United Church Warminster July 2011
We are a URC/Methodist United Church situated on one of the main streets in centre of the market town of Warminster, within a stone’s throw of six take-aways (fish and chips, Indian, Chinese, Turkish, Chinese Fish and Chips and Italian) and opposite a newly built retirement apartment complex. Our members are mostly over 50 (but not exclusively!) and are a very friendly, caring and welcoming fellowship. Because we are an Army town (Warminster has had soldiers from all over the world based here for manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain since WW1) we have often welcomed members from overseas and at the moment are enjoying sharing worship with families from Ghana (whose babies were baptised here), and Fiji (who use our church for worship in their own language on Sunday afternoons). As we are a United Church we also have an ecumenical leaning and have had members from Catholic, Baptist, CofE, and Salvation Army congregations settle with us. We are members of the Churches Together in Warminster and enjoy exchanging pulpits with the local Baptists at Christmas and on Maundy Thursdays every year for shared, joint worship.
Last year we decided to seek God’s help via a Vision Day where members of the congregation joined with leaders from the Area to discuss how we were going to find our spiritual path and mission for the coming years. We have lost a number of members, old age calls our friends to leave to stay nearer their children, or to become more housebound or to their eternal rest. Through our Vision Day we experienced a new call to strengthen our congregation and to prepare ourselves to welcome new members. We have updated our webpage, started a worship group, doubled the number of bible study groups, designed welcome leaflets for the retirement complex across the road, started an afternoon social, affirmed the Saturday morning coffee drop-in by fixing a rota and recognised God’s hand in helping us with the outreach activities we are already regularly involved in e.g Sunday services for the local Community Radio Station, Food Bank etc.
This July 2011 we re-examined our Vision Day aims and praised God to see how many of our goals have been successfully realised and set ourselves some leadership challenges. Like many churches we had been struggling to fill roles of responsibility because of dwindling numbers and rising ages. The new leadership challenges will be put to the members this August and we hope with God’s help to discern how to implement any necessary changes that the members agree.
