Love Southampton 10 Year Anniversary
Southampton Church Leaders gather for 10-year anniversary of Love Southampton
The Love Southampton partnership of Christian churches and charities is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Leaders of churches will come together for a forum on 31st January at Central Hall.
Director of City Engagement and International Mission at New Community and Chair of the Love Southampton board Billy Kennedy said ‘It was always a goal for us this year to begin to have in-person forums again to allow us to engage with the churches, we feel that staging this forum in January will be particularly poignant to mark our anniversary. The milestone gives us a time to reflect on what Love Southampton has achieved, whether its goals and mission statement are still accurate, and where it should go in the future.’
2013 Launch
Speakers at the event include the Bishop of Southampton, Debbie Sellin; Professor Keith Brown and Leader from City Life Church, Paul Woodman. Since its inception, Love Southampton has sought to be a voice, a network and a catalyst. Creating some single points of contact for the church to be the voice has been helpful as we’ve look to partner with others to tackle issues together. The network of church and connected charities has been a place for mutual support and learning, this includes regular gatherings of groups like the debt agencies or of Christian chaplains meeting training and mutual support. At times, it has been a catalyst, notably in 2013 launching a very effective foster carer recruitment initiative that was replicated across the UK.
Project Co-ordinator, Matt Bunday said, ‘We think that this is a very exciting time for our churches as we emerge into a ‘new-normal’ post COVID. New opportunities are there for the churches in Southampton to bless the city during this time of need, but we have also felt clearly over the course of this year that Love Southampton must exist with the blessing of the churches in Southampton and must have clear goals and parameters to operate within. We feel that this forum would be an excellent opportunity for churches to hear what we have done over the last year to have the opportunity to reflect on this, allowing Love Southampton to move forward in 2023 on a stable footing, with a mandate from the churches of Southampton.’
2022 Cost of living summit
The forum is open to all churches in Southampton, and you can register your place by emailing Matt here before Friday 20th January.
