Our vision - Seven Whole Days
Seven Whole Days is our St Matthew’s Vision. We have a 7-day-a-week God who is generous and loving to all, so we are seeking to be 7-day-a-week Christians who are equipped to serve Christ in our community.
We have spent time and money in developing our church building. Now as Seven Whole Day Christians we are focusing more on building ourselves up to show and share faith with others.
The Vision was inspired by a line of a hymn by the famous 17th century poet and Anglican priest George Herbert:
‘Seven Whole Days, not one in seven, I will praise thee.’
What we have been doing:
For highlights of the working out of our Vision so far, do take a look here.
May ‘16 launch of Vision
Sept ‘16 Gift Day raising over £50,000 to install much-needed heating in the church
2016–2018 Action weeks in which various groups from the church took turns to encourage us to live out our calling in a different way each month.
June 2017 launch of TSP project
Oct ‘17 our first AwayDay together
Sept ‘18 Community Fun Day in Fishponds Park
Oct ‘18 an AwayWeekend attended by about 50 people
Jan ‘19 second phase of heating installation
Apr ’19 construction work began on TSP project
Oct '19 second AwayDay held at a local school within the Parish led by Peter Graystone who gave us his ground floor guide to the Old Testament.
Oct '21 third AwayDay held and a welcome return by Peter Graystone, this time taking an overview of the New Testament.
April '22 launch of new Seven Whole Days emphasis in worship services and other meetings in the week - looking to encourage each other and answer the questions 'How is God being present to me?' and 'How can we better support each other in Christian Life?'. We have even re-launched our logo for this aspect of our vision:
May '22 AwayWeekend - we thought about being Easter people experiencing within ourselves both cross and resurrection. It will be led by Chris Chapman an experienced spiritual director and retreat giver. He worked for many years for the Anglican diocese of Southwark as the spirituality adviser and coordinator of pastoral care training. He is an associate tutor at St. Augustine’s College of Theology and a regular guest director at St. Beuno’s Spiritual Exercises Centre.
January '23 continuing our focus at every service of our 'Seven Whole Days focus'. Members are now more used to sharing with the rest of the congregation about things that have happened for which they want to give thanks or for upcoming events or situations for which they request prayer. This has helped to strengthen and deepen our fellowship as we are able to support one another better and we involve God in our everyday lives more.
April '23 Hope Explored Course run across THiS Team to encourage members to introduce others to the Course later in the year.
Sermon series with readings from the first few chapters of the Acts of the Apostles looking at how what the early church were doing - praying, teaching, sharing goods and fellowship - map on to the Five marks of Mission - Tell, Teach, Tend, Transform and Treasure and map on to what we are doing today. Part of that is shown here:
NB 'CYP' are children and young people and 'TKC' is 'Thy Kingdom Come' which runs from Ascension to Pentecost
Planning for the future, another-not-too-far-AwayDay-again planned at Shrewsbury House for Sunday 15 October 2023 and an AwayWeekend at the De Vere Horsley Hotel booked for 10 - 12 May 2024! Please put the dates in your diary now!