How do we get started?
It's probably going to start with taking some time out to listen to what God is saying to you about your community. Here are a couple of stories about what some churches in Bath have been up to.

Hay Hill Baptist Church - Open Doors

In June 2005 we held a series of breakfast meetings at Hay Hill, focusing on the question of how we reach out to the community around the church. As well as eating and talking together, we spent time prayer walking around the area and sharing what we felt God was saying to us.

Out of this came three issues/pictures:

• An awareness of the no of nightclubs and bars in our neighbourhood, and the question: how do reach out into these places?
• The challenge to ‘open the doors’ of the church to the people living and working around the area
• A sense that the church had a role as a meeting place for people, who seemed to be shut away behind closed doors

Two years on, we’re on the brink of launching an outreach into nightclubs, in partnership with other churches and agencies (click here for more details); and the church is now being used every day of the week for community groups – the doors are open and it’s become a meeting place for local people. This programme of activity at the church is not something we’ve generated – we’ve simply responded to people who’ve come to us. But both of these are the outworking of a vision God gave to us when we took some time to listen. I’d encourage you to do the same (whether or not you’ve already got a lot going on).

All Saints Weston

We have been going through a 'listening process' throughout most of 2007. (More information to follow).