Success!

The Aggregates Levy Fund Wales have awarded our Church Hall project £300,000!

We are completely amazed and totally grateful to them. The application was made in August, and since then we have been in conversation about our eligibility for the fund, as well as how the nature of our project affects people in Pontypridd and what we hope to achieve when we complete the building work.

At the end of September we were able to demonstrate the site to some members of the fund, and to explain to them our vision for helping make lives better here in our community. This resulted in the award, which includes £50,000 which must be spent on environmentally sustainable parts of the building project. We are investigating the option of integrating a new biomass boiler to heat the whole site.  

Obviously we are all very excited! This project has been a part of our lives for four years now, and it feels like we are coming to the sharp edge of things. We need one more grant to come through and we can start the building phase. The possibility of actually opening the completed works at New Year 2012 is something of a dream for us, and one we are beginning to allow ourselves to dream.

God is good. We are trying to be faithful to our calling as his church in this place to serve as many people as we can in transforming lives and building community, loving our neighbours as ourselves, caring for young and old, and it is truly humbling when organisations from our national government recognise our work and our vision and decide to help us in such a wonderful way. Thank you!

There is still work to be done. One grant remains outstanding, and if we do not achieve it by February 10th 2011 we lose half of what we have gained so far. Pray for those working on; and pray that we might make this final grant so that we can renovate the hall and build better lives for all sorts of people in our community.

PodCaths is Back!

PodCaths is Back!

Our very own podcast has taken a break for the last few months, but the Wednesday lunchtime Bible study group that meets in the Vicarage has started up again in the last few weeks and has already recorded two brand new editions of PodCaths.

Each episode follows a group discussion through one of our Sunday Bible readings, and lasts around half an hour. You can find it by clicking onto the PodCaths page on our website, or by searching on iTunes for PodCaths Marcus Green which should take you to the right place! (Our emblem on iTunes is a little picture of the St Catherine's Spire!)

PodCaths October 6th 2010 is already "live", and the recording from October 13th 2010 should be available any second!

Mission Statement (again!)

We've added some extra links to the website. If you'd like to read the Mission Statement for yourself and missed picking one up in church, click here! Or go to the About Us page and click on the words "Worship, Evangelism, Compassion" there for the same link.

Or you can still just watch Marcus tell you all about it...

Mission Statement & Mission Action Plan

Starting at this year's Annual Congregation meeting after Easter, we have been working hard at preparing a Mission Statement for St Catherine's, to go with the Mission Action Plan that all churches in the Llandaff Diocese have.

Marcus has been praying this through along with the staff, wardens and PCC, and after several discussions we have now arrived at something we are happy with. It shouldn't come as any surprise to anybody who attends St Catherine's, or anyone who has see any of our materials in the last ten years, as it is based entirely around our standard three word catchphrase - "Worship, Evangelism, Compassion".

Here's Marcus explaining the Mission Statement.


If you want to see that sentence written out so you can get a chance to take it in with a bit more time - it's this:
We at St Catherine's are called to love God and our neighbour in Worship, through Evangelism, and with Compassion.

The Mission Action Plan seeks to put some flesh on the theorectical bones of the Mission Statement, and provide some more practical aims for us as a church as we live this out. It's not a "five year plan" or complete programme of everything we will do from now on - but it does set out the things that are important to us. So if someone comes up with a new idea for us to follow as a church - we look at the MAP and see how it fits in order to work out whether we run with it, or to what extent we make something important. Mind you, the MAP isn't the Ten Commandments! We will seek to review it yearly, and from time to time we will make alterations as we grow and develop as God's church in this place.

Here again is Marcus talking us through the Mission Action Plan.


Paper copies of both these documents will be available in church, and we may try and get them up here somehow as well for anyone to download.

Thank You Esther!

Twenty-two members of the St Caths Plus crew gathered at Alfred's Bistro in Pontypridd to celebrate the end of the first year of the St Caths Plus project, and to thank Esther Sowerby for her wonderful leadership through the year.

Others popped in to add their best wishes and thanks, and a great celebration was enjoyed by all.

It seems hard to imagine now that the St Caths Plus project is only just a year old, with the regular lunches, afternoon teas, Welsh classes, book club, keep fit sessions, concerts and so much more all going on regularly - and this on top of all the friendships, the Mothers Union, and the work of the visiting & pastoral team guided by Gill Tuck. Our aim to make life better for older people in Pontypridd has taken a huge step forwards this year.

And of course Esther has been key to this - her enthusiasm and energy, and her willingness to be there for everyone has been infectious. We could not have done it without her!

Stewart Franklin, former Vicar's warden (and Book Club aficianado) spoke warmly and personally, and presentations of Welsh slate plaques were made both to Esther as a token of heartfelt thanks from everyone at St Catherine's, and also to Gill for all her service and kindness in the parish. Others added their cards and gifts, and all added applause & acclaim.

Champagne was also flowing - Jane & Teg Lewis had a 45th wedding anniversary to mark, so everyone raised a glass and joined in their celebration as well!

It's just days now till Anne Swann joins the team to take the work on from where Esther has left it; for sure, God has blessed us richly, and we look back with great gratitude and forwards with eager anticipation as we continue our desire to serve our whole community with the love of Jesus, and to make people's lives better.

Bon Voyage

Dan & Kirsty Jones joined us here at St Catherine's over seven years ago, and have become an integral part of our lives: leading our worship with their amazingly beautiful music, and advancing the children's work beyond all recognition, as well as bringing world-class concert guests and being the spark behind such creative endeavours as "Romans and Bach", they have blessed us time and time again.

Flo is now five, and Sam came along this year and was baptised just weeks ago. This morning Dan spoke movingly of how their time here has changed them and brought their faith in Jesus alive.

But now they are leaving us, moving to the Dordogne where they hope to set up a family tourist business and where Dan will engage in some guitar tutoring. We prayed for them during this morning's service, their last service with us, and presented them with a Welsh Love Spoon in the shape of a treble clef to remind them of all our love. Afterwards we shared cake and champagne and couldn't quite believe it!

Eight years ago, we had no idea of the blessing that we were about to receive the weekend they first joined us. There is some little church in the Dordogne in that position today. And though we will feel their loss personally, and of course in our music ministry, we send them with our love and blessing, praying that God will bless them as a family now more than they have the faith to ask (and others through them) and that we too may be blessed in ways we cannot imagine with gifts beyond our imagining!

Latest Grant Application For Church Hall Renovations

The work on the church hall, where all our community work with children and older people is focussed, continues apace!

It seems like we have been preparing for this for ever, but a scheme like this is so large and so important for us and for our town that we have to get every detail right: plus it takes a while to draw all the finance into place.

The next step on that front is our latest application, back to the Big Lottery, and if we are successful, this will take us all the way to our grand total. The picture is of what the application pack looks like on the kitchen table!

Big thanks to Esther for putting in so much work, to Marcus for all his contributions, to David Harvey our architect for so much detail, to Thomas Pinhorn for advice along the way, and to countless others without whom an application like this would simply be impossible.

BUT NOW - we need everyone to join in. It's time to pray! The turn around on an application is six months, and we need to own this now, to make it our regular prayer, to bless the folk at Lottery and seek the Lord's face that he would look with favour upon us and grant us favour in the eyes of those whose job it is to examine all the claims that come across their desks. If we have missed things out or just made mistakes, we need opportunity to put that right; and if there are questions we need to make clearer, then we need chance to do so.

Most of all, we really desire to be successful with our bid because we long to make this building project a reality so we can serve more and more people in Pontypridd, and make life better for them. Let's pray!