The Noise 2011: Actions Speak Louder
Each May Bank Holiday the whole Church gets involved in a weekend of activities aimed at serving the community in practical ways.
James 2:17 reminds us that ‘faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless’ (NLT). James was saying that our faith should spill out into our everyday lives; not only will our love for Jesus be evident in the way our lives are transformed, but it will be seen in the way that we show the same love Jesus has for us to those around us. Essentially, pure faith is expressed in our love for God, for ourselves and for others. Jesus said to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength’ and then to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’.
‘The Noise’ ‘11 was a fantastic opportunity for us as a church family to love our amazing God with all our strength, at the same time as showing the love we have for our neighbours in Cheltenham. This year with so many bank-holidays all at once, we dared to complete over 20 community projects across Cheltenham…..in just ONE day! With over 200 volunteers from Trinity Cheltenham, St. Paul’s Cheltenham and Glenfall Fellowship it was made possible and the day proved to be a huge success.
In St. Paul’s, a family fun day attracted crowds who enjoyed a bouncy castle, bungey running, face-painting, football and other fun stuff – all free of charge. Also in St. Paul’s, a team completed a number of gardening projects – all in homes of vulnerable people in the community. A member of that team, Naomi Turner said, ‘We ended up doing 5 gardens in our team. At the second project I had a really long chat with the lady who lived there. We talked about Jesus, the Bible as well as the Alpha Course too.’ This seemed to happen across Cheltenham as opportunities to share Jesus in word came out of sharing His love in deed. Naomi goes on to say, ‘there is something immensely powerful about coming together as a church body to serve the Lord. Personally, I really felt God’s presence in a way that I haven’t felt it for a while.’
There was a huge diversity of projects running on the day, from landscape gardening to decorating and carpet-laying; these were running in Hester’s Way, Arle, Benhall, Charlton Kings, Swindon Village and even went as far as Quedgeley in Gloucester. Our extremely helpful ‘vicars in vans’ (Mark, Tim & Gareth) along with their teams were kept busy all day – according to an official source, namely twitter, Rev. Gareth and his team managed 3 trips to the local tip while Rev. Mark & Rev. Tim managed 7 trips. Nothing like a bit of competition to keep the day running smoothly!
The impact of the Noise ‘11 cannot be underestimated. It was a huge privilege to be able to travel around the different projects to see all that was happening. One of the Mums we did a project for said that The Noise ‘reminded me how wonderful God and his people can be.’ At a project in Hatherley for a family with a 3 year old boy with autism, the mother wasn’t able to hold back her tears as the team came to the end of the project. She was simply overwhelmed by the transformation, by the willingness of a team of strangers to give their time and by the generosity of the people of God. In moments like these I can see the Spirit of God hovering and touching lives – in a massively significant way, our small sacrifice of service attracted the Kingdom of God to break through. In that moment, a woman who had never encountered the love of Jesus, was encountering the reality of His love. The way I understand things, love isn’t a fuzzy feeling – it is a decision of will, an action, through which the author of love moves. The ultimate decision of will, the ultimate action, was displayed to us through Jesus hanging on a cross. Through this, the author of love displayed the magnitude of His love for the world – His visible sacrifice revealed an invisible reality – the immeasurable love of God.
I want to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to everyone involved in making the Noise ‘11 such a success – from project leaders to cluster leaders to the teams on the vans and for every single person willing to pick up a paint brush, roller, strimmer or gardening fork. I felt so proud to be a part of such an amazing Church family who were willing to roll up their sleeves and say through their actions, ‘this is how much God loves this community!’ May you be blessed as you have been a blessing.
One final thing … don’t miss out in joining us for the Noise ’12 which is already planned for Saturday 12th May 2012.
First Saturday If you enjoyed The Noise, enjoyed meeting new people, blessing people and making amazing connections, would you like to do it more often? If so join us with ‘First Saturday’ – we start at 9am and aim to finish at 1pm and do Noise projects on the first Saturday of each month. Or if you did a project that needs some more work , or new projects please get in touch with Phil Seamark. e: seamarkphil@aol.com
For more information about The Noise and to get involved speak to your Cluster Leader or contact us.
Contact: Ruth Duckworth & Chris Banwell (The Noise Coordinators)
Email: thenoise@trinitycheltenham.com
We are grateful to the following companies for their support of The Noise:
