Church plant update – Steady growth in Moneyreagh
Moneyreagh Community Church meets in the village’s new Community Centre and is lead by Revd. Mervyn Jamison.
“Our first service was on the 20th October, 2013 and 7 months later we have approximately 50 folk coming along regularly. The exciting thing about the congregation is that we have a great mix of all ages and social backgrounds worshipping together. Our principles are based on those of the early church in Acts 2 who ‘…devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer’.
The service is loosely based on Cafe Church, with no more than 3 songs, some liturgy and preaching and all completed in 45minutes with a real emphasis on fellowship, before and afterwards. We have people who have never been to church, lapsed church goers and a few well–seasoned worshippers.
It’s working! In a short period of time, a number of lives have been changed and renewed and in the past 4 weeks we’ve had 2 people who have come to faith. Those who come along seem to stay and there is a real feeling of community and belonging. Just recently I sat down with a family – a Dad and two sons aged 19 and 20 who haven’t been to church in years who are now regular attenders.
Our mid–week FIT4LIFE program (Physical on Tuesdays and Spiritual on Wednesdays) has been a big hit with all ages. John and Heather, along with a few others have been running a youth club on Friday nights and now there are at least 20 regular teenagers who’ve had very little experience of ‘church’. We hope to run the Alpha Course in the autumn.”