Finance update

Pending…

Ministry Update

Ministry Update March 2022

Hope projects: 

Tiny Treasures: toddler group for under 5s and their parents & carers on Tuesday mornings. Although organised by Zoe, Kate & the interns, with some amazing willing volunteers, it's really the ministry of those core parents/ carers & grandparents of other little ones of this age range, using those connections & commonalities to love other parents/ carers well and create a wonderful community. We've been steadily growing, now providing three spaces including a sensory room and baby room. We have more focused story time introducing little messages about God. Once a month Parenting sessions after Tiny Treasures. We've met 110 little ones and grown-ups since September!

Prayer points: 

- More confidence to bring prayer & Jesus into conversation

Wisdom about what to do if we grow any bigger!

Alpha: meeting on Thursday afternoons, we've had 10 people attend our first two weeks, a mixture of friends, students, Foodbank volunteers and Foodbank/ Circle of Support clients. Really easy flow of conversation and some good chats, helping people to think about the next step in their journey of faith. 

Prayer points:

- Wisdom, Godly patience and energy when answering tricky questions and facilitating conversation

- For those who have signed up/ shown interest, but haven't made it along yet - removal of barriers

- People to have a personal, life changing revelation of Jesus - more than just information! 

ROC Community Mentoring (Abi): the programme matches volunteer mentors from King’s Church, with people in our community. Mentors are ‘friends with a purpose’ who champion and encourage their mentees towards life goals, no matter how big or small. Referrals for our Family Mentors come from Circle of Support/Foodbank and referrals for our Youth Mentors come from Priory School. Half of our mentors have been matched with mentees & we are awaiting referrals from Priory School for our Youth Mentors. Priory School initially said they had 23 students to refer, so we are focusing on the pupils that match closest to the referral criteria! Due to the amazing resource of people in churches across the city, Abi is hoping to recruit a second cohort of mentors in partnership with another church over the summer, with a view to train next Autumn.

Prayer points:

  • That God would richly bless our incredible mentors.

  • Mentees would come to know Jesus, through being more involved in the local church!

Circle of Support:

COS comes alongside people in need, People that have come through the foodbank and need support with other issues including  help with Budgeting, Cheap and Healthy meal ideas, Benefit advice, Emotional Pastoral Support, Support in Addiction, Support in Mental Health, Sourcing household objects they might need, signposting, working with Trafficked women, working with sex workers, Homlessness, Immegration, working with parents that have children under social care, working with care leavers, working with sex offenders, working with people just out of Prison, accompanying my clients to support groups that will empower encourage and  can lead to volunteering roles for them in the community building their social skills and support circle alongside many more issues. The Beauty of COS is the clients do not need to fit into a criteria to access it

I (Debbie) believe COS  works so well as, first and foremost, I build a healthy relationship with the clients as I feel this is paramount to the client building their trust with me. Once the client knows I am a safe space and they feel relaxed with me then they start to let their walls down as a lot of people can be very challenging and vulnerable due to their situations they are in.

Prayer Points: 

  • To carry on having God's Boldness and Confidence in Bringing them to Jesus I regularly pray with my clients in our meetings and some of them pray back too even the ones that don't have a faith. Through COS I have been blessed enough to Baptise quite a few of my clients and walking that journey with them from when they come into the foodbank completely broken (some being suicidal ) to then giving their life to Jesus fills my heart with Joy. 

  • With COS there is a lot of paperwork and due to the funding my hours have been cut so prayer for more paperwork time would be greatly appreciated. If I have a choice of a client needing my support or writing up my paperwork the client’s needs will always come first.

Foodbank:

King’s is the home of Portsmouth Foodbank, which exists to provide food and immediate help to those in financial need and crisis, by handing out three days worth of nutritionally balanced food. We as a church know that we can offer way more than food, and so we want to develop initiatives to help with things like budgeting, signposting, counselling and mentoring in order to help people to get out of the situations they find themselves in. Food bank has typically been largely separate from the work of the church, but we are slowly bringing the two together. Thank you to the members of our church family who regularly give their time to the work of the food bank.

Prayer points:

  • For church and food bank to be more intertwined

  • To feed more people sustainably and in a way that provides them with a way out of their crises. 

Kids:

King’s Kids:

A community outreach group for primary school children from the local community, plus their families. A fun, action-packed hour of joy for kids to learn more about the truths of the Bible, engage in amazing worship songs and play silly games in order to win prizes - plus a foam pie in the face for the losing team captain! We have engaged well with a number of families this year, building on the 20+ years King’s Kids has been in existence, but we want to do more to get these families through our church doors on a Sunday morning. We would love more volunteers to help the group grow, plus your prayers so that we can make a difference when we visit every one of these families in Somerstown. 

