, and the effects of regular prayer together are starting to show in the people who are attending. Once God gets hold of you things really start to get scary, but it’s never a bad thing. If we can take some of the spirit that turns up in the prayer meetings (i.e. the Spirit) and carry the momentum through to the rest of our church life and our everyday lives, there’s no limit on what can happen.

I think we’re really going to start to see things rock in Springbourne this year (and I don’t just mean the music).

Get in on the ground floor. Get in to the prayer meetings.

That’s going to be kept up to date with the latest news on the building front so you can see what’s going on without us having to bury everything else that’s happening in building news.

There’s still plenty going on, despite the disruption. JAM continues as normal, Mums & Toddlers, Aspire and all the normal stuff is still here.

If we’re going to make people think we’re only interested in one thing, it’s not the building we want to spring to mind (exiting though that is).

It’s still all about God, we just getting a better building to use for Him.

All members and regulars are encouraged to attend.  You should have been given a copy of the financial summary and reports for the year if you were in church this Sun. If not, pick up a copy this week.

If you have any questions you’d like to bring, a bit of notice would be good – please send them to the office or one of the elders by next Sun (28th Feb). You can always ask on the night, of course, but it’s easier if we know what to expect as we can gather any information we need.

If you’re an SCC snapper and would like to have your pictures included in the list, get yourself a Flickr account and have a quick word with Tom, or request to join the group directly on Flickr.