August in 1 Thessalonians

A quick reminder that during in August we are having a combined morning service, a Parish Communion at 9.30 am. The month will explore the first letter of Paul to the Church at Thessalonica - a letter packed full of relevant and challenging teaching.

The first four weeks of the month will be taken by Ron Jackson and Steve Allen whilst the Vicar is on holiday and at Greenbelt. The service on August 31st will be taken by the Vicar, and we also have the Open Air Act of Witness - see story below. During the month, there will be a mic of 'live worship' and the CD's that we normally use at 9.30 am. Do come along when you are not away on holiday - these will be good, lively acts of worship with great preaching.

For week by week details, go to the 'Upcoming' page by hitting the link at the top of the page. Meanwhile, anyone who wants to download the service rotas for August and/or September, go to the Resources section.

Open Air Service planned for August

In exciting news, the churches of Wrose are planning an open air act of witness for the last Sunday of August. Together with Bolton Villas and Wrose Chapel, St Cuthberts are involved in an act of outreach - this will be part of our contribution to Hope Bradford and the first of series of mission initiatives planned for the Autumn.

You are all warmly invited to come along from 12.00 pm until about 1.30 pm at Wrose Rec - the field where the Carnival is held. There will be a lively act of worship from noon, with singing, sketch board story, puppets and fun.

We are excited to be able to welcome Wayne Jacobs, the assistant manager of Bradford City as a our very special guest speaker! Come along and hear what Wayne has to say about how knowing Jesus has helped him in his life as a professional footballer.

This will be followed by a free Barbeque, games for the kids and a chance to chill out and meet people. There is a new childrens play area right on site too.

Look out for the flyers and posters that will be appearing later in August. Do plan to come along - and why not bring a friend? It's the perfect invitation opportunity!

Summer @ St Cuthberts

During August there will be a change to the regular service pattern. With so many people being away over the first part of August in particular, it has been decided to combine the usual two services into one, just for the month of August.

This means that the only service for August will be at 9.30 am, and will be a Common Worship Parish Communion. We hope that, as well as the growing number who enjoy this service, many of those who reguarly go to The Gathering will come along if they are not away on holiday.

Further details of the themes, preachers and so on will be posted later.

'Hot Potato' Wrap Up

The well received series 'Hot Potatoes' comes to end next Sunday, July 27th

Over the past two months we've examined the biblical teaching on a range of topics that seldom get talked about in sermons - such as sex, money, secret lives, homosexuality, hell and many more. I've been struck by the positive feedback that has come after dealing with what are clearly very highly charged subjects.

In this last part of the series, I'm asking people to submit their own 'Hot Potatoes'. Yes - I'm willing to discuss anything that people would like to hear about! I might be laying myself wide open here, but I'm actually looking forward to the challenge. I've got some 'hot potatoes' already, but feel free to send others via the email facility on this site. Due to needing to prepare, I won't be taking questions on the day - so get them in now!

And join us for The Gathering on July 27th to see if the Vicar will get 'mashed' by the Hot Potatoes....

Looking around the site

This site has recently been extensively updated, so I thought it might be a good time to remind people where to find everything

The Social Events page, which features what the Social Committee are planning, now has information about the forthcoming American themed evening

Our emerging community 're:fresh' has a separate section where you can now see photographs from the latest gathering where each refresh group prepared a prayer installation on part of the community rule

On the Seconds page you'll find details of the visit of Andy Bowerman, chaplain of Bradford City

Each week the current noticesheet is uploaded and can be found here

We have the service rota - now updated to include the July rota - along with other helpful documents in the Resources section of the site

For details of forthcoming services, make sure you keep on an eye on this page, where upcoming services, themes and preachers are listed.

Do feel free to explore the site, there is a lot here!

Cells to bring fresh approach to discipleship at St Cuthberts

Without a doubt, one of the key insights that we've learned from re:fresh has been just how helpful and encouraging the small groups of 3-4 people have been. An additional bonus has been that they've had incredible flexibility - meeting on a wide range of days, times and in all sorts of different venues. At the same time, we've struggled for many years to find a way to help those who really want to grow in the faith to do so through our traditional small groups.

So, with a bit of lateral thinking, we're now looking to bring those two things together and extend the principles of small cell groups to the whole church. The idea is that from September those who are willing to 'sign up' will covenant together with two or three people for weekly cell meetings at a time and place of your choosing. There'll be a monthly gathering too and we'll be looking to provide lively and helpful resources for the groups to grow and flourish.

This is a pretty big change in the way we've done things, and to help people understanding things properly, we're hosting an evening together on Monday June 30th from 7.30 until about 9.15 pm in Church, where you'll be able to see a detailed presentation on the theory and practice of cell groups, ask any questions you want, and gain a fuller understanding of what is being proposed here. We encourage as many church members as possible to come along!

'Hot Potatoes' to be handled in June and July

Following hard on the heels of the well-received series on The Creed, we now start a two month series called 'Hot Potatoes'. This will be looking at topical - and sometimes controversial - topics from a biblical perspective. Here's the promo video that introduces this series :

We kick off on Sunday June 1st with a look at what the bible says about the supernatural. Do angels exist? Is there such a thing as the Devil? What does it mean to communicate with the spiritual realm? And what does it mean to be in a spiritual battle? Join us at The Gathering to explore these issues? And remember that, as ever, the 9.30 am Morning Worship continues with themes from the Anglican lectionary!

Archdeacon Visits St Cuthberts

The Archdeacon of Bradford, David Lee, has visited our church recently - its quite routine for the Archdeacon to pay a visit to a parish church once every few years, and this was 'our turn'.

David chaired a special meeting of the PCC, as well as spending time with the churchwardens going through various matters to do with registers, records and inventories (no quite as dull as it sounds). There was also a visit to our two Sunday services - and David was kind enough to preach in our series on the Creed. Finally, there was the Ministerial Review - which is a process of looking at how things are going from the Vicar's perspective.

Overall, this was a useful and enjoyable time - and we gleaned quite a lot of useful information. The general verdict is that things are going pretty well at St Cuthberts and most things are in good order. Obviously, we found a few little things that needed to be put right - and they either already have been, or soon will be. But overall, a very satisfactory Archdeacons Visit!

Christianity Explored launches

 

We're starting a Christianity Explored this month - running on Tuesday evenings and starting on May 20th.

We're excited about the potential for Christianity Explored here at St Cuthberts, and hope to running course on a regular basis as we seek to be an outward-focussed and growing church community. As well as this course running from May 20th into mid-July, we are hoping to repeat the course again in the Autumn - so don't worry if you miss out this time, there will be plenty more opportunities later.

Steve Betts is heading up the project, so contact Steve if you would like to help or to sign up to be a participant - or pop along to the Christianity Explored site where you can find out a lot more or view the promo clip (as seen in Church last week).

Exciting new youth project to be explored at St Cuthberts

The Church Council has been taking tentative steps in exploring the feasibility of an exciting new Youth project. This has come about via the expansion of the existing 'Sorted' Youth Projected that is based down at Immanuel School.

Basically, this will mean a cohort of local churches, including ourselves, working together to support a new Christian-based youth ministry based in Hanson School. There's a long way to go to make this a reality, but the initial discussions have been very positive. During our service on May 11th, Andy Milne from Sorted, will be 'on the sofa', talking with me about how St Cuthberts can get involved. In the meantime, here is a video which gives a flavour of the work that is currently being undertaken.

Look out for more information about how we're looking to take forward this exciting 'fresh expression of church' in due course.