1 Oct 2005 - News from <i>The Link</i>
| CONNECT |
| Every first Monday of the month a group of members of St.Luke's meets in church to spend an hour praying for different aspects of the life and work of St.Luke's and its parish, members of the church family and any particular concerns. The form of prayer varies from month to month; sometimes we pray aloud, sometimes in silence, or a mixture of both. There may be times for meditation or reading a passage of Scripture together. Our main aim is to bring before God the needs we see around us, to give Him praise and thanks for answered prayer.It is not all solemn and serious - twice we've enjoyed supper together first - and there is always time for socialising over tea and coffee afterwards for those who like to stay on. If you have not come to Connect before, why not join us on October 3rd, when Linda Ralphs is due to lead our prayer time. |
| OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD |
| Children all round the world have been touched by Operation Christmas Child distributing more than 38 million gift-filled shoe boxed in over 120 countries(- 4 million boxes to 95 countries from the UK), regardless of nationality, political background or religion. This unique project enables every member of the church worldwide to reach out to a hurting child in the name of Jesus.These shoebox gifts bring indescribable joy to children who have endured the horrors of war, poverty, famine, disease or disaster. Families and orphanages struggle just to put food on the table, no money is left for toys or school supplies. The shoebox gifts not only bring a happy Christmas but also hope for tomorrow and for eternity. We are engaging in a life-changing ministry, brining the good news of God's love to children who need to know He cares. Will YOU fill a box? Instruction leaflets available from Pam Dines : 525840 |
| GOLDEN GIVEAWAY |
| St John's Church of England Primary School are taking part in a Gloucestershire Echo promotion (with Chelesa Building Society and Beechwood Shopping Centre) that could win them £10,000 to create a new library. More details on noticeboards or from Sue Russell and Simon Barton (Foundation Governors). Please collect tokens from the Gloucestershire Echo - and ask your friends! Tokens must reach the Echo by Monday 9 November. The school that collects the highest number of tokens in relation to the number of pupils wins. |
| TRAINING EVENING FOR LEADERS OF SMALL GROUPS, 14 NOVEMBER |
| Scripture Union are holding a training evening at St Philip & St James's Church Centre in Hucclecote from 7.30 till 9.30pm for leaders of all small groups such as home groups. If any current leaders are interested or if you are thinking this is something you might like to do in the future, please contact Linda Ralphs for more details. |
| LATIN LINK WEEKEND18 - 20 November |
| Mission to Latin America: a weekend or day of Bible teaching, discussion and prayer with news from short-term groups. Kidderminster 18-20 November.Info: Sue Garcia Tel: 251194 |
| St John's Church of England Primary School |
| The Summer holidays have flown by and we all arrived back at School ready and invigorated for the start of the Autumn term. The glorious weather has continued enabling the children to use the outside play area and experience plenty of outdoor PE. During the summer break the staff room had a 'makeover' and it was lovely to return back to a new sink area and organised worktops and cupboards. The Hickory Dickory Summer Play scheme, which ran in school for the summer holidays, was a great success and not only provided much needed child care for St John's children but also those from other schools too. Hopefully there will be more such schemes planned for future holidays. We are pleased to welcome many new families to St John's Primary School, including some from overseas. We also have 2 new part time teachers. Mrs Sam Blackford will be providing cover for the Reception and Year 1 classes and Mr John Pickles, who is working in Key Stage 2. The new Reception class have quickly adapted to their new routines and are experiencing all of the excitement that school has to offer. It may be early in the new school year but we have already had some trips out! I went with Mrs King, the Nursery Nurse to visit 2 local nurseries and we had a lovely time at Hickory Dickory and Angel Day nurseries playing with the children, building the links from pre-school to school. Looking forward to an exciting term ahead Fiona Hadden (Reception Class teacher) |
| Notes from Parochial Church Council Meeting held on 12th September 2005. |
