In January, we hosted our second, full, 24-7 Prayer Week, filling 24hrs a day, for 7 days, with prayer, and seeing an increase in the number of local people and staff getting involved - and with increasingly positive feedback from their time spent there!
Kirk has continued hosting regular Jazz at the Abbey events and has begun to introduce less formal ‘Jam Nights’, which also, so far, seem to be going well, and a number of local musicians really appreciating the space and ‘atmosphere’ of these events, and already finding a small ‘community’ of people becoming regulars!
We’ve also officially opened the “The Cafe @ Waverley Abbey” with increased numbers of people coming out to enjoy the gorgeous grounds and the English Heritage ruins, and stopping in for yummy lunches, cakes and drinks!
The Shepherd’s Hut and Prayer Room are both getting people regularly booking in, taking time and space to ‘come away with God’ and building practices of retreat and reflection into their weekly or monthly lives.
The ongoing work of Waverley Abbey College is also, of course, continuing with a growing Chaplaincy program, aiming at equipping people to offer mental health, emotional and spiritual support in anything from churches and community spaces, to businesses, prisons, cafe’s, football clubs, or anywhere else!
As we head into Lent, Easter, and the rest of the spring, there are also further opportunities for retreats and events, with 4 day retreats planned during Lent, a Easter Sunrise Service (to be held at the ruins themselves, on Easter Sunday), a community wide Family Easter Egg Hunt on Easter Monday, and that’s just between now and April!
It’s been really encouraging to see how the wider dynamic within the ‘new’ Waverley Abbey Trust has also been growing and developing. Staff, teams, departments all seem to be beginning to ‘’cohere” as we continue to both dream and begin to take practical steps in building this vision of a place of “Encounter, Engagement, Equipping, and Enterprise”.
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