Hale Road
Hale
Altrincham
Cheshire
WA15 9HQ
Next Event planned is April 25th 2010
Flowing with Life, Moving in God’s Power
Sunday 17 January 2010
On Sunday Morning over 250 people from the four churches of Altrincham Bowdon Vale, Hale and Timperley came together for worship in Navigation Primary School. At the kind invitation of the Head Teacher (Mr Busby)we were able to fill the school hall with a gathering of all ages including over 30 children. Refreshments were served as people arrived, there was also an opportunity to see some of the work on three key areas that the Leadership Team have identified as priorities. FACT, AGILE LOCATION, AND LIFE AND FAITH GROUPS
These displays included information about some key Facts about our four churches and local community.
There was also some very interesting and challenging work presented that showed a wide range of opportunities for mission and outreach under the heading of Agile Location.
The third display encouraged people to consider being part of a small Life and Faith Groups and to begin to meet in Lent 2010 for a series looking at the theme ‘When I survey’. It is hoped that these groups will be a key part of our future in each of the four churches, encouraging faith sharing and growth as a Christian.
At the end of the service there was offering taken to support the relief effort in Haiti, and thanks to the generosity of those who there, £917 has been forwarded. Thank you to all.
On reflection, the Circuit Launch was really about worshipping together and seeing what might be possible if really did ‘Flow with Life and Move in God’s Power’. There were some things we could have done differently but the overwhelming comments have been very positive since Sunday.
The Circuit Leadership is very committed to working together with the churches to continue exploring our vision and will have more to offer in the coming weeks.
Below is a summary of the responses received during the service to the question….WHAT MIGHT WE BE if we flowed with life and moved in God’s Power?
Thank you and every blessing.
Kevin Johnson
In the community
Active in community
Focus – act – inspire
Instruction manual in community affairs
Finding the needs and answering to try and heal the fragmentation of families
Affect the whole community around us (completion from Anglican – a similar project)
Influence local area
Find some way of attracting young people.
Broken families a problem where is real life in our area? Contact other Christian Groups
Use of church premises to outside organisations on days other than Sunday, eg Mothers and toddlers, lunch group.
Difficulty nowadays and people working Sunday.
Providing environment for people in our families and communities who think they don’t ‘need’ a faith or church.
Abandon the buildings and material trappings – we need to be out there
From a young person – 23 – they like more upbeat services, more fun, find out what the Baptists do – we could be more open to change.
Different types of service to cater for needs of different groups.
More together – alive, less together – dying
Strong and Visible
Flexible and accessible – not necessarily within our current buildings
We like coffee shops and getting people in.
Relinquish our buildings – rent instead and free up funds for community outreach.
Down to us – focus of the movement – we have to out
Keep exhibitions (displays) and send round the 4 churches.
Congregation to identify successful churches and send teams to investigate reasons for success.
Be more informative and advertise what we do in local press – such as coffee corner (incited by Pictor School and mums/babies and the Sunday Tea parties.
The 4 churches should advertise activities/services more in local press
Attractive to all , stimulating, accessible, non-threatening – maybe not Sundays?
Buildings should work for us
Break down separation between churches in our ‘circuit’
Need for Holy Spirit, Prayer, Listening to God
Bible study in depth
Families
Continue funding to keep Family Worker or workers! - To carry on the work that has been started
We could meet needs of all local community
Make small children welcome
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water
Breakfast/lunch sharing
Listening to the outside world, not so inward looking. Capitalise on the outreach we have.
Coffee corner – people to chat to, baptism to follow up
Undying, outreaching, relationships
Affect the whole community
Influence schools and police by our prayer groups
Outreach – church newsletter to surrounding streets.
Gift to people who use the car parks
Join together to pray for giftings and then use them!
We could be better at following up when new visitors come t our churches regularly. Hard to get the balance right from ‘over powering’ visitors or ‘ignoring’ them.
Concentrating on others
Intellectually challenging
Building priorities – more productive
Excited, attractive, enthusiastic, open to ideas, less protective of what we’ve got.
Dependent on God, responding.
More caring coming to worship is not the only thing.
Less insular work with other Christians – break down the barriers between churches.
Education, get into more establishments. Advertise in schools, eg Café Sundae.
Children’s groups in week including Christian teaching which church members will support.
Older people need to be more open minded.
Make more use of media, eg papers, radio, Manchester
We need to go out to invite in
Spiritual, inspirational, faithful, caring, sharing, giving, prayerful, obedient, enthusiastic, discerning, joyful, honest, realistic
Visionary – outreach by examples, prayer to be a caring community for all.
faith to do all for God and in his strength
All 4 churches
- Timp B
- Alt A
- B Vale T = Water
- Hale H
- Church – gathering place not building
Effective, growing, productive, inspiring, overcoming obstacles, evangelising, trusting, stepping out in faith, work as one, example
Communicate, empowered, share, working together, love, engaging with other people, be kind, pray.
