A new church hall

Last night, we went to church to celebrate practical completion and the handing over of keys to our new church hall. This church hall has been a long time in the planning. When Jack was baptised in July 2004, Bob, our late vicar told the congregation, with some glee, what Tiff did for a living, as the seed of the plan was already hatching. In Oct 2005, when I had Luke, Tiff came to see us in hospital on the Friday night for about five minutes, before heading off for a church hall related meeting. When we shut the old hall up and prayed over the site in February last year, Luke, then five, said "but I don't want you to knock the old hall down, I love it". Like most of the church family, we had spent happy times in it, but it was time to let it go and grasp a bigger vision.

Last night, we finally got to walk around inside our new hall and give thanks to God for it. Of course, the church is not a building, it is the people and Bishop Stephen reminded us of this, urging us to consider the building as a tent, a sacrament and a servant. His talk will be available on the church website shortly and is well worth a listen.