Our Minister, Rev’d Chris Pritchard, sends the following Message for the month of November 2019 ….
Dear Friends,
At a recent Church meeting I reflected on a verse from Proverbs 23 “By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” It struck me that as we continue to grow together as Castle Community Church we need a huge amount of wisdom and understanding and of course some knowledge. This wisdom, understanding and knowledge comes of course from the Holy Spirit.
As I reflected on that proverb one of my favourite modern hymns came to mind the first verse of which is:
Let us build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live,
a place where saints and children tell
how hearts learn to forgive.
Built of hopes and dreams and visions,
rock of faith and vault of grace;
here the love of Christ shall end divisions:
All are welcome, all are welcome,
all are welcome in this place.
That verse really helps me to think about my understanding of church as a place where people live together in a safe environment, where we can forgive and find forgiveness based on our faith in Jesus Christ and our knowledge of his love. For me church must always be a place where all are welcome.
As I think about Castle Community Church I realise that we are entering a new phase in the life of the church. Over the last five or more years we have formed the church and we really do feel like we are one church not a partnership of two different congregations and that is a really good thing. However very shortly we are going to see some significant changes as Alma Fritchley is ordained and inducted as our URC minister and we say good-byes to David Spence as our URC Link minister. I pray that we will be led by the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Wisdom and understanding into a new phase of church life so that as it says in our mission and discipleship policy we may continue to be Committed to Worshipping Christ and Serving the Community
God Bless
Chris Pritchard