Youth Update

Our Youth Worker Lou writes......It’s been a busy and exciting term, here are just some of the ways that God is working with our young people.

Friday Night Youth Friday Night youth is going really well, we have a good core of about 13 young people who gel really well together, we went to see a Christian singer/song writer on the 11^th October and we may be going to see another Christian band play at a gig connected to the school’s mission at Gartree High School.

Sunday Morning Youth Our Sunday morning group is growing and running well, we have been exploring the relevance of the 10 commandments, which has provoked some brilliant discussions. As you may have noticed we have been looking to engage our young people in serving in our family services, in drama and worship, with a drama planned for the Christmas eve service so watch this space J

CY We’re now on week 6! How time has flown. We have a group of 8 young people, which is a mixture of our Sunday morning and Friday night young people. We meet together, eat, play games and look at a different aspects of the Gospel message each week. The course ends with a feedback form to reflect on the difference the course has made and what they may like to do next, whether that is to join our Sunday morning group or to explore confirmation or baptism.

Beauchamp CU This term we have changed our room, our publicity and started with a passion and drive to try and encourage more people to be part of the group. The numbers have already tripled and it’s going really well. We now have a leadership team made up of students and the youth workers involved and we’re looking into different mission ideas to connect with the rest of the school.

Gartree Gartree CU continues to attract a lot of young people who don’t have any connection with church, which is great. On the 1tth November the Christian band twelve twenty four are coming to the school to run a weeks mission including assemblies, RE lessons and a gig at the end of the week, Luke (OBC), Josh (St Luke’s) and I will be heavily involved with that, which is exciting.

Manor Manor CU continues to draw a variety of people from all sorts of backgrounds and religions. We have been running sessions on our identity in Christ. We have also done harvest assemblies and will be coming back to do Christmas assemblies in a few weeks time and at the end of that week, we’ll be running a “grill a Christian” lunchtime event to invite students to come and ask big questions about faith.

Please continue to pray for our young people, God has really blessed us in the last year and we pray in expectation that He can do even more

High Tea

On the afternoon of Saturday 2nd November a special afternoon tea was held in the Barnabas Centre. Margaret & Wendy have had a passion to reach out to our local community with these teas and the numbers have steadily increased through the year. Saturday's special High Tea was their way of ending the gatherings for this year and it was all hands on deck to make sandwiches, scones as well as lots of delicious cakes.

Over 50 people turned up and enjoyed the afternoon! The sandwich makers had to get busy producing more but there was more than enough to feed everyone.

During the afternoon we also celebrated Sheridan's 65th birthday.
This wasn't just afternoon tea, this was a Margaret and Wendy High Tea special!

Clearing the Grounds

This morning a team of 10 under the leadership of Mick Ellis did a clear up around the grounds of St Paul's. Their super effort resulted in 19 bags of garden waste to go off and be recycled! Thanks go to all involved and to those who provided refreshments mid morning.

Night Light's

Last night St Paul's hosted an alternative event to Halloween. Our Night Light's event was from 5.30-7.0pm and offered young people a whole vari ety of games including apple bobbing and doughnut eating. As well as craft activities with glow in the dark stickers and cake decorating there was plenty to keep everyone amused.

Our theme was Jesus the Light of the World. We sang a song called 'Let your light shine' and then were reminded that the light and love of Jesus Christ was bigger and brighter than the dark. We heard from John 8 where Jesus said he was the light of the world but also Matthew 5 where Jesus says 'You are the light of the world'. We were reminded that we are called to reflect the light and love of Jesus and share it with all the world.

We finished our celebrations with a shared tea together. Good fun was had by the 19 young people who came along. Our next Fun@4 celebration is on Sunday 8th December which follows the same format (games, craft, song, stories and food) as we think about advent and getting ready for Christmas.

Celebrating the Bible

Sunday 27 October was widely celebrated as "Bible Sunday." At St Paul's, everyone was encouraged to bring a Bible with them, especially ones that had a particular significance. Our Reader (lay Minister) Colin Chettle, who was leading the service, asked people what lay behind their choices and demonstrated how fortunate we were to have such a range of different translations and paraphrases. He also amused the young people (and probably others) with some (rather bad) jokes about the Bible, such as: Question: who was the best comedian in the Bible. Answer: Samson, he brought the house down!

In his sermon, are our other Reader, Hugh James, showed the importance that Jesus gave to the Bible of his time, the old Testament, and based his claims of being the Messiah, on it. He went on to show how Paul the apostle based his teaching using the words of Jesus and those of the old Testament as of equal value. He challenged the church to take time to "read, mark, learn and inwardly digest" the words of the Bible.

