Pastors: Neil & Lynn Collins, Robert Elford

So much has happened it is difficult to know where to start. We celebrated 60 years in Plymouth and gave thanks to Father God for His faithfulness to this church and all that have entered it. We have followed on from our February 2004 Prayer Week where we believed that the Lord was clearly speaking to us about new birth, salvation, growth and signs and wonders. Our commitment to prayer is for revival, new birth and building relationships with God and our community.

"House Groups" have been closed down and we are now concentrating on a more pastoral role. We are giving time to building with those who were part of the house group through personal fellowship and prayer. Our long term goal is to restart the groups with life teaching skills and personal self help growth programmes. I will be spending two weeks in South Africa doing the course and getting material and experience together for the launching of the programme in the church, at the same time looking at church growth and planting new churches. I lead a group for folk who are newly saved or have come from a non charismatic background. I teach on the Holy Spirit and some of the doctrines know as apostolic teachings. This group enjoys the ‘upgrade’ and it encourages them to be open and ready to be used in a church setting. We call the group Alpha not to be confused with the Alpha Course.

Lynn now works full time as a pastor in Mudgeway and has been a great asset in the area of counseling and teaching. She teaches the Lost and Found course to individuals on a personal level but is also used in training other churches and leaders to run the programme in the local church. She is a tutor with the organization that runs the course on a professional/medical/physiological level. Lynn spends one day a week looking after administrational work for Harvest Community Church. She is the worship director and is helping new members to grow into the band.

We have now been preaching to ex-offenders in Dart moor prison and have a member in the church who works in the prison as an assistant to the chaplaincy, Fran. We believe that this connection will start to grow. I had the privilege of seeing one getting saved and God blessing them when Fran got me a preaching slot on the Alpha Course. Well done Fran for all your hard work.  

Louis Els and a team from Jefferies Bay visited Okehampton and Plymouth and it was good to see Louis back in the South-West of England. It was also a time for us to meet some of the staff who are teaching one of our members at the Victory Masters Commission in Jeffery's Bay. We believe that this is a significant stage in his life. Brendan Munro, Arthur & Lesley Vos, Louis Els, Graeme Hotter, Mike Genockey and Tony Fitzgerald also visited Mudgeway and brought a fresh challenge to us over the last year.

Mudgeway continues to be heavily involved in the life of Plympton and Plymouth. We have two fraternal that meet monthly in our church. We are organizing a Christmas carol outdoor services with, Church of England, Roman Catholic, Methodist Brethren & Lutheran Church. As a church we are very much committed to serving the community in which we live with many members being involved in many aspects of local community life. We are now sitting on two youth committees were the members are paid and we are asked to give advice on issues that affect the staff and community.

 Fusion children’s club

Our children youth groups are now in two separate venues and we have close to a 100 children attending every Friday. Mum and tot’s have grow from the church lounge and into the main hall. In the Holidays we are launching a young adults ‘nu kinda church’ in a local coffee shop. We need God to bring in the parents please pray for this to happen. Our retired group or seniors continue to meet for Friday Church and Sandy is doing a great work with them.

 Friday Group

Our feeding programme is doing well and our soup run is running smoothly, we are not asking for donations anymore as most of the food and sandwiches are given to us free of charge by the local supermarket, praise God.

This Sunday 25^th we are holding a church barbeque day and hope to see visitors of the children groups as well as the street people.

I am busy setting up a company within the church with some of our business men and we want to generate and release capital in the church (We need a building to support our different ministries, shuffling everything around everyday to accommodate this can be very labour intensive), more importantly we want to run the company as an example for good business practice and see some of the local church members being paid a decent salary.

Local relationships continue to build and Mudgeway has now built a solid relationship with Mike and Justine Davies at Inspiration (Church of The Nations). We continue to meet regularly to strategise and work together. We recently visited Michael Puffett (Maidstone) to view the work that has been achieved in the south-east of England. Several joint meetings have taken place with Inspiration, with Louis Els, Tony Fitzgerald and Keith Du Plessis, being recent speakers at such joint meetings. Louis Els also ran leadership training sessions for the combined churches in Plymouth. Mike and I are looking at a plant in the east of Devon and a Congregational Church has asked me to do a weekend training course with them. I have also now been linked with a church in Spain

Many of the ladies from Mudgeway and from Inspiration attended the COTN Ladies Retreat in Folkestone, Kent. This was organised by Heather Puffett and the main speakers were Louis and Edna Els. In February we will be having our national conference again, I cannot wait! What has God got for us? The aim is to build and bring vision, strengthen relationships and to take us out of our comfort zone, see you there. Book early to avoid disappointment.

Our Bible College has seen 5 more student graduate and we have 15 on the course at the moment. We have seen quite a few couples leaving us as they moved away and found work or ministry in other parts of the land and world, but because they have been sent, God has promised us great blessings. We will have seen one salvation and four baptisms at the end of the month and we pray that this will continue to grow. We also said farewell to Charles Franklin who went to be with the Lord on the 9^th of July. What a great send off thank you to Brendan Munro and Stu Clarke for your presence and support.

The heart of Mudgeway would be difficult to clearly define but we have seen a greater focus on the local community, surrounding churches, and also the nations. Our heart is to feed our Nation and Europe with bread from the word (Jesus) and bread from our tables (fellowship and ministry). God’s grace is the message that most churches in the past did not preach, we want to see that changed.

We are active in serving the Lord in our community and would love it if you could pray for us. Neil Collins and all at Mudgeway

  Loving that’s all!