MARANATHA COMMUNITY CHURCH TROWBRIDGE TRUST
MINUTES OF ANNUAL VISIONARY MEETING :
DATE : 5th March 2023 at 6:00 pm
LOCATION: Castle Mead School, Trowbridge
ATTENDEES: Around 40 members of the congregation
Welcome J Mills (Chair of Trustees)
A short introduction to the meeting was led by John, who stated that the church had had a good year in that it was continuing to grow in numbers. A wide range of ages were now being cared for and a great diversity of activities had been instituted over the last year.
John stated that ‘time’ itself was moving quickly and the return of Jesus was imminent, thereby encouraging the members to evangelise at every opportunity.
A time of praise and worship was led by Amanda with a resounding chorus
of “I will enter His gates”.
Refections – Rob (Trustee)
Rob gave us a review of the last 2/3 years of our church’s growth, going through the Covid years and what we did during this period and finally our move to our new venue at the Castle Mead school, which has allowed us to expand and offer much better facilities for creche and children’s ministries. A full list of Rob’s “reflections” can be found at the end of the minutes.
Financials – For the year to 2022 – Amanda
The annual accounts were presented to the congregation and each page explained in detail. Amada went through all the “giftings” detailing where the monies had been sent.
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manda states:
Dear Maranatha
God is good, He has blessed us so much during this last financial year. Thank you for all your contributions. We were able to bless others through your generous giving and we sowed back over 50% of gifts received to missions like: Operation Mobilisation, David Hathaway , and International Partnership Ltd that went towards Ukraine Jo and Cloe in Tanzania India village Ministries (Suresh) Jesus Commissioning church (Bobet in Philippines ) Love into Action Bibles to Kenya Caroline Beckley for Bible translation in Indonesia Joseph Storehouse for Israel Thank you to those who are able to gift aid, included in our total gifts received is £4889 from Gift Aid giving.
I have put together a basic sheet showing the total gifts received vs the expenses for the year and our current assets position as at 31 Dec 2022. If there is any questions that you would like to ask regarding the finances, please do contact me
Blessings
Amanda
There were no questions from the congregation and only John pointed out that more than half of the church revenue had been used for “giftings”.
Where we are Jerry (Trustee).
Next Jerry went through where we are today.
Services have been taking place at the Castle Mead school and this move is proving very beneficial as the church has more room to offer better facilities for creche, Sunday school and other activities.
Our format is to have one Sunday 10:30am service and allow it to be flexible, catering for families and adults. This Sunday morning service has been complemented with a communion service before the main service, which commences around 9:45am. This is proving to be an extremely important development and is receiving very positive comments. Additionally, a Sprit led monthly pre service meeting, called ‘Upper Room’, will be help on the first Sunday of the month at 9:30am.
Jerry went through all the activities that the church is ministering to.
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1) Life groups (POD’s) meet once a month usually in the last week of the month, they are at Jeremy’s and Jan’s, Rob and Ali’s, Laurence and Stacey’s, John Mills.
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2) Daytime Bible study groups twice a month and set so that they do not clash; Geoff and Jean’s, Colin’s (study in Romans)
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3) Prayer for Israel once a month
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4) Ally’s bible study group for young mums
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5) Young Person's Discipleship & Dinner twice a month
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6) Discipleship of the young men (Andrew ) once a month
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7) Embrace meeting once a month (For disabled adults)
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8) Weekly Wednesday Early morning prayer meeting
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9) Ladies disciple group (Gaie) every two weeks
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10) Weekly evangelism was being conducted in local towns by P Bradley
The Sunday creche has also started to teach their young children bible stories and learn verses from the bible.
Future and Vision for the Church Jerry (Trustee)
Jerry talked about some future events, namely to continue our association with the Ichthus Christian Fellowship, based in southeast London. They offer outreach and development seminars which we plan to talk advantage of. We recently had the head of Ichthus preach at our Sunday service.
We plan to take a trainee from the “SWYM” Christian project and mentor this young person, probably starts around September.
Prayer
Finally, an open time of prayer was instigated where we split up into three groups to pray about the future and what direction God wanted us to go in.
The main thrust of our prayers was about doing more outreaches/evangelism to our local community, with the possibility of offering a refreshment outreach (Warm Spaces Initiative) at our local community centre.
Also, it was thought that we could join forces with another local church to offer gospel outreaches with visiting speakers.
We will continue to pray and seek the Lord about such events.
