We are thrilled to announce that the Lifehouse Project www.trurolifehouse.uk is set to receive £612k as part of Cornwall Council’s strategy to invest in existing community provision along the A390 in Truro. This is to help better serve the existing communities on the west side of Truro, and provide early community provision for the new residents of the proposed Langarth Development.
The Lifehouse Project is a radical plan to redevelop the community facilities in Highertown to better serve the local community. Revd Jeremy Putnam, Priest in Charge at All Saints Highertown and Baldhu, said: “I really am over the moon that the councillors have voted to invest in the community in this way. In human terms this will make a tangible difference to the lives of many thousands of people over the coming years. “The community centre is already used by between 600 and 800 people a week, and the new community hub will see that more than double.” The reach of All Saints Highertown extends far beyond those who attend the church itself. It supports groups helping those who struggle with food poverty, financial insecurity, social justice, addiction, dementia, mental health and other isolating circumstances. “This endorsement and the investment will go a long way towards helping this project become a reality, and that means we will be able to serve the community far better. There is no doubt that this will enhance the lives of many people,” said Jeremy. The Bishop of Truro, the Rt Revd Philip Mounstephen, said: “This is a fantastic example of the church and the community working together for the common good. Some will see this as an investment in some of that community’s most vulnerable individuals, while for those within the church community there will be the extra dimension of living their lives in the footsteps of Jesus. The net result will be a community that is strengthened and able to attend to the needs of some of its most vulnerable members, and for that we can surely all be thankful.” The Cabinet of Cornwall Council today (Weds, November 13, 2019) voted to approve a £612,000 towards the £1.9 million project. The council’s funding will match funds from Europe, the Diocese of Truro, the parish itself, private funding secured by the parish, and some Section 106 monies from developers. In addition, the Church Commissioners have committed £827,000 over six years, much of which will go towards the funding of posts to staff the community hub. Some of the regular hirers that use the current facilities are: Trefoil Guiding Guild Parent and Toddle Group Foodbank Singing for the Brain Truro Memory Café Cornwall Faith Forum Cornwall Fairtrade Hub Cornwall Childrens Clothes Bank Cornwall Refugee Resource Network Baby Ballet Friends of Face to Face Breastfeeding support group Cornwall Community Choir All Saints Youth Club Taekwondo Thursday Club Slimming World City of Truro Male Choir Gentle Pilates Alcoholics Anonymous Aspire Rehabilitation Acts 435 Crisis Support Penn an Dre Residents Association Cornwall Council Childrens Services Cornwall Health Promotion
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Too much time spent watching or reading the news can easily bring a sense of hopelessness, for people of faith as well as those of none. Whilst I have been enjoying David Attenborough’s latest series “Seven Worlds, One Planet”, the evidence of the destruction humans are wreaking on God’s planet is heart-breaking. The torturous politics of Brexit can also induce a nihilism and cynicism about those governing or seeking to govern the country. Meanwhile those who need justice, hope and comfort are left just as abandoned as ever.
What does the bible have to say about our situation today-written thousands of years ago by people who couldn’t imagine our world, just as we struggle to relate to relate to theirs? It so happens that the bible has plenty to say and God’s voice can be discerned quite clearly through all the layers of history and culture. It speaks of justice and hope and tells us how these things can be made real in the lives of ordinary humans. It’s not easy and certainly isn’t a matter of us sitting back and waiting for God to act in some miraculous way or shutting ourselves away in private prayer without acting on that prayer. Justice in the bible is about looking after the vulnerable, restorative not just retributive justice. God’s justice is even what some would see as unnecessarily generous, “God’s preferential option for the poor”. The Hebrew term for this restorative justice is mishpat but the bible also calls us to primary justice-a way of treating each other that is God’s template for economic, ecological and social relationships- tzadeqah in Hebrew. In other words, living in a way that all can have enough, treasuring and respecting God’s earth, treating each other without prejudice and enabling those who are disadvantaged to have what they need to be on a level playing field for jobs, housing, education and health. Deuteronomy 10:17-19 tells us: “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Justice in the bible is equated with righteousness, it is not an optional extra for those of a trendy lefty tendency or who like “charity work”, it is the necessary expression of our faith in a just God. This is the way that the spark of hope can be rekindled and nurtured until God’s justice is seen in the world. As Teresa of Avila said “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.” This week's blog has been written by Kirsty, Parish Administrator for All Saints and also an ordinand in training. |
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