Outgoing
Outgoing, vibrant, communicative, dynamic, magnetic, approachable, caring
Bold, loving, welcoming, prayer, objective, focus, faithful
Communicate, pray, work together
We could run a community project
Children and Young People? – Teenagers – future?!
The centre of the community
What might we be? – United, quick to respond, positive and imaginative, know where the need is, powerful, outgoing, connected to each other and others, attractive, talked about, relevant to what’s going on around us, constantly changing, fulfilling and fulfilled, God centred not self centred, let go and let God!
Relationship
Sharing the Grace of God about all our individual ways
Music Centre to attract youth
People, caring, outgoing
Let’s look to catch ‘tiddlers’ – not just whales!
Relevant – to all ages/backgrounds
Local church – welcoming, flexible, outreach, discover, practical activity
Share resources
Regular service elsewhere (like Navigation Primary School) – neutral building
Pub Church
Inclusion of all ages
The church should be a community centre – the church/people can meet anywhere
Outgoing, adventurous, adaptable, powerful witness, foreseeing, committed, unstoppable, challenging, challenged
What is happening round us? How do we find out?
Moral focus
Continue and increase outreach
If church is boring how can we expect young people to stay?
Everyone try to be more accepting of others.
Not ‘one size’ fits all for worship
People’s behaviours – if we treat people poorly how can we expect people to stay?
Accept our responsibility for looking after others, eg homeless, elderly
Xcite, junior church – reorganise, attitude to change, groups to lent, adventure
If we were flowing with life, we would encourage our families, friend’s young people to come to church. Find out what they want – offer what they want
Flowing, nurturing, enabling, flourishing, inspiring, courageous, clear water, Jesus
News about the launch event Jan 17th 2010
Flowing with Life Moving in God's Power A Circuit Vision May 2009
Flowing with Life, Moving in God’s Power
(A vision for the future)
Altrincham Methodist Circuit has - within its six square miles - four churches and a membership of about 550. The circuit also provides pastoral support for Handsworth, a Methodist Home for the Aged. The circuit has an establishment of three ordained ministers, with one position currently unfilled. As a result of pressures on the Methodist Church - including decreasing numbers of ordained ministers - the circuit has been in conversation with the Sale, Stretford and Wythenshawe Circuits regarding a closer working relationship. It now looks likely that during the next two years that the Sale and Stretford circuits will merge.
The Altrincham Circuit is no different from most other Circuits, needing to tackle issues such as maintaining Church buildings, decreasing and ageing membership, and a shortage in available ordained ministers to fill appointments to name but a few.
Doing nothing is not an option.
In response, the Circuit Leadership Team - along with representatives from each of the churches - has resolved with God’s Grace to develop a vision. After a day spent together in March, a clear picture came through from our conversation, prayer and reflection. It was the image of a river which flows with life, changes the landscape around it, has life and power in it, is an unrelenting and unstoppable force, makes new paths around old obstacles, and flows with a sense of urgency. It is a picture painted in the Old Testament in the book of Ezekiel, where the river flows from the Temple and brings new life where it flows.
As a Leadership Team we then tried to narrow down the river image into a key vision statement that would reflect our hopes and aspirations as a group of Churches, working together through our different congregations. We agreed on,
‘Flowing with Life, Moving in God’s Power’
The next stage of this process is to look at areas in the life of the Circuit that we would like to flow with life and move in God’s power. To identify areas where there are obstacles to growth, and develop those areas where there are opportunities for growth. The image of the river flowing helps us realise that inevitably there is going to be change, the greatest challenge of all is changing our local Church culture from safety and maintenance to growth and mission.We recognise that there are already many initiatives in the local churches that can be built on to engage with the local community, we also know that if we are to effect the local community of approx 30,000 as a Circuit, we will have to be more courageous as witnesses of Christ. We realise that by working together we can achieve more than by working as individual churches.
‘Flowing With Life, Moving in God’s Power’
Our vision must be simple and easily understood by all. In the next few months we hope that members of all the four Churches will begin to pray about this vision of a river flowing with life and moving in God’s power. The Circuit Leadership Team is committed to exploring key areas in the life of the Circuit where this vision can become a reality.
These areas include:
· Developing our vision and strategy for the future
· Establishing Life and Faith (small) Groups across the Circuit
· Exploring how we can be more agile in reaching people in their own locations
· Gathering the facts about our Churches and congregations
To make these things happen we will need your active support over the next few months. The Leadership Team will meet again in June to work on this vision.
Flowing With Life, Moving in God’s Power is an exciting vision for us today as a Community of Christians in the Altrincham Circuit. The river is the grace and love of God in Christ, it is the power of God’s Spirit and we are called by faith to make Christ known in our world today.
I commend this to you and also want to say thank you to all who have contributed to the process so far.
God’s grace and peace to all.
Kevin
