“Neither height nor depth, nor anything else
in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:39
An extra Circuit Meeting is to be held at Grove Hill Methodist Church on Thursday 8th March starting at 7pm. Papers for the meeting will be circulated by 26th February.
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The Methodist Church Middlesbrough and Eston Circuit |
More than Gold Meeting Bethany Centre. October 1st 2011
Attending from our Circuit; Dave Elliott Grove Hill, Liz Milburn Linthorpe Road, Celia Shires Normanby, Ray and Lilian Pryde Eston Grange.
This was an excellent and inspirational morning. Below is a list of some of the main points made at the conference.
1. National Prayer Relay will be launched by the Bishop of Truro on May 18th
2. Community Festivals / street parties, the church engaging with its community, not taking church people away to other venues.
3. Sharing Jesus
4. ‘All the Christians in the town should come together for a day and forget our denominations’
5. The church needs to show it is at the centre of society outward looking.
6. Core aims of Christian festivals should be Repositioning the church, engaging the community, making disciples
7. Any festival should be;
A Christ centred
B. Church led
C.The result of collaboration
D. Creative
E. Challenging
8. There should be multiple events, a focussed area, and time
9. The Key of a successful festival is ‘churches together’
10. The festival should show the community that the church loves them and is relevant to their lives
11. There is a need to organise a core team to set about inspiring the churches to act, to give them the same message.
12. We should have VISION
13. What do we want to see in our communities?
14. What does God want us to do?
15. The festival must fit in with that vision, we must see the need, feel the need, have a burden for the need (weeping for our communities) action the need, make a difference.
16. We need to share the vision with all involved
17. We need to be organised write things down
18. Need to assemble a team
19. Have: leader, PR &Communications, Venues arranger, Community and Civic Relations person, Finance, Admin, Prayer
20. Cast God’s vision, Show God’s involvement, Mutual encouragement. Celebrate accomplishments
21. An aim of any festival should be to see the community coming together
22. It should meet the needs of all the people in the community so lots of different activities, the importance of diversity
23. There needs to be a central focus for all the participating churches
24. The festival should have a theme NB We are not allowed to use the word Olympics/ London Olympics/ be very careful in this area.
25. Try to involve the local council. Ian Parker Chief Exec Middlesbrough Council is a Christian. He wants the churches involved with the torch procession/catering/litter picking/etc… He needs to be involved, use his enthusiasm
26. Use local businesses for the festival.
27. Involve as many churches as possible they have so many different people with different talents/skills
28. There must be good communications use internet twitter, facebook, .We must make it clear to people what we are doing and why.
29. Connect the festival with the things that matter to the community/what they are talking about/what is on the news
30. 60% of our communities have no connection with the church, so we need to go out to where people are
31. Venues are important, ensure contracts are written out and agreed, keep good records.
32. What is the plan for the follow up to the festival? New people may want to know more about the faith, to know that we care for them. We need a plan to nurture these people continue and enhance the relationships we have made with them.
33. We need to train people to work in the community with those who want to know about their faith, help them to tell their story.
34. Finance is important. But the vision should lead the budget.
35. Fund raising is successful if lots of people are involved.
36. Look for trusts although they may not be very helpful. Seed bed trust was mentioned (Liz to research) Barclays are keen to be involved in the community
37. A large group of young people are coming over from Norway to celebrate the fact that we took the Christian faith to them. They will come on July 21st, be involved in our areas. They are self financed, they will pay for their keep. We will need hospitality for them. They will be involved in our churches on the first Sunday and then on the second Sunday there will be a big festival in Newcastle.
38. Where do we go from here?
39. We feel we want to utilise the existing festival in Stewart’s Park but involve more churches and extend the scope of the event. To this end we are meeting at Liz’s home on November 8th 7-30
40. We need to share this message with the Circuit…starting with the Communications Team meeting in October.
41. We need to use all the help available from the NE teams.
42. We need to pray. Dave Elliott 01-10-11