MARCH NEWS

Written By Dave Vinall

REPORTS

Crosslines

In January 2017 Exeter Vineyard took over the Monday night session at Crossline - providing a hot meal for homeless and vulnerably housed people.

Since then, on every Monday night, including Bank Holidays, Christmas, New Years, rain, shine, dark or light, a team arrives with four trays of food (common staples include: sausage casserole, chicken curry, lasagne and pasta bolognaise bake) and serves it to whoever turns up - which can be a varied cast of characters.

The team has gone through lockdowns, adapted to fire regulations, gained food hygiene certificates and gained a 5-star cleanliness award from the council.

Currently food is prepared by a rotation of cooks in their homes, delivered warm to the small kitchen, where the indoors team re-heat it to serving temperature, while the outdoor helpers set up tables, chairs and gazebos (in inclement weather). Tea and coffee is served, followed by the dinner and usually a dessert.

During the evening the team to get to know the guests and often a chance to encourage them and pray with them.

A quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that over the 8 years and 2 months since we started we’ve done something like:

  • Served at 420 sessions,

  • Cooked and distributed 1,680 oven trays of food,

  • Opened Crossline for 1,250 hours,

  • 5,000 people-hours of volunteering and

  • Worn out at least 4 trestle tables and 2 gazebos!

Since starting we’ve had lots of different people get involved with the team, including people from other churches and some who don’t go to church at all.

We’ve also got involved beyond the Monday night session, working with other Exeter churches for a joined up response to housing and food poverty. Exeter Vineyard members, Steve W and Pete G are also now trustees of the charity that owns and operates the building.

We’ve thought for a while we should do something a bit more significant than frequently mentioning about happens at Crosslines.

So on Sunday 16th March we’re going to focus our Service on housing. Together with the work of the YMCA (which we also support) we’re going to be celebrating Crosslines.

We’ve invited all the non-Vineyard helpers to join us and we’ll use the service as an opportunity to recognise and thank them for their service.

We’ll also be praying for this issue which affects people in a such profound way that many of us can’t even imagine.

LOOKING AHEAD

April - Church Feedback

Due to the service above, we’re now going to do our feedback from the survey on Sunday 6th April.

This will be a time to talk about how Exeter Vineyard Church is doing at what we feel God has called us to do and what we think is ahead. We’ll look at the insights from the 2024 Survey (including responses to suggestions and issues people have raised) and from the previous year’s finance.

We think this will be an important Sunday and it would be great if you can be there. We’re planning to video the talk to allow people who can’t make it to see it on our YouTube channel.

DATES

Next 6 weeks of key dates:

Sun 2 March - Sunday Service, 10:30 @ St. Leonard’s

Sat 8 March - Messy Church, 10:30 @ The Beacon Centre

Sat 8 March - Elevate (Youth) 6pm @ The Beacon Centre

Sun 16 March - Housing themed Sunday Service, 10:30 @ St. Leonard’s

Sun 6 April - Sunday Service, 10:30 @ St. Leonard’s

Sat 12 April - Messy Church, 10:30 @ The Beacon Centre

Sat 12 April - Elevate (Youth), 6pm @ The Beacon Centre

Dave Vinall
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