| A large proportion of the meeting was taken with consideration of a draft report prepared by the Deanery Pastoral Committee (DPC) relating to the reordering of churches and personnel within the Cheltenham area. It is likely that this proposed restructuring will affect most churches in Cheltenham as it explores the potential for establishing new links to share resources with neighbouring churches, and for the formal grouping of parishes together. With this in mind the first part of the meeting was attended by representatives from St Michael's, Whaddon to explore the possibility for establishing formal links between St Luke's and St Michael's (a church that will also soon be entering an Interegnum). It was agreed that this should be considered alongside other possibilities that have been suggested for St Luke's. Although the PCC felt a fulltime post should be provided for St Luke's, other possibilities such as sharing part of a full time post with a role in the diocese, or the sharing of a post with Holy Apostles has also been suggested. St Luke's will shortly be making representations to the DPC in response to the draft report. The Education Group reported on the success of the recent annual holiday club held with Highbury Congregational Church. This was held between the 1st and 3rd of September and was a great success with 62 children attending. As with previous years a very good team of helpers from both churches worked together to put the event on, a team that this year included St Luke's Youth Worker Wesley Bell. Wes also took part in a very well attended joint service held at Highbury on the following Sunday. Along with a group of other helpers, Wes is also starting two new youth events on Sundays these are for 11 to 14 year olds (to be held in the Church Hall between 17:30 and 19:00) and for 14 to 18 year olds (19:30 to 21:00 in church). On the church finances, the treasurer reported that the current account balances suggest that the church will suffer a deficit balance by the year-end. The Finance Group is to present the mid-year figures to the congregation to encourage increased giving to allow us to continue in our various works to share the gospel. Alongside these efforts by the Finance Group, Valerie Nichol has volunteered to be Funding Coordinator to raise funds to allow us to continue our youth work outreach with Wes Bell. |
| LONDON CITY MISSION |
| On October 15th in St.Luke's Church Hall we shall be holding our Autumn Annual Event -" London Calling". Andrew Hewett, one of the directors from HQ, and David Bauer, who is in charge of the Christian Centre at Forest Gate, will be bringing us the latest news from LCM and the work going on in their areas. The event will begin with coffee from 10.30, then worship and speaker at 11, followed by lunch at 12.45. If you would like to book lunch(£2.50), please contact June Cox on 01242 251604. St.Luke's Church supports the London City Mission as part of its mission, so do come and hear about what your prayers and interest and money actually achieve. |
| Landlubbers Ahoy! |
| The Landlubbers children's holiday was from September 1st to 3rd and was run in conjunction with Highbury Congregational Church. It was for all primary school age children and we had 62 children over the 3 days. To quote one child 'It was FUN!'. The theme was a treasure island and we had a wonderful boat on the platform and a lighthouse, lent by St Mark's church and lots of tropical plants, parrots and monkeys (all toys!) and flags around Highbury Church. We has pirates Richard and Wes leading us in 'pir-a-tes' (pilate exercises), a treasure hunt, stories and fun songs led by Paul & Nia Bennett (Paul is director of Youth for Christ). In craft time we made treasure boxes and then coins, jewels and other things in go in them. We also had a large model of a treasure island, which gradually filled up with clay models over the three days. There were also lots of games to play including 'Port and Starboard' and a rowing race. The Sunday following the holiday saw a joint service at Highbury Church and the children showed the adults what they had been doing and tried to teach them the actions to the songs. Throughout the holiday club and Sunday service we looked at the story of Paul and his writing of a letter to the people of Philippi and learnt what Paul said was the real treasure - Jesus Christ. I would like to thank all who helped with the holiday club. It was a great team of people from both St Luke's and Highbury. It is great that we as two churches can work together so well. I would also like to thank those who collected and donated props and craft stuff to us and finally to all those who prayed for us. Now the preparation for next year's club starts! Keep your diaries free. Linda Ralphs |
| GREENBELT snippets |
| It was the largest Greenbelt for 15 years - an estimated crowd of 18,000 visited the festival at the Cheltenham racecourse over the Bank Holiday weekend. More festivalgoers than ever camped for the whole weekend and the event was praised as having more of a "festival vibe". Not only did it fill more of the racecourse at Cheltenham there were also more things going on at the same time - typically 20 or 30. Trekking backwards and forwards might have been onerous, had this not been a Christian festival. As it was, you could leave your bags anywhere and return to pick them up hours later. The traders reported that if they left their stalls for any length of time, nothing was taken, and they would come back to find a queue of people waiting patiently to pay. We saw no police at all. Interesting note: about 10-12,000 attended the open-air eucharist on Sunday morning, including worshippers from nearby. The collection, although down on the previous year, raised £46,000 before Gift Aid, and money was still arriving. Do the sums... from the CHURCH TIMES |