The Rector Writes

Dear Friends,

This month I want to share with you two community building initiatives that are beginning in the month of June. Building a sense of community is, as we have said many times, one of the most important priorities in a rapidly changing parish such as ours. Our new Parish Planning Group, a sub committee of Castleknock vestry, has made this one of its central concerns and they have proposed (with the vestry's agreement):

1) to embark once again on a programme of door to door visiting in new areas of the parish in June. We will be starting in Ongar and possibly moving on to College Fort. Ongar is a very large apartment and town house complex past St. Joseph's Hospital. To reach it successfully with our door to door programme we need as many volunteers as possible. Many of you may be nervous about taking part in such a programme, fearing the reception you might get on the doorstep. I can assure you that we have never had a hostile reaction from anyone; rather, there have been many interested and positive comments, and last year we discovered 12 new families as well. It is a survey, not proselytising! With a large crowd it is a very enjoyable night's work and it is followed by refreshments. So why not give it a try? We're going to meet on Wednesdays 16th, 23rd and 30th June at 7.30 p.m. at the Ongar Roundabout and will finish around 9.15-9.30 p.m.

2) to create a new open space in the back of St. Brigid's Church. We hope this space will enable us to build a sense of community after services by moving the coffee area and giving a much wider and more open space for everyone to meet each other.

We're going to create this space by removing 6 pews at the back of the south aisle (that's the one beside the St. Brigid window) and 4 pews at the back of the south central aisle beside the font. This much larger space will allow people to move more freely after services, meeting new people, and its position near the door should encourage everyone to stay behind for a few minutes. We will turn some pews around, back to the wall, so that the number of seats won't be greatly reduced. Everything will be reversible, so that if we decide that it isn't working it can be easily changed. In addition, the new space could be used for many other things, such as notice boards, exhibitions, informal youth-oriented worship and making more space around the font. We plan to do this work in late June.

This proposal mightn't please everyone but in response we must ask, how do we build community after worship? How can we easily mix and meet new people instead of simply talking to our own friends? This new proposal is an important step in building up our community and if you are unhappy about it, suggest something else: constructive comments are very welcome!

Please help us build and serve the community in our area by supporting these initiatives

Yours in Christ

Andrew

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