This project started because the previous minister of Portsmouth Methodist Church, the Revd John Mills felt there was a disconnect between the work of the Boys’/Girls’ Brigades and the Church. He didn’t see an easy way of overcoming this disconnect without something very new beginning. He drew together the initial Core Team and this has continued. We have listened to parents from GB and BB and this clearly showed they were interested in exploring faith but didn’t feel that the church was the place for them.
The Core Team used NPNP exploratory funding to employ a project researcher - Danny Miller. Danny was able to test our initial assumptions that the ‘Compass Project’ should focus on Families with Children.
His report stated - “This brief, focuses on an area that the Prophet Nehemiah took before he built and restored the walls of Jerusalem. This was also like the approach that Joshua and Caleb made before submitting their ‘report’ to Moses. This a vital and valuable project which is ‘Research’ (or recon). I have learnt the value of researching a region where a pioneering project or church plant may take place, this primarily includes a historical, relational and geographical approaches. I have adopted these approaches in establishing a report of what lays ahead of an NPNP project. My findings over the past nine months have resulted in a clear vision, what potential challenges await, a clear understanding of the history of churches in the region, demographics, and areas of need. This has helped establish The Compass Project and its vision of reaching Families (with children) within the community of Copnor where there are up to fourteen thousand people within a ten-minute walk.”
The project will look like a church plant and will be based in the northern half of Portsmouth. ‘Compass’ will be a deliberately inclusive, intergenerational, family focused, relational, and disciple making community. Our vision is that this inclusive community will provide direction in life by introducing people to Jesus, equipping them to live out their faith effectively as they discover God’s plan for their lives and, therefore, impacting Portsmouth positively.
The Walking Nativity event that has been taking place around the former Copnor Methodist Church building, showed us that there was significant interest in well run, well thought through, well delivered relevant Gospel story telling. That families were willing to come into a place where they will hear the Christian message, if they feel that it will be worthwhile. We had been thinking we should not be in Copnor, but the issue of parking, people not wishing to Drive away from their spaces, meant staying local to the Copnor community was very important. But we wouldn’t have known that without digging deeper.
The core team feel that Christianity is meant to be a life of FUN in Christ. While Christ is the centre of the ministry all events and teaching should have an underlying tone of fun and in this way, people will want to participate and be part of Compass.
We see that Compass will start rolling out, building on the relationships with the families connected to the Brigades, as a launching pad. We hope that the Compass Project will be a movement rather than a structure, and that this movement will be reactive and relational.
We are looking to employ a Compass Project Pioneer, who will seek to create the opportunities for new people to come along and discover more about the transformational message of Jesus.