On a Sunday morning, fifty and more children under 12 years old meet in four different groups. Although accommodation is adequate for our Sunday School, aged three to seven, this is true of no other group:
- The Junior Quiz Group (aged seven to eight years) meets in a cramped and cold lobby area, where they are constantly disturbed by those using the toilets. There is no room for tables for drawing or writing;
- The Senior Quiz Group (aged nine to eleven years) meets in the tiny Vicar’s Vestry where there is no room even for chairs. As with the Junior Group, noise has to be kept to a minimum to avoid disturbing those in the church;
- The Créche meets under the tower in an unfriendly area. A marble tomb restricts the space safely available; any noise generated travels directly into the church.
S.P.Y.S., our youth group, has no suitable space in which to meet.
The Choir, which has both senior and junior sections, is also restricted by a lack of space.
The complete lack of kitchen facilities has also limited the activity of many church groups and events.
Other work wanted in the building:
- At the west end of the church itself, there is inadequate notice-board space, no permanent home for the parish library, no facilities for serving after-service refreshments other than by bringing in tables; the area is also at present unattractive in comparison with the rest of the building. We want to decorate the whole of the church to keep it a worthy place of worship;
- We are now obliged by law to provide toilet facilities for disabled people.
We have a present need for better facilities, but this also gives us an opportunity for our future development. We want to see our church expand, but not for its own sake. We want to develop our work, better to serve our community; we want by our service to present an alternative vision to our world of the exciting possibilities that living by faith brings; we want to touch people’s lives so that they themselves should be re-inspired to serve others.
Ours is a vision of a church which serves every aspect of our community, at home and at work. Here are some examples of opportunities we would have:
Ours is a vision of a church which serves every aspect of our community, at home and at work. Here are some examples of opportunities we would have:
- serving our church school, which is in constant need of extra meeting space. We would be able to provide better educational facilities for visits by other schools as well as our own. South Weald is an ideal visit for the National Curriculum;
- serving those who would appreciate meeting others by providing lunches;
- serving the business community, by providing the local, small-scale meeting facilities it tells us it lacks, especially for its training needs;
- serving other parishes and groups needing a day away together for whatever reason: we have the quiet of the country park, local pub catering, easy road links.
