The Living Rooms Grows

 A collage of peace adorns the wall of The Living Room

The Community within The Living Room has now grown to an average of seven active members, joined weekly by three volunteers/leaders from Southport area churches. There has been a real sense of spiritual growth and fellowship within the Community, as we share together in a dedicated time of song, prayer and reflective interaction/response. Recently, a member of The Living Room described our Community as “The Loving Church” and a notice of meeting was placed on the front doors of the Soup Kitchen where we meet, describing it as such. The Community recognises a drop-in from 11:00am-12:30pm and a dedicated time of reflection from 12:30-1pm; it is a rarity for anyone to leave prior to the reflection. The reflection usually includes an act of participation, such as when we discussed the Beatitudes. During the week we led the reflection time around, "Blessed are the peacemakers," everyone took a current newspaper and cut out appropriate peace-related headlines to make a collage on our wall.

Celebrating a birthday at The Living Room

The Living Room was invited to participate as a Church in the ecumenical Daffodil Day Service held in March at Lord Street West. Six members of our Community attended and there was a real sense of inclusion as The Living Room was introduced. This is a vibrant, yet vulnerable expression of church that should be continually lifted in prayerful support. It is more evident than ever, through conversations and prayer requests within the Community, that this ministry is vital not only to the vulnerable community within Southport, but to the town as a whole; my life is forever changed because of this ministry.