Our vision - Seven Whole Days
Seven Whole Days is our St Matthew’s Vision. We have a 7-day-a-week God who is generous and loving to all, so we are seeking to be 7-day-a-week Christians who are equipped to serve Christ in our community.
We have spent time and money in developing our church building. Now as Seven Whole Day Christians we are focusing more on building ourselves up to show and share faith with others.
The Vision was inspired by a line of a hymn by the famous 17th century poet and Anglican priest George Herbert:
‘Seven Whole Days, not one in seven, I will praise thee.’
What we have been doing:
For highlights of the working out of our Vision so far, do take a look here.
May ‘16 launch of Vision
Sept ‘16 Gift Day raising over £50,000 to install much-needed heating in the church
2016–2018 Action weeks in which various groups from the church took turns to encourage us to live out our calling in a different way each month.
June 2017 launch of TSP project
Oct ‘17 our first AwayDay together
Sept ‘18 Community Fun Day in Fishponds Park
Oct ‘18 an AwayWeekend attended by about 50 people
Jan ‘19 second phase of heating installation
Apr ’19 construction work began on TSP project
Oct '19 second AwayDay held at a local school within the Parish led by Peter Graystone who gave us his ground floor guide to the Old Testament.
Oct '21 third AwayDay held and a welcome return by Peter Graystone, this time taking an overview of the New Testament.
April '22 launch of new Seven Whole Days emphasis in worship services ad other meetings in the week - looking to encourage each other and answer the questions 'How is God being present to me?' and 'How can we better support each other in Christian Life?'. We have even re-launched our logo for this aspect of our vision:
May '22 AwayWeekend - we will be thinking about being Easter people experiencing within ourselves both cross and resurrection. It will be led by Chris Chapman an experienced spiritual director and retreat giver. He worked for many years for the Anglican diocese of Southwark as the spirituality adviser and coordinator of pastoral care training. He is an associate tutor at St. Augustine’s College of Theology and a regular guest director at St. Beuno’s Spiritual Exercises Centre.