Pioneer Minister Working Party

Langston Hall

As mentioned at Church Meetings and in the May edition of Comment, we have put in a bid to host a Pioneer Minister at Christ Church. The person will be appointed by the Eastern Synod for a term of 5 years, and money has already been allocated.
We are delighted to report that our bid has been chosen, along with a rural project elsewhere in the Synod.
We identified two areas of outreach:
‡ the increasing student population, many of whom pass our doors between College or University and the town centre (and many of whom are soon to be accommodated near us); and
‡ the town centre itself which needs a Christian presence in the form of a Chaplain. Both these tasks will demand particular skills and considerable initiative to start up. We await the input of Peter Ball from Synod who will be able to give us more details so the ideas can be developed. We are not looking for more people to come into church on a Sunday morning; rather that more people will come into contact with the Christian gospel and find a way of exploring and worshipping which makes sense to them.
The whole project is to be wider than Christ Church and so Monday's meeting will include representatives of the other URC's in Ipswich, and the Anglican and Catholic churches nearby. Please bear in mind and in your prayers the development of this venture.