Prayer points:

  • Volunteers to take part in the sessions, visitations and parent cafe

  • That God uses us to make a tangible difference to the lives and wellbeing of our community families

Sunday Kids (Sam/ Lizzie):

We run Little Stars (1-2s), Stepping Stones (3-4s), Groundbreakers (5-9s) and Rooted (10-13s) on a Sunday morning, with the option of restarting Roof Raisers, a specialist SEN group for children during the service. These groups are for going deeper in relationship with God and others, and primarily serve the children of regular church attendees. We’d love for Groundbreakers and Rooted in particular to facilitate further depth and understanding of what it means to have a genuine relationship with God; equipping children with the tools they need to face the many challenges that come their way.

Prayer points:

  • For God to ignite and engage children where they’re at, in ways they can understand

  • For parents to help in kids groups more often as a way of giving back to the church

Youth:

Ignite: Ignite is an outreach based youth group that runs on Friday evenings from 7:30- 9:00pm for secondary aged pupils where we have tuck, games, just dance, a photo booth and a chill out space. We have been going into Charter School now since the start of the year and meeting and chatting to the students there and inviting them along. Since starting on the 28th of January we have had 20 new young people from somers town join us and many on a regular basis. We have had some great conversations around role models, emotions and installing a sense of value, worth and purpose to each young person we meet and letting them know we love them because Jesus first loved us. We have a team of really wonderful volunteers who truly are excellent role models to the young people and have started to build some great relationships with some of our regulars. 

Prayer points: 

  • We would love to see Ignite continue to grow and to grow the provision we have for our young people as we look to start a homework help after school where we can practically serve a need they have while also emotionally and spiritually caring for their wellbeing. So prayer for wisdom in expansion!

Go-Deeper: Go Deeper launched this month and we have had our first session which was very successful. We meet on a Sunday evening and it is aimed at our church teens who want a deeper level of bible teaching and discussion than what we offer at Ignite on Friday night. We are currently going through the Youth Wellbeing Series and have had some great conversations with young people exploring their own wellbeing, where it fits into God’s plan for their life and how they feel God is moving in their lives in the different areas outlined in the series.

Rooted: Rooted is for 9-14 year olds. It meets twice a month during our Sunday morning service and is led by one of our youth interns Cassidy. They are currently exploring the Lifelines book by the team behind the Soul Survivor Festivals and  recently have had some great discussions around some of the Old Testament and the old covenant, how blood used to be the currency and how through Jesus’ death and resurrection on the cross cancelled it out and the new covenant was formed. The young people that attend have some great questions and it is lovely to witness them starting to truly go deeper into their relationship and understanding of who Jesus and what he means to them

Prayer points:

Students:

We have a small but committed group of students at King’s - most of whom love being part of this church because…they love being a real part of this church! So you might not spot a specific group of student types as they’re involved with all sorts of teams, groups and friendship communities. We’ve been grateful for the ‘Adopt-a-student’ programme which has helped with this. We are running a life group (Abby & Rhys’) which hopes to make a space for students and young adults, whilst also encouraging students to join other life groups and get really stuck in! 

We have a specific Student discussion group during our Daytime Alpha at the moment which is amazing. We have teamed up with a charity called Joint Gospel to put on a city-wide worship event, particularly for students & young people at the end of March and there may be a lot of new connections from this. We have also been involved with the CU Missions week and have great connections with Fusion, UCCF and other student workers in the city

Young Adults: Our young adults ministry exists to help young adults support each other in finding community and to journey together through the highs and lows of worklife as a young adult. We have monthly socials to gather together ranging from: games nights,  cheese & wine nights, movie nights and much more. These socials also give space and opportunity to invite work colleagues, friends and housemates who don’t know Jesus. 

Prayer points:

  • For young adults to build strong friendships with each other.

  • For non-christian friends invited along to the socials to integrate into church. 

Other:

OLIVIA (Jannke):

The OLIVIA ministry reaches out to adults with learning disabilities. We run a monthly celebration across two sites (King’s and Cosham Baptist) and we support a number of group members during the service on a Sunday morning. Why not come along one week to see what it’s about (speak to Janneke!) and whether you might be able to get involved!

Prayer points:

  • More leaders 

  • For group members who haven’t yet returned to our in-person sessions due to carer staffing issues

Worship:

The Worship Team here at King’s exists ‘To make His glory our purpose and His presence our priority.’ We’re a team of musically gifted worshippers passionate about leading our church family in lifting up the name of Jesus in sung worship on Sundays whilst also encouraging everyone to live out a life of worship through all we do every day! Our team on rota for each Sunday meet on the Wednesday evening prior to Sunday to rehearse together to ensure we play on Sunday’s with excellence (however not pursuing perfectionism!) allowing our church family to focus solely on bringing their worship to God.

The whole team also meets on the 1st Wednesday of every month to worship together, bond together as a team whilst also receiving some spiritual input to ensure we remain humble and focused on glorifying the Lord whilst serving on team.

Prayer Points:

  • For our team to bond well together as we start meeting again monthly after the hiatus caused by the pandemic.

  • That we will see our team grow with new people joining our team who share both a passion for Jesus and a well-developed musical gifting.

Football:

Meeting every Monday from 9-10pm, this group helps provide fun and fellowship, particularly connecting with younger guys who are just getting connected with King’s. We’d love you to join us or let anyone else who loves football about the group!