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It is nearly finished! At our services Matt, the Rector, gave an update on the St Thomas' Centre. He did it by answering some of the questions he had been asked recently. Listen to update 
Slides from the update  The two most important questions: When will it be finished? Answer: Middle of August -latest estimate as of 31.7.11 Have we enough money to complete? Answer: To finish everything we need another £90,000. A leaflet called 'A Time for Thanks and Giving' was given out at the services. This included a letter from the Rector (reproduced below) and an more details of our spending on the project. It also encourages us in one final push to help raise the final £90,000 we need. A Time for Thanks and Giving leaflet
Pledge formA Letter from the Rector Dear Friends, What an adventure! We have come a long way in the last three years as a church—we’ve seen God’s hand of blessing on so many aspects of our shared life. I hope you feel what I feel as I walk around St Thomas’, a great air of excitement, a growing confidence in the future a real desire to make a big difference for God in our neighbourhood. I’m sure much of this excitement comes from watching the construction of our parish centre over the last few months. We’ve transformed an overgrown and forgotten wasteland into a truly wonderful resource— The most common reaction I get when people first see what we’ve done is “Wow!”, just the other week the local planner commented “it’s an amazing building”. Thank you for all your contributions so far whether it be in terms of time, money or prayer or all three! Someone said to me recently “Christians shouldn’t be proud but you can have a Godly satisfaction in what you’ve done” - I trust we have lots of Godly satisfaction!!! For as wonderful as it is and for all that we can be thankful for there is still much work to be done— I hope you have all had opportunity to meet Sally-Anne Beecham who we have appointed for six-months to lead us in taking hold of this wonderful facility and making it (and us) work to the glory of God and the service of his people. We stand on the brink of exciting times, the ministry of St Thomas’ is about to enter a new and challenging realm that will give life and hope to many people for many years to come. This new chapter will demand the very best of all of us—but I’m confident in you, the good people of our church family, who have not failed to rise to the many challenges that God has laid before us. So, the first challenge that is laid before us is a financial one. As I’ve said, we have built a truly iconic building that will stand as a testimony to our love of God for many years, but it’s not been without problems along the way. Problems in building terms normally mean ‘more money!’ I’ve outlined in this update a short financial summary of our project to-date. I have highlighted the main unforeseen costs that none of us could have anticipated at the inception of the scheme. We have added other works along the way because although it meant extra expenditure it made good financial sense to do them whilst builders were onsite— also, to not have done them would have significantly detracted from the overall project. You will see that we need to find an additional £90,000 [new money]. Ideally we need this in cash gifts (with Gift Aid if possible) very soon, preferably before the end of the summer. As it stands we need to transfer £20,000 from church reserves and draw down £70,000 in loans to cover the shortfall. It would be a very difficult and distracting thing to have few reserves and be forced to focus on loan repayment plans at just the time we want to throw all our resources into mission and ministry. On behalf of the finance team can I humbly ask you to prayerfully consider your response to this need. If you know and value the love of God and His church in your life, if you believe in what we are trying to achieve can you please help us now. I know that many people have already given sacrificially to this project but I am emboldened to ask again trusting in the spirit of generosity that exists in our church. Can I especially reach out to those who have not yet supported this project —maybe you’ve recently joined us or maybe you’ve just been waiting to see how things will turn out—we desperately need your help—now is the time to be a part of this magnificent work. Thank you for all you do to make our church what it is and your commitment to making it all that it could be. Yours in Christ, Rev’d Matthew Barnes, Rector
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