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Rayleigh Vineyard had a visit from a former member last month. Claire from Australia paid us a visit in October and stayed for lunch. It wasn’t quite a Barbie on the Beach like she is used to in Brisbane but it was great to see her again. Claire led worship at the Vineyard in 2008 and has been sorely missed since. Persuading her to come and stay in the UK has proved a fruitless exercise but we won’t give up trying!
~~ live music ~~ great coffee ~~ great chat ~~
Rayleigh Vineyard runs cafechurch monthly in Costa Coffee, Rayleigh High Street for a chilled get together with friends and anyone who would like to come along. Its normally on the first Sunday of the month at 5pm. For visitors the first coffee and cake are always free! Click here for some pics of what we get up to. We have a live band with great contemporary music. We have a short interlude in the middle for an activity or talk followed by more music afterwards. You’d be very welcome to join us on any of these occasions. Please see our Diary of Activities for details of upcoming dates.
A crowd of us went along to support one of our number at Southend Rugby Club at the beginning of October. Andy McLintock captain’s the team to great effect. We enjoyed a lovely warm autumn afternoon and fabulous entertainment, capped by the fact that Southend RFC beat Barnes by 22-9. And they were well worth their result. Southend are 8th in Division 2 but hope to mount a promotion challenge as the season progresses. Further pictures here.
Sunday Morning Talks at the Vineyard. Do you ever ask yourself the question “what on earth does the Bible have to say to us today?”? How can a 2,000 year old text be relevant to my life here and now? As you delve deeper into the Bible, one of the most striking things is how much the people who lived then are like the people who live now. When God inspired the Bible to be written down all those years ago he knew that the problems and issues the folk faced in that era are common to all ages.
We are currently looking at the subject of Healing, with a sub-title of “doing what we see the Father doing”. We know God heals people today; some of us have seen it happen or we’ve heard other people tell us what they saw or how they themselves got healed. Jesus said “I only do what I see the Father doing”. The Bible talks about us doing good works that God has planned for us to do in advance. This includes healing.
You can hear some of the talks presented on Sundays on our Podcast Page.
Rayleigh Vineyard leaders spent an idyllic weekend in the coutryside on the Kent/Sussex border at the Oast Houses, Northiam, nr Rye, in August. We chilled out to wonderful food, good teaching and great company. The subject of the weekend was “Getting a Vision for the New Season”. We looked at catchphrases that form out thought patterns, we re-jigged our churches vision statement and we started a series of talks on “Healing – Doing What the Father is Doing”.
Rayleigh Vineyard attended the New Wine Conference in Newark, Nottinghamshire in July, en masse. It was a fantastic week full of talks, seminars, worship, workshops, great kids meetings etc. It was under canvas and the rain (mostly) kept away! Talks on subjects from “Helping the Poor” to “How to get out of debt” to “Healing” and “Living with Stress”and many more. We all resolved to make the trip again next year as we came back refreshed and raring to go for another year.
We are holding a Birkenstock and Beads Party on Thursday 23rd July @ 8pm (near Rayleigh Weir). If you are a lady of fashion you will understand straight away what the word Birkenstock means. You are welcome to join us!
face painting at the big lunch
We celebrated our community on Sunday 19th July by joining in the nationwide Big Lunch at Downhall School. More pictures here.
Big Lunch is an idea set up by the Eden Project in Cornwall – www.thebiglunch.com/ .
Shy. Most of us are shy, many of us lead single lives and even when we are together often go our own way. We all know about the problems in our society and don’t need to be preached at about them.
The idea behind Big Lunch was to get together to eat, laugh, have fun, enjoy music and conversation bringing us together (for at least once a year) to celebrate the fact that we are so fabulously different in our outlook and experiences on many things.
So just for one day we remind ourselves about all that is good about us.
Community. It felt slightly uncomfortable to start with. It takes a bit of courage to stop being a stranger. But to be able to realise how many good people there are out there: people who, acting together, created a real sense of community – a word that in Latin means; “together, in gift”. We had over 70 people on the day and the short, sharp, very heavy rain shower did not dampen our spirits!
Food. We had a cake competition and a BBQ, live music bands, bouncy castle, sideshows, face painting and lots of fun!
Tony Anthony will be visiting us on Sunday 12th July @ 10.30am. Raised in China, Tony was trained in the way of Kung Fu becoming a three-time world champion. In his early twenties, he worked as an elite bodyguard, travelling the world protecting some of the world’s richest, most powerful people. He fell into sinister circles and was incarcerated in a Cypriot prison. Talking to a stranger who began to visit him, Tony found his anger beginning to disappear as his priorities shifted and his life took a massive turn. Tony now works locally in Leigh with Avanti Ministries. We are very pleased that he is coming to Rayleigh Vineyard and look forward to what he has to say to us.
We celebrated Dave & Laura’s daughter’s first birthday with a dedication service on Sun June 21st. It was a special day for many reasons. It was a birthday service, it was Father’s Day and Mike Pearson came to speak to us. Mike is the leader of MercyVineyardSouthampton along with his wife Maggie. We also shared lunch together afterwards. Mike did the dedication and spoke to us about the four friends who brought their paralysed mate on a stretcher to Jesus for him to be healed. It was a graphic account that spoke directly to us about our church regarding teamwork to get the job done and to show others about Jesus and the impact He can make on their lives as well. To see more pictures of the day, follow this link.
