The New Year is often a time for starting new things in the life of the church. This year we will be having a big change at Freemantle when we change the time of our morning service from 10:30a.m. to 9:30am from Sunday 3^rd January onwards. The matter has been discussed at a number of church meetings and the vast majority are happy and the vote was cast in our July church meeting.

The change is not “change for change’s sake”. It is part of the preparation for Rev Edward Symmons retirement on 31^st July 2011 when the four UR Churches in our SW Hants Group will have two ministers rather than three. In the first instance Rev Cliff Bembridge will be the lead minister for Avenue St Andrew’s and Freemantle, and Rev Tim Searle for Chandler’s Ford and Isaac Watts. Gradually Cliff will start to do more services with us. By the time Edward retires Cliff will be leading two services twice a month and a single service on the communion Sundays at Avenue St Andrew’s and Freemantle. On those Sundays the church not having communion will be able to call on SWHG’s own nationally accredited lay preachers Pam Humphreys (ASA), Karen Smith (ASA), Sandra Elkin (Chandler’s Ford) and Ruth Ovey (Isaac Watts) along with Barry Udall from Isaac Watts who is hoping to become a locally accredited lay preacher. This of course does not exclude us from using other preachers, or utilising the talents of our own members. When there is a fifth Sunday in the month, Cliff will preach at Chandler’s Ford and Isaac Watts, and Tim will come to Freemantle and Avenue St Andrew’s.

The aim is that the majority of the services in the Group will be led by the ministers, but that we will all benefit from increasingly using the group of very talented and theologically trained lay people within our churches.