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Thurrock Bar'N'Bus summer news
Thurrock's Bar'N'Bus will be out and about as the summer hols come to an end.
Events
 On Saturday 21 August, the Grays Riverside team are taking the bus to a Community Fun Day which is taking place on Kilvert's Field in Argent Street. This is an initiative of the Community House based in the Seabrooke Rise community. The event takes place over the afternoon, from 12 noon to 4pm.
A week later, on Saturday 28 October, Corringham's Bar'N'Bus team will be taking the bus through the streets of the Corringham and Stanford area as part of the local carnival. The bus will be driven by local councillor and M25 Nutcracker prayer-pilot Phil Anderson.
The carnival starts at Park Road (opposite Thurrock Christian Fellowship in Giffords Cross Road), goes round Corringham Town Centre (Gordon Rd), up and down First and Third Avenues, along Southend Road, past St Margarets Parish Church and the Pub On The Green, ending up at the Crooked Billet pub. The event takes place throughout the day (no specific information on times available).
New Bus
The new Thurrock Bar'N'Bus - a Scania - bus has been purchased and is being re-fitted with a kitchen, prayer room, TV stations and new seating areas. The estimated launch date for the new bus is October.
Grays team driver Peter Rooke - a professional bus driver - is excited by the new bus. "It's a big improvement on the old one to drive," he said, "and the suspension is a lot better!"
Fundraising Quiz
On Saturday 9 October the annual Thurrock Bar'N'Bus Fundraising Quiz takes place at St Clement's Church, London Road, West Thurrock.
It's crucial as many teams as possible get along to this event to help raise the final funds to pay for some of the equipment needed for the new bus.
As usual the format will include a supper. More info will appear on this website in the next few weeks.
Thurrock Teams' Coordinator role ends
Tim Harrold has been the local teams' coordinator since the bus teams first got going back in early 2005. However, his role with Bar'N'Bus ends at the end of August, owing to re-structuring and cost-cutting at the Bar'N'Bus Trust. This will not effect teams already up and running, but may have implications in the way future locations are identified and teams are recruited.
T im has overseen five Thurrock teams in all, serving on each in their initial stages, and for some 18 months on the original Blackshots team. "The reason I first got involved with Bar'N'Bus was because a clear personal direction from God," he says. "At the time of inception, I saw Bar'N'Bus being the vehicle (!) to fulfill the East London Boiler Room's missional obligations. However, the East London Boiler Rom never came about, but the Bar'N'Bus has certainly become a mainstay of the Stanford & Corringham Boiler Room community's outreach to young people."
Tim says that for him the most exciting aspect of Bar'N'Bus has been the training and releasing of the teams. "It's been a great satisfaction to see ordinary believers respond to the call to reach young people on the streets of the borough become extraordinary messengers for Jesus. I still think the whole ethos of Bar'N'Bus to sew the seeds of the gospel through low-level evangelism and high-level witness is brilliantly simple and immensely powerful. Because of this, the bus has many friends throughout the borough and favour with the local police and council."
Most importantly, Bar'N'Bus is an example of the spiritual principle of unity in action. When brothers and sisters dwell together in unity... Jesus commands the blessing for life ever more - and society, communities and individuals experience redemptive transformation. Because people from different churches are working together at the invitation of the Holy Spirit, the land begins to be healed, lives start to open to the love of God. Simples!
Tim would like to thank everyone who's ever been part of Thurrock's five Bar'N'Bus teams - Blackshots, Chafford Hundred, Corringham, West Thurrock and Grays Riverside - and also Grays Police, and in particular DS Debbie Fordham, who first suggested Thurrock have it's own bus back in 2004, funding the project in the initial stages.
Thanks also go to Operations Manager, Stuart Christian, and the Trust's Chairman, Phil Pavitt.
Transformation Thurrock will continue to promote and publicise the work of Bar'N'Bus.
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Tim Harrold, 20/08/2010 |
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