St Mary Redcliffe Church Parish Magazine - November 2017

decent hospitality offer in a café and heritage offer through signage and
a shop; includes the ‘backstage’ requirements of a small charitable trust
employing a dozen people; to the ‘nice-to-haves’ of large gathering space
and possibly even our own brewery!
What we’ve stopped doing (to be honest, what I’ve stopped doing ... never
forget that this is a serious learning process for me as well!) is focussing on
one thing at a time. We / I got hooked onto the Hogarth and forgot that our
attention should be on delivering against the Statement of Need.
So what are our next few steps?
For one thing, the project board will be working closely with me, Rhys and
our consultants to draw up a timetable for action. If we want to deliver
any new facilities in time for the 450th anniversary of the visit to Bristol of
Queen Elizabeth I then we need to keep alert to the passage of time. (And,
yes, that’s where the title ‘Project 450’ comes from — it’s a working title
for the time being, but at least it is easier to say than “St Mary Redcliffe’s
Facilities Development Project”!)
But we all have a part to play in this process. And one of the vital elements
of any project within a church or other Christian community is continually
to ensure that the work is ‘of God’: is this direction of travel helpful in SMR
becoming the community we are called to be? Will our goals and our
aspirations help us speak ever more deeply of the love of God? Will our
plans reveal more of the grace, mercy and wonder of God?
This is a central element in our discernment of what we should be doing.
Sometimes, those who are close to the centre of a project, end up so close
that we cannot see the wood for the trees. That is where we need you to
keep your eye on what is going on, to keep yourselves informed of plans
as they unfold, and to pray that the journey we are on is the journey that
God is calling us towards.
To that end, over the last few months, I have been trying to craft a prayer
that we can all use to help us offer this project to God, and I invite you to
pray this regularly and often:
GOD OF THE AGES,
who stirred our ancestors
to build this house of prayer to the glory of your name,
inspire us with that same longing to be a beacon of your kingdom;
bless our current endeavours, that, begun, continued and ended in you,
what we build in stone, may be woven into a community of hope
where your name is praised, your story is told, and your love is shared;
so that this and future generations may be heard
singing the song of faith and justice;
for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Revd Dan Tyndall, Vicar
Reformation 500 . . .
Reformation 500 exhibition views; photos: EJ Lee 2017