News from Heart for Ipswich

 

 

 

Recent work by the Evangelical Alliance has shown that new unity movements have been springing up widely across Britain. Church leaders from all walks of life are coming together as never before, united by a common vision to see their local communities transformed spiritually and socially.

 

Here in Ipswich there are now around 26 cross-church projects, aiming to meet the social and spiritual needs of the people of Ipswich, and to proclaim the good news of the Gospel. And several of these have come into being during the past year. There is no doubt that something real and exciting is happening!

At the next January ‘Crown Him’ event we want to highlight some of these projects, both established and new, and look to the challenges of the future. The theme will be “Taking up the Challenge” – a challenge to pray; a challenge to change, and a challenge to dream.

 

The event will be held on Saturday 14 January at Hope church, the Orwell Centre, 114 Fore Hamlet, Ipswich, IP3 8AF, at 7.30 p.m. Speakers will include Simon Harris from Burlington Baptist church, Steve Jay from Hope church, Jacqui Wilkinson from the Spring project and Louise Brown, who is Project Leader of the Night Shelter project.

 

Following on the ‘Challenge to Dream’ theme, there will be two meetings in February and March to give thanks and consider where God is leading next. The first, on February 26^th will be a thanksgiving service for the work of the Ipswich Night Shelter, with an address by Bishop Nigel; then on March 24^th there will be a ‘Dreamers Day’, when we hope many will come to share their dreams, find others with a similar vision, and see how working together we may be able to bring them to reality.

 

The details of these two events have yet to be arranged, but you may wish to put the dates in your 2012 diaries.

As you will be aware, Liz Beaton has laid down ‘responsibility and commitment’ for the ongoing work she has been co-ordinating in several areas, and it has now been decided to make some changes to the way that Ipswich in Prayer will operate. Basically, Phil Stollery (who is part of the Heart for Ipswich team) will taking over the communication part of this and will be sending out regular information on things to pray for in the Ipswich area. Liz will still be involved, but in a reduced role to allow for other responsibilities.

 

At the same time, we would like to clearly distinguish between items that are requests for prayer and those that are notices of events. The idea is that prayer items will be emailed to people who have registered on Network Ipswich, as before, and information about events will grouped together and posted on the website front page every week or so under a heading of “What’s happening in Ipswich” (or something like that!).