During the special service on 27th February to mark the start of the collaboration between the parishes of Belmont, Worcester Park, and Cheam, we took some time to name our hopes and fears for the work of this group. We shared this by writing them on notes and sticking them to a board. (For more information on this service, click here).
We saved these notes and the ministry team have looked at them in detail. Whilst there are some understandable concerns, there is also a lot of hope about what the future holds for our churches in the coming years.
There are several clear themes that have emerged from this feedback:
Our hopes are that we will:
build a sense of togetherness across our churches;
be able to support and encourage one another;
grow our churches;
rethink some of our traditions and bring change;
reach out better to those around us.
Our fears are that we will:
risk losing each church's identity and individuality;
be diminished in terms of number of people and finance;
find that we do not have enough energy and that the pressures we face are too much;
not find a way of engaging with younger people.
In the coming weeks, we will look to raise and address some of these hopes and fears within our individual churches.
A huge thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts at the service.