Finally, we prayed about the possibility of getting our own premises, which would be much better if we are to spread out our tent pegs.
The meeting ended with another rousing chorus of “I will enter His gates”
Amen, Amen, Amen
Refections – full draft Rob (Trustee)
Since COVID we have made God and the things important to Him our focus in everything we do. We pray more and welcome more opportunities to talk with God. We make no apology for studying and praying for Israel, God's chosen people. We have grown to be focused on His Word, always checking what we are doing against scripture, is it pleasing to Him.
2020, Covid; a demonic act, but God brought good out of it. Maranatha was given space and time during the first Lockdown to take everything back to basics and think about what we were going to do.
The Online Services we were presenting were focused on God and what he stood for. There were times for the young people with various Bible stories told in a variety of ways. m
We started, during this time, to use technology in the form of Zoom to meet remotely on computer for Early Morning Prayer and a twice monthly Bible Studies amongst other things.
20th September 2020 we could meet for the first time with around 30 people in Longfield Community Centre. We had a Family Service
alternating with an Adult Church Service the week after. While this was not ideal, at the time it was great to be meeting in person.
Phil Bradley went out on the street in Trowbridge, publicly reading the scriptures and sharing his testimony on Saturday mornings. This has led to some exciting engagements with passers-by.
However this was not to last as on 1st November we entered Lockdown #2. Back to the Online Services.
Around this time Life Pods were introduced as a way of connecting with each other and looking out for one another.- meeting in small groups was allowed up to six. This was found to be a real success and from these Life Pods we have our current Life Groups .
2021 - Psalm 119:105 Your Word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.
Rene started posting the UCB online and has faithfully done it every day since.
We started an online Prayer For Israel group where we would discuss key points of interest from Israel then pray for the people as they are important to God.
The second Lockdown ended for us on 23rd May 2021 when we could meet again with around thirty people.
On 25th July 2021 the first time we could all meet together. All our groups could now meet in person if they wished. Hallelujah
We had two baptisms , Mike Picter and Rachel Dalby and two dedications of Frankie and Reuben .
A Friday Discipleship group was set up on Zoom to run every week specifically aimed at men.
Ally and Andy continued with Youth and have run it with great enthusiasm.
Who can forget the Nativity Service at Longfield Community Centre with all the children taking part and Francis & Elizabeth as wise men.
All the time God was adding to our number. We seemed to welcome new faces each week. How blessed are we!
2022 - 1 John 1:7 If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin.
Embrace was started by Jerry & Jan for adults with learning difficulties.
We had a Passover Meal at Longfield Community Centre to find out about and celebrate the Passover with approximately 80 of us sharing in this meal.
Because of the poor provision for children and young people in the fact that there were no additional rooms available, we cried out to God for him to perform a miracle and provide another venue for us....and that he did! Castle Mead school was available with Classrooms, toilets, a kitchen and a big hall.
On Sunday April 17th we moved to Castle Mead school . God Provided. God is Good
We started to have a regular Communion Service , open to everyone before the Main Service and led by a different person each week.
Young Person's Discipleship Group was started by Jerry & Jan for young people who were pre youth group age.
Chris Sandilands and Clive Bethel were baptised.
2023 - Psalm 100:4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise! Give thanks to Him; Bless His name!
A Ladies Discipleship Group has been formed particularly for Ladies and is led by Gaie.
Recently a new bible study has started, focused on the book of Romans. They meet at Colin & Ruth's alternating with Geoff & Jean's who have faithfully hosted a bible study since 2021. So throughout the year, most weeks have a daytime bible study!
There is a discipleship Group for every age group!
We regularly meet and pray for Israel.
We have Communion every week and we go out and evangelise in the local area and also invest in those who are around the world preaching the Gospel and ministering in their communities.
As a result, God has added mightily to our number. We acknowledge God's mighty hand in the rebuilding of Maranatha!
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Independent Examinerfs Report to the Trustees of Maranatha Community Church (Wiltshire) I report on the accounts of the Trust for the year ended 31 December 2022, which are attached. Responsibilities and basis of report As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 ("the ACY,). I report in respect of my examination of the Trust's accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act. Independent examinerfs statement I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention ) in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect: accounting records were not kept in accordan with section 130 of the Act; or the accounts do not accord with the accounting records. I have no concems and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. Signed.ffoA¢& John Edwards B.Sc. (Econ) 5 Sandalwood Road Westbury Wiltshire BA13 3UP 5 May 2023