Ebenezer Evangelical Church, Horfield, Bristol 

• ‘We have continued work in 2 local primary schools in Horfield and Lockleaze through taking assemblies and classroom support. Through the last year we have now started to have some access into a third primary school. God has been opening so many doors, we have sometimes been struggling to keep up but He is Faithful and our Provider. It has also been exciting to see  the development of a puppets ministry from the church which performed in 5 local primary schools around Christmas. We were also able to run a children’s holiday club in the autumn term with many children from non-churched backgrounds coming along. It was great to see an increase in openness of the parents who sent their children to these events. The Church seems to slowly ‘be trusted’ again and we believe thatone of our goals is to see church at the centre of  the community again.

 

• ‘During May 2004 itwas great to be working with City Church North and other local churches, to run the high profile ‘Noise’ project which encourages Christians to get involved in serving and blessing their local community. It is our annual re-launch of what happens throughout theyear.

 

There were just less than 140 volunteers involved in community action projects running kids clubs, a large ‘Community Fun Afternoon’, free car washing, tidying up residents gardens etc… It has been an amazing way again of ‘building trust’ in our community. We also have spent quite a  bit of time networking and being involved in community consultation with community leaders of statutory and voluntary organisations, and with other influential residents or workers in the community.

 

• ‘It was wonderful to launch the ‘How to Drug Proof your Kids’ course in November 2004 which is designed to help parents steer their children away from the harmful use of drugs. We had 25 parents who attended the course, mainly from the local community and it was great to launch this high profile course which will now be an important regular part of our community work. It was endorsed by many local and citywide groups and also provided a considerable amount of media attention, because we wanted to meet the needs of the local community.

 

• ‘Finally, we have also been looking throughout the year on how we can reach non-churched young people in Upper Horfield and Lockleaze and had always felt that ‘detached youthwork’  was a significant way forward but we weren’t sure how to achieve this. Then suddenly, things all came together and we now have a church member who is doing detached youthwork with  inancial support from other organisations but without restrictions of sharing her faith. We are looking atways of extending this.

All these things have been part of the bigger picture of what God is doing in Horfield and  Lockleaze and we look forward to sharing developments of a new church at St James Church in Lockleaze, led by Dave Jeal (Chaplain of Ashfield Young Offenders Institute) and a small team, in partnership with Ebenezer Church.

 

We appreciate the partnership with Müllers and the continual support of other church partnerships as we seek to impact the local communities with the love of God and see God change people’s lives.