Newsletter
January 2002
Bringing God's grace and healing love
to people with life-disrupting problems
Happy New Year!
Many of us take the opportunity of a new year to make a new start - resolving to work harder, exercise more, be more tolerant, or just cut back on the chocolate!
A new start is something that many of our customers find difficult - maybe impossible. It can seem impossible when the only place you have to stay is with friends for whom stealing is a way of life, when the only way you know to handle disagreement is with violence, when 'love' was just a word used by an abusive parent, when the police, the courts, the 'system' are all against you, when the people who are supposed to help you just make you jump through hundreds of hoops and then fail to provide what you are looking for, when you owe more money than you could ever repay, when the drugs that might kill you are the only things that enable you to survive intolerable circumstances, when each time you have gone through the pain and misery of detox, you have failed and started using again.
Of course, we know that a new start is possible, no matter how impossible it may seem. Jesus offers all the proof we need that God places a high value on us, even when everyone else considers us worthless. Following Jesus gives life purpose and meaning, when all the world can offer is bankrupt materialism or empty promises. The family of God can provide friendship and a supportive network, although fitting into a 'traditional' church is often a challenge.
A new start is never easy - for anyone. Please pray with us that more of our customers would have the courage to risk a new start with Jesus.
Paul Hazelden,
General Manager
[Back...]
Certificates and Cream Cakes!
The 7th course I have led finished last week with 4 students receiving their certificates from Annie Davey. Members of the Management Council, volunteers who helped me deliver the course and others who led specialist sessions, were there to encourage Brian, Mary Anne, Marcus and Rod as they move on to the next stage in their career development. Congratulations to them. They have completed 16 weeks of life skills training and have been a pleasure to work with, maintaining motivation and relating well together. The day ended with tea and cream cakes!
I particularly want to thank Kate, Andrew and Ruth, who each helped me a day a week and Lyn, who took literacy classes for 2 of the 4. Also, thanks to Gill, Carmen, Maureen, Ruth M, Alan, Sam, Ann and Maggie, who came in to take specialist sessions.
The next course starts Monday 4th February, so not long to recruit new students who want to take a brave first step in getting their lives together.
The Church Urban Fund have offered to part fund an assistant for me for 3 years, so please pray the rest of the funding will turn up. Having a good assistant would enable the course to be so much more effective in transforming people=s lives.
Andy Luxford,
Project Manager
[Back...]
Simon and Becki married on Saturday, 5 January at Woodlands Christian Centre. Congratulations to them, and our very best wishes.
Since our last Newsletter, three people have become Christians! Please pray for them.
Andrew Kellett, minister of City Road Baptist Church, has become involved with Crisis Centre Ministries as Chaplain - to clients and staff. He has the full support of his church in taking on this role. Our thanks to him and his church.
If you send us your email address, we can send the newsletter to you by email in the future, and save postage costs.
[Back...]
This is the sort of thing which 'goes' with this time of year and it is a brilliant opportunity to look at what has been happening at CCM over the past year and also consider our plans or resolutions for the future. Here is a quick glance at some of the issues.
It was just over a year ago that the Council of Management re-affirmed our Mission Statement - Bringing God's grace and healing love to people with life-disrupting problems - and identified this in terms of What we do, How we do it and Our Goal. This is shown on the last page of this Newsletter.
LEADING CCM
There have been a number of changes in the ministry over the last year. The retirement of Derek W. Groves, our Founder/Director, for health reasons, has been mentioned previously. The Bristol Celebration Churches network hosted an excellent retirement event in October in his honour and we are very grateful to Thornbury Baptist Church for the use of their building, and to Bristol Christian Fellowship who took responsibility for catering and music.
At just the right time, Paul Hazelden joined the team as General Manager. He is a great asset to the ministry bringing with him considerable experience of other Christian organisations, and also quite a knowledge of computers! He has quickly picked up on issues relating to the ministry and the local community and, along with the Council of Management and consultation with Derek Groves, is now leading CCM.
