Tower and Town, December 2025 (view the full edition)Emmanuel ChurchBecause of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness! (Lam 3:22-23). As we look ahead to the opportunities and challenges that we face today, it's encouraging to look back and see how faithful God has been in the past. How faithful he has been to the Emmanuel church family since we held our first Sunday service ten years ago! For some months beforehand, a few of us had met occasionally in the back room of the Green Dragon to seek if it was God's will to start a new church in the town. As we prayed and prayed, it seemed clear that the Lord had given us a wonderful opportunity in this great town. So, with generous initial help from Calne Free Church, Freshbrook Church and Emmanuel Church Chippenham, our church began with this mission: As we grow together in faith in Jesus, we want to reach out in love with his good news. So we seek, by God's grace to teach the Bible faithfully, love one another in community and pray, all in dependence on the Holy Spirit. It was exciting to meet on Sundays in St John's academy in the early years, though it was hard work operating as a small team and transporting our equipment from my garden shed every week. Over the next few years we were, 'all hands on deck,' and it was great to see church members starting and serving in various ministries, including midweek groups for children and young people, and also for the elderly in Savernake View care home. The pandemic, though very hard, forced us to take the message of Jesus out of our four walls, e.g. with 'Car Park Carols'. When we were permitted to meet again in September 2020, and were briefly homeless, Christchurch Methodist church kindly let us meet in their building. We were grateful, in January 2023, to be able to buy the building, through the generous gifts of church members and others, after our Methodist friends had put it up for sale. As we gradually refurbish the building, we would love to use it to serve the wider community. The challenges we face are very great. Nearly 10,000 souls live in Marlborough, and a similar number in the wider area, each one loved by God and needing to hear the good news of Jesus Christ, who died and rose for us all. We are just scratching the surface and are grateful for other churches who share the task. Since we are more established than we were at first, it would be easy to lose our early sense of outward-looking gospel adventure, of prayerful dependence on the Lord, of 'all hands on deck' partnership or of willingness for change. The challenge is to take Jesus at his word, who said, 'seek first [God's] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well'. To that end we have recently added a 10am service to our 4pm service, running both services weekly with children's groups. Along with the challenges, we also have wonderful opportunities, especially with precious individuals. This year has been unusually remarkable for the substantial number of people who, having not previously been attending church, have come to put their faith in Christ for the first time. This is happening not through anything impressive that we are doing but through God's amazing grace: as people from a variety of backgrounds have had a thirst for God, have come to church, discovered both the love within our community and especially the good news of Jesus Christ, and committed their lives to him. For each seeker we've had the joy of meeting, perhaps there are many more. I thank God and hope, reader, that you too will find his blessings whether through Emmanuel or at another church. Great is his faithfulness! Reuben Mann |