Baptisms This Sunday

On Sunday the following people are going to be baptised: Zach Innes, Sharon Chesworth, Katy Lee, Udani (Mahesha’s niece), and the following under 18s: Asher, Zoe, Thando, Jemimah, Nana, Pearl, Georgina.

We celebrate the multitude of people who have played a part in each of them meeting Jesus. If you have spoken with them, been on a team that has served them, have prayed for them or even just prayed for God to do more in our land then you can celebrate how God has used you to bring salvation to birth in their lives. It would be wonderful if we could continue to pray for them in the run up to the weekend and in the few months afterwards where they will go through post-baptism mentoring.

Youth and Kids

We are reaching capacity with kids and adult numbers in terms of the number of team members we have. In Youth we have 30 young people booked onto DTI and more than that regularly attending Sundays. A special mention goes to Olivia La Danso who has been interning with Andy on the Comms for CV, doing weekly tasks to make the New Testament Journey podcast possible.

In Kids the rooms are routinely full to overfull in the morning Services and we will need to create more capacity for kids in the next 6 months. Georgina Arsalides and Lisa Baxendale have continued to do an amazing job with Sunbeams on Thursday mornings, seeing a growing sense of community and openness in all those who attend, whether or not they come to other things in CV or have faith in Jesus.

Small Groups

We continue to celebrate the faithful work that small group leaders do in CV. Small Groups really are the engine room of any church and those who lead them are the real heroes of the Kingdom. This term we have been asking Small Groups to deliberately lean into being a bit more outward focused and it has been exciting to hear of trips to Games Cafes, prayer walks, invite dinners and knocks on neighbours doors. We have a God who celebrates every act done for him and we recognise the beauty and value of every prayer, every invite and every act of courage in this space.

Vineyard English School

Our students from English School continue to do very well. A large group of the ones who come to the lessons and stay for the bible study are Iranians. Earlier this month 15 of them were baptised with the Iranian-language church in Croydon.

On Thursdays we have started using the large CVA room in Centrale shopping centre (photo above) which has significantly increased our capacity and our connection with other organisations in Croydon. This week we also taught classes in two of the hotels in the borough where hundreds of asylum seekers are housed - we're asking the Lord what he would have us do longer term with these open doors to serve some of the most vulnerable people in our area.

We continue to be deeply grateful to the team of volunteers, without whom VES would simply not happen.

Other Churches

As we contend for a Spiritual Awakening we are actively seeking to release God’s blessing on all in Croydon, and on all of Jesus’ church across the UK. It was a treat therefore for some of us to be invited to speak and minister at Emmanuel South Croydon on Sunday 4 June. It was the first time the church had ever been invited to respond to ministry as part of the service and when the team then went to pray for them several were filled with the Spirit in visible and tangible ways. Ros Coles (who was on the team) said “the person I was praying for said that something very powerful seemed to come on them in a way they had never experienced before. It was amazing to see that happen”. Anne Stace said that as she prayed for a lady the lady turned and said she had never before been filled with the Spirit and couldn’t believe that God would do such a thing for her.

We are also delighted that Zac Carpenter was able to lead a Seminar at the UK and Ireland Vineyard Worship Conference where he took 40 people from many churches out onto Feltham High Street to demonstrate how to do “worship on the streets”. During their time on the streets a young guy waiting for a bus had an injured ankle. After someone prayed for him he declared he was totally healed and he literally jumped on the next bus.

Lara Sokunbi has also just returned from South America where she has been representing Vineyard on an Open Doors mission trip to help support the persecuted church. We very much want to see an awakening in those troubled parts of our family in Christ.

Both Zac and Lara are playing lead roles in Dreaming the Impossible this summer - a youth event that will see over 3,000 people attend from hundreds of churches.

We know that so many of you choose to pray for, befriend and celebrate what God is doing in churches far beyond Croydon Vineyard. We utterly love this and pray that God will continue to use us to truly see an awakening come to all of Croydon and beyond.

Leadership Structure

Over the last 12 months Dayo Omolokun (Our Trustee for Strategy) has been encouraging us to strengthen our leadership structures so that there is a broader sharing of authority and responsibility. We had a Trustees meeting on Monday evening and are delighted to let you know that:

Graham Bright (photo above) has now taken over from Tom as Chair of Trustees. While Tom and Lesley continue as Senior Pastors to set strategic direction for the church, Graham will now take the lead on managing the governance framework in which that direction is pursued.

Tiff Tan has joined the Trustees team as Treasurer. Tiff has huge experience in Finance and Audit and is One Smart Cookie, so if you have any questions about how the church accrues, uses or spends money please do just ask her.

We also hope to be letting you know very soon about who will be taking over from Lesley as our Designated Safeguarding Lead. While Lesley has always been working in close partnership with Dave Prothero, the greater separation of our Safeguarding oversight from our Leadership oversight can only improve the health and accountability that we all work under.

Buildings

We have begun to speak about our need to raise £1m in order to be in a position to apply for mortgages and acquire a warehouse. Our sense is that we should also aim to get our annual income up to £500k before we embark on a purchase. This is a fair amount up from our current giving and therefore we are not expecting to even consider a purchase for at least 12 months. Instead, our current goal is to continue to make best use of the places we do have and to take a few practical steps to be as ready for a building purchase as we can be when the time comes. If you do hear of someone who does feel God prompting them to donate to the building fund, please do just direct them to Tina Almstadt.

Online Resources

The push to put together a Worship EP is proving very effective. Zac has recruited a group of very talented people to help write songs. Marcus Jones and Richard Tucker (photo above) are playing a lead role in arranging the recording and plan distribution and marketing. At this stage we are considering releasing the material under the artist name Coming Kingdom. We hope to select the songs for the EP in July, then release a single in Sept / Oct with the full release in early 2024. Please do look out for updates.

Engagement with New Testament Journey and with all of our social media material continues to be strong and to incrementally grow. We have recently launched a new blog to seek to communicate more broadly and in more depth on some issues.

CV Leaders' Mid-Year Snapshot