Slow progress, what is progress?

So much news to catch up with I am going to write it up in 2 instalments; February's Breakfast on the Beach and news now and March's Breakfast on the Beach and Easter next week. So here is a summery of what went before:

Discussions with the leadership team have led to decisions to keep going with 'Breakfast on the Beach' at least until the end of 2008 monthly, on the basis that such experiments can take time to get established. We are very aware that at the present though it is giving opportunity to deepen fellowship among those already involved it is not yet attracting many of those we hoped to reach, those with little or no church background. There is some indication that peoples awareness of the breakfast is growing but still it is slow; in one sense this is because it didn't grow naturally out of the community but as a vision of a few encouraged and enabled by those who saw the potential. It is a coming together of a personal vision, and of a churches continuing journey and a strategic attempt to provide a less churchy place for encounters to happen.

February's Breakfast on the Beach was plagued with technical problems and that meant that, for my part at least, my focus was not toward the people and there was a certain amount of relief that we had no new folk and had our lowest numbers yet. No one ever said this would be easy. Quick popularity or numerical growth is, in theory, not the criteria we want to use for success as we make a genuine attempt to provide hospitality and to engage with a community in the big questions on a one to one level but it is a criteria quite hard to ignore.

This community has had very limited opportunities to engage with the gospel through the life of the churches and this is only one way the churches are now experimenting. In other ways and at the same time we are coordinating our attempts to be active, visible and caring. There are signs that we are having effects in numerous small way as increased willingness to work together and awareness of each others activities and aims are growing, The 'fringe' is extending steadily and others are beginning to want to actively participate. God is good we are casting bread upon the waters and praying his good news will reach far and wide.