New chaplain joins The Dock at Titanic
The Dock Church in the Titanic Quarter has entered an exciting new phase with the arrival of another chaplain to join Revd Chris Bennett.
Revd Karen Spence was formally welcomed and commissioned out in the open air on a Dock Walk on 17th April. The Archdeacon of Down, Ven Philip Patterson and the Methodist Superintendent for Belfast, Revd Ivan McElhinney presided. Karen is the minister of Sydenham Methodist and already a chaplain to the Marie Curie Hospice. The intention is that she will spend a day a week in the TQ, with the blessing and support of her parish in Sydenham.
'I'm really excited about what's going to emerge and what my role will be among one of hopefully many roles as more people catch the vision and join the team. This is just such an amazing God-given opportunity to do who knows what!' said Karen.
'We want to simply love and serve people, care for them and meet their needs and see how church emerges through that.'
At the moment Karen is linking in with the Dock Walks and Meet the Neighbours, as she finds her niche in the team.
Other developments in TQ include the first meeting of the Dock Board of Directors and the appointment of Chris Bennett as an official Titanic Walking Tour Guide, for which he gets a magnificent red coat!
The Board - a year in the making – allows 'The Dock' to be constituted as a limited company – and as the group includes people from all sorts of denominational backgrounds, the company genuinely is the ‘Shared Medley’ that we’ve been hoping and praying towards from the start. It’s this company that can now start fundraising for The Dock Boat – and they do so from the solid basis of a professional, diverse and exciting core team of Directors at the helm.
