Dear friendsIt's not often we could say that church is the "coolest" place to be (!) but I think it's fair to say with the extreme heat of recent days and weeks this is literally true.Thankfully God doesn't require us to be 'cool' in the contemporary sense - thank goodness, I'm sure the children at Knowle Park wouldn't describe the dance moves I shared in assembly this week as cool!I remember vividly an episode of "Rev", the BBC drama a few years ago, which was always a bit too realistic to be comfortable. In this episode, Rev, the vicar of a small but faithful church community, was asked by a more contemporary church if they could use his church for a short while, allowing renovations to their own building to take place. With this new church community came leather sofas, smoothie machines, and funky light systems which crashed into this traditional church building like a bull in a china shop! It wasn't really a helpful message, as it put different church traditions at polar opposites, and of course the reality is much more nuanced.There is a need to "bring the Gospel message afresh to this generation", and the messages in our Gospels over recent weeks have reinforced what happens when God's people become fixed on traditions or behaviours in their worship, without noticing the new thing that God is doing. As a PCC over the coming weeks and months we want to discern a clearer vision on who we are being called to be as a church in this time and place, for this generation. We're going to begin our preparation for this, for all of us, with a sermon series later in the Summer that takes us to some of the foundation stones of faith, and what it is to be church. This will hopefully also include some mid week opportunities to gather, in fellowship, prayer, bible study and conversation. I don't anticipate a smoothie machine, leather sofa or funky lights will feature, however I do hope you'll feel called to join in.We also want to grow our Pastoral Care team over the coming months, and we'll be running some training sessions for this in September. If this is something you feel called to be part of, why not have an informal conversation in the first instance either with me, or Becky Wearne, who co-ordinates the Pastoral Care team.In the meantime, we look forward to gathering together this Sunday to worship at 8.30am for our traditional Holy Communion service, and at 10.30am for our Sung Eucharist with Sunday Spirit for young people. You're invited, it would be great to see you.With every blessingBecky