What a year! | Amy-Jane Farrar
It’s a new tradition in the Farrar household to put together a photo book each year.
As people who can’t help but take a picture or 2 to capture the moment, we have the opportunity to look back at so many great moments over the past year of what’s happened and to have them all in one place makes a special memento to look over.
Which got me thinking...
If St. Werburgh's had a photo book of our first year what would it look like?
First of all I think it would be rather full!!
In my photo books I often create pages linked to particular events which made me want to try and list all the things St. Werburgh’s has done over the year and we’ve crammed in alot!!
17th September 2017 - First Service
Wednesday Worship Nights
Light Party
Christmas services
Starting a morning service with Werbs Kids + Werbs Youth
Easter services with Preach Mania
First Werbs Groups
Ran Alpha twice!
Alpha Weekend Away + Alpha Away Day
Ava White’s Baptism
Special guest speakers like David White, Jenny Newman, David Bracewell, Nicky + Pippa Gumbel, Bishop Rick Thorpe, Bishop Alistair Redfern
Many many many Werburgers consumed
Established volunteer teams! (thank you all!!)
Clean up days
Messy Church
Socials to BEAR and pub trips
Young Adults social
Several world cup hangouts (so close!)
Building work
Built more toilets!
Focus
Got heating! (well almost, currently being installed)
And that is just events or main things I can think off that have happened not including any personal stories we’ve heard. We regularly hear and share stories of what's happening at Werbs.
Stories of lives transformed, lives changed and people making Werbs their home and every week since we started I've heard incredible stories of God doing amazing things!
I wish we had written some of the stories down because it’s so easy to forget how faithful and good God has been to us this past year.
I remember cleaning up the church before we even started back at the beginning of September 2017, before anything was in place, cleaning questionable substances off the floor! Back then we had no idea of what was ahead but saw the potential of what God could do with St. Werburgh’s.
I remember the first service and how we were blown away by the fact about 300 people ended up coming. I remember giving out Anna’s homemade brownies outside church directing people to the entrance. It’s weird looking back and thinking that most of the faces that night were strangers and how many of those faces I now call friends.
I remember our first Christmas and all the confetti!!
I remember when we started our first morning service with Werbs Kids and how incredible its been getting to know all the kids and seeing them grow and build their relationship with God. I remember the fun of the Alpha weekend away and our first preach mania with some incredible women from our congregations speaking on what Easter meant to them!
But I’ve also seen healings, seen God speak specifically to people through others, seen people experience God for the first time through alpha and seen others make that step to decide to live for Jesus.
St. Werburgh’s has had an incredible year and it’s been truly remarkable to see where we’ve come from to where we are now. Obviously we’ve had our ups and downs but God has been so faithful, just look how far we’ve come!
As my internship is coming to an end I wanted to write a blog about my year however looking back it’s not about me and in hindsight it’s been God’s year and he’s done incredible things with Werbs!
I’ve selected some photos which have been taken over the past year for you to enjoy looking at. If you’re a member of Werbs please look over these memories and give thanks to God for all he’s done and then pray. Pray for our next year that God would do more and that we would be expectant and willing to partner with him in this next chapter.
We’ve currently been singing this song in church called Do It Again by Elevation Worship and I feel it’s very appropriate as we look to the future of St. Werburgh’s.
“I’ve seen you move, you move the mountains. And I believe I’ll see you do it again. You made a way, when there was no way. And I believe I’ll see you do it again.”