To Christians, the Bible is of vital importance as it tells of God's love for the world and the way that he has brought liberation through Jesus. Yet there are still many people in the world who have yet to have the Bible translated into their own "heart language" – their primary language. And there are many others who live in areas of the world where the Bible is a forbidden book and owning one is an imprisonable offence.

We remembered both these groups in our prayers as well as the Bible Society and others, who seek to make the Bible available to all.

 

 

 

Fully Alive? .....being apprentices of Jesus

Every year, the diocese of Leicester helps to resource local churches, such as St Paul's, by putting on a "Bishops Lay Congress." This took place today. The belief underlying the Congress was that while "Church" was often unpopular, people were still drawn to the character of Jesus.

If that is so, it's important that individual Christians should demonstrate Christ to the world around. It raised questions such as what is it to actually follow Jesus? What are the disciplines, the practices and the habits of heart and mind that Jesus calls us to in following him? How is it we are to be truly his disciples and so become more fully alive?

The first keynote speaker was Mark Russell, the CEO of the Church Army. This Northern Irishman with a winsome personality stimulated us, challenged us, and offered us suggestions of how we could be more like Jesus.

In the second address, the Bishop of Leicester, Tim Stevens, pursued this subject in a thoughtful, but quieter way.

The day was completed with opening and closing worship, workshops and a question and answer session.

We went away challenged to be the body of Christ in our locality, in our case Oadby.

He did it!

Mark Batchelor (alias Marathon Man) has completed the marathon mentioned in the blog on 4 October. He reports:

“It went well, despite the rain! I ran all 26.2 miles in 3 hours and 39 minutes. The provisional results placed me 138th which, being my first marathon, is a personal best! Thanks, in no small part, to the overwhelming generosity of St. Paul's over £400 has been raised for the Joe Humphrey Memorial Trust. Many thanks to all who have contributed and shown your support, it has been very much appreciated.”

Flying for Life

This month, the Christian organisation that we are supporting and focusing on is the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF).

At the end of World War II, God Amazingly put this same thought simultaneously into the minds of Christian airmen in the UK, USA, Australia, and South Africa: “Aircraft have been so powerful in spreading death and destruction during the war. Why can’t they be used to bring life and hope in peace time?” “‘Let’s seek to use small planes to bring help to needy people in the inaccessible areas of out world.”  They didn’t know each other at first. Connecting later, each group took the common name of Mission Aviation Fellowship.

That has grown from small beginnings to a dynamic Christian organisation operating more than 130 single or twin engine light aircraft in around 25 countries in the developing world. Flying across hostile environments, MAF reaches the world’s most isolated people. It partners with over 1,000 organisations to bring physical and spiritual care to those who need it most.

One of our own members, Keith Waddell, who is an eye surgeon in Uganda has frequently used MAF planes to transport his Eye Teams into remote areas, such as Southern Sudan and areas made inaccessible by road by rebels such as the Lord’s Resistance Army.

 

Link to the MAF UK website
 

Harvest

Today we held our Harvest Celebrations at St Paul's.
As well as singing the traditional harvest hymns of 'Come ye thankful people come' and 'We plough the fields and scatter' we also sang 'Cauliflowers fluffy'. Many of our young people know this song from Harvest assemblies at school. You can listen to it being sung here.

Although a much loved song, it makes no reference to the provider of the Harvest, no mention is made of God.
Doug and Aileen wrote an extra verse and final chorus which we sung at St Paul's this morning. It goes....

Give thanks to the Father, for every good thing,
Now and forever His praises we'll sing
Lord, we love you every day,
Altogether we want to say:

The apples are ripe, and the plums are red,
Thank you, Lord, for our daily bread. Yeah!

Not only was this a great ending to the song but is also tied in beautifully with our Bible reading from John 6.25-35 in which Jesus calls himself the bread of life.

All the Harvest gifts given this morning went to the work of the Welcome Project, providing for Asylum seekers in Leicester. The fresh produce was sold and funds give to Tearfund.

Coffeepot Harvest Lunch

On Thursday 10^th October the members and friends of Coffeepot came together to give thanks for the harvest. We sang and prayed and then sat down to a three- course lunch. After soup sandwiches and sweet we met with Wendy Martin from Send a Cow , an organisation which helps families in Uganda and Burundi to get a start in farming  and develop agriculture.  Coffeepot has been raising money for SAC over the year. Wendy gave us an update of the organisation’s work, and on our behalf Jenny presented her with a cheque for £550. The coffeepot team had organised  one of their fantastic raffles, thanks to them for some lovely prizes. Our thanks to all the people involved in making the harvest Lunch a great success.