COUNCIL OF MANAGEMENT
Our Council of Management has always been very committed to the ministry and supportive of the staff and volunteers; in this we have been very privileged. The members of the Council have changed over the last year, and the expression of interest and involvement has also changed. In addition to regular Management meetings, individual members have been encouraged to become involved in staff mentoring, participation in meetings related to the ministry and volunteering in the coffee shop.
Please pray for these people. The present members are: Anni Davey (chairman), Richard Hill (company secretary), Martin Horton (treasurer),
George Richardson, Ann Banks, Sue Hazelden, Jill Thomas, Ann-Marie Holland, Dave Wiles. We welcome Jill, Ann-Marie and Dave who have joined the Council very recently, and unfortunately say goodbye to Barry Rider who retired and Arkle Bell who has moved North with his job. Our very best wishes and blessings to both.
CATERING AND PASTORAL CARE
We celebrate the appointment of our Catering Co-ordinator, Jayne Griffiths, and also our Pastoral Care Co-ordinator, Sam Colgan. They would both value your prayers. Sam was appointed as a result of a review which took place in 2001 and which identified, among other things, the need for more resources in the coffee shop.
VOLUNTEERS
The number of volunteers has increased astoundingly over this last year and we have been privileged to benefit from Bristol Christian Fellowship's year team, M6/8. A new development has been the involvement of volunteers in all aspects of the ministry - coffee shop, LITE, administration, Bridgehead Church.
STAFF SUPPORT
One of our resolutions is to resource our staff team and volunteers as fully as possible. Over the past year we have introduced regular monthly meetings for all workers and this has laid a good foundation on which we can build. We are extending support to our staff team through regular supervision and mentoring, training, and specific team building.
LITE
The implementation of the LITE Course has been reviewed, particularly asking whether our training approach and delivery is 'scratching where it itches' for our clients, and also exploring how our course relates to other training provision in the city. As a result of this review, we now offer a modular course, and a training package which complements other provision. Andy Luxford's article about the most recent course is in this Newsletter.
PARTNERSHIPS
This has been an exciting year in terms of developing partnerships with churches and groups locally and nationally. I would love to name all the new contacts we have made as well as the extremely valuable relationships which have been longstanding - but space in this Newsletter would make that difficult! Suffice to say that this is a very significant part of our work, one which has been developing over the last year and one which we want to see develop - another resolution.
BRIDGEHEAD CHURCH
An ongoing challenge is to be a realistic expression of church for our clients. It could be said that everything we do is an expression of church. At the same time, we do want to provide an opportunity for Christian outreach, fellowship and discipleship which is accessible to our clients and this is something we will continually explore - another of our resolutions. We have run evening fellowship meetings and lunchtime discipleship groups, and we are currently exploring the possibility of an evening activity which will include discussion, creativity, drama, music etc.
SUPPORT
Our supporters have been amazingly generous. We've mentioned in previous Newsletters that LITE Course funding finished at the end of the last financial year and we have yet to secure other funding, yet the donations we have received have been sufficient to meet our outgoings. We have also benefited from specific gifts towards refurbishment and maintenance. Some of these have been anonymous donations: where we can, we do like to express our appreciation and we are very grateful to the Pedmore Trust, Leeds and Holbeck Building Society Charitable Foundation, Nisbets and Bristol Archdeaconry Charities for their financial support.
As well as making financial donations to us, there are those who pray regularly, bake for us, provide tinned goods and other food items. We feel very supported and 'partnered' by your involvement. Thank you so much for sharing with us in this way.
ABOVE ALL
We are grateful to God for His amazing faithfulness, provision, patience, grace . . . At the beginning of this year, we invite you to join with us in affirming again our purpose as an organisation, to bring God's grace and healing love to people with life-disrupting problems
Trudie Lane,
Administrator
[Back...]
From a card to one of our staff from a client:
I will always thank you for helping open my eyes to my new found faith. I love God always. There will always be a special place in my heart for you, friend.
[Back...]
I came to the mission for feeding, in needing
And I met some cool guys with love in their eyes
Jesus was their leader and love was their feeder
And they smiled with the love of the saved.
I was in need of a feed
And my heart it did bleed
For the love of my wife who was gone
[Back...]
Our volunteers are doing a brilliant job, and I want to say a big Thank You to them - but we do still need some more. Can you help us, or do you know someone who can? We would love some more volunteers particularly to cover Tuesday evenings and Friday evenings, but also for any other times we are open.
We've been opening Tuesday evenings for some time, but commitments change for our volunteers and only two can come in on that evening at present. With Friday evenings, this is something which started at the end of December and we aim to be open from 8 to 10 pm. We had thought that a number of our volunteers were keen to come in that evening, but actually covering every week is quite difficult. One church has arranged for a team of people to cover one Friday evening per month, which is a brilliant idea - perhaps a group in your church would be interested in doing something similar.
Jayne Griffiths,
Catering Co-ordinator
[Back...]
You have been tremendously generous in responding to our request for tinned foods, rice, pasta etc. We now have a very full store of these items. If you would like to help by providing food items, then at present we would particularly appreciate: Cheese, coffee, sausages, burgers, orange squash, sugar, jam, margarine, packets of instant custard
[Back...]
This year we arranged a party for clients to celebrate Christmas. There was so much help and support from some of the churches in Bristol. Westbury Baptist Church provided the food -there was loads and it was brilliant! It was set up in a buffet style, and we were careful to make sure it didn't all go at the beginning! City Road Baptist Church provided a room for us to use which provided more space than our coffee shop allows so that more people could come in at one time. Bristol Christian Fellowship, through their year team M6/8, provided musicians - what a privilege to have live music, and particularly a song written by one of the musicians about a dove - very amusing! As well as this, quite a few volunteers from various churches and also members of our Management were involved. One particular Management member could be seen adding to the entertainment; a 'real cool dude' on percussion (banging two sticks together).
About 60 people came in during the day - some just dropping in for food and a chat, some staying for an hour or so, and I think some actually stayed for the whole time - 10.30 am to 2.30 pm.
Christmas can be difficult for our clients. Some very tough looking men became quite vulnerable as they recalled events from the past. There were those who were already struggling with their problems, and for some their struggles were heightened by the season and their questions included whether they wanted to continue to live. It is a privilege to provide a fairly safe place for people to ask these questions and talk about things which are important to them.
A huge thank you to everyone who helped with this party and with our general provision over the Christmas and New Year period.
[Back...]
Bringing God's grace and healing love to people with life-disrupting problems.
What we do:
- provide non-threatening contact at street level
- support people and provide them with opportunities for development with the aim of seeing their lives transformed
- hold together evangelism and practical care, helping people on the physical, spiritual and emotional levels
- work to develop partnerships with other local churches, other Christian groups, other community groups and agencies
- seek to do this as an expression of radical discipleship, constantly exploring new ways to become more effective, while remaining on the cutting edge of service to our local community
How we do it:
- work with people who have life-disrupting problems to take them step-by-step along the 'ladder of progress'. These people can also be described as 'disenfranchised', 'marginalized', or (in Biblical terms) simply as 'the poor'
- share our vision and experience with other Christians in the local churches, and do our work in a way that blesses the staff and volunteers, building the Body of Christ in Bristol
- be a clear Christian voice in St Pauls and beyond
- be 'church on the street', understanding 'church' to be the whole Body of Christ in a network of relationships, and not as an hierarchical organisation. We aim both to be church and to share leaders and members with other local churches.
- be an open door for people in our client group, available when people choose to walk through and make use of the services we offer
Our Goal: Transformed Lives.
[Back...]
| 
