My Next Buy

My Next Buy is a campaign run by Tearfund Rhythms Community. Its aim is to see traffic free clothing available to buy on the High Street. They want clothing manufactures to sign up and pledge to be Transparent, Contracted and Audited for the garments they sell to us. As the Modern Slavery Bill makes its way through parliament do you know where the clothes you are wearing now were made, in what conditions and if the people were treated fairly? If you want to learn more or sign the petition then click here 

Principal Services – July – September

Dear Friends,

This year Back to Church Sunday has grown into
Season of Invitation where we pick up 5 services
through the Autumn term that we can specifically invite
people to. In readiness for this we begin this month by
focusing on the importance of invitation and look at
some areas that stop us from inviting. My prayer is that
this will give us confidence going forward to invite
others. An excellent, inspiring book written by the
founder of Back to Church Sunday, Michael Harvey,
called Unlocking the Growth is well worth a read.

As we head into August we begin a sermon series
based on Richard Foster's classic book Celebration of
Discipline. Over 12 weeks we will look at each of the
disciplines in his book. These break down into the
inward disciplines, the outward disciplines and the
corporate disciplines. I would recommend this book as
a summer read in readiness. It also contains some
study questions which Home Groups may wish to make
use of.

God Bless

Steve
(Revd Steve Bailey)    
See our programme of services

Welcome to the Revd Neil Griffiths

Neil Griffiths has been a long time member of St Paul’s Church, Oadby. Some three years ago, he felt the call of God to become a full-time Christian Minister; someone committed to sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ as a leader in a church. After a selection process, Neil has spent two years studying at Queens College, Birmingham.

Today, in a service led by Bishop Christopher, Neil was ordained deacon in Leicester Cathedral. In his sermon, Bishop Christopher spoke about the importance of the commitment made by a minister in their ordination as they committed every aspect of their life and work to Christ.

After the service, family and friends, and members of St Paul’s congregation, joined together at St Paul’s for a “Bring and Share lunch.” Both Steve Bailey (team Vicar of St Paul’s) and Michael Rusk (Rector of the Parish of Oadby) welcomed Neil and wished him well on the next instalment of his life. Neil joins the Parish of St Andrews Broom Leys and starts his ministry at their service this evening, when he will be preaching.

Metal Studs to prevent Rough Sleepers

Here is another interesting article on Tearfund's Rhythms community page. It is written by the guy who took a photo of some metal studs he spotted on his way to work that have been put in place to discourage rough sleepers.

The photo has been shared over 100,000 times! Read more of his thoughts and the reactions here

The beautiful game?

Here is an interesting article about the World Cup from Tearfund's Rhythms community. How fair is the World Cup?? Here

Global Christianity in the 21st Century

This week the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke at the UK National Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast. One of our congregation was present at the event.

Here is a link so you can watch and listen to what was said  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=623-9Yvs33I

World Cup Prayers

The Church of England has written a selection of prayers for the 2014 World Cup.

The Prayer for the England Team simply says, "Oh God..."!

To see the full selection of prayers, which includes a prayer for those who are simply not interested visits http://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2014/06/church-releases-world-cup-prayers-including-prayers-for-england-team.aspx

Three Cheers for Fathers!

Last Sunday was Father’s Day. Although, traditionally, much less is made of this than Mothering Sunday, fathers play a vital role within the family as they bring up children and provide a role model. It is also important that if people are to understand the fatherhood of God, they should have good role models of earthly fathers.

So in our service, we celebrated fathers. And as mothers usually receive posies of flowers, the children of the church went forward and collected chocolate “Yorkie” bars and gave them to her fathers. They then distributed Yorkie bars to all the men in church.

Thank you, fathers.

New Role for Megan

Congratulations to Megan Lloyd, one of St Paul’s younger members, who has just been appointed as Children and Family Liaison worker at St Wilfrid’s Church, Kibworth. At St Paul’s, Megan has been involved with helping to lead Super Troopers (our Sunday School) and works with Little Angels, the weekly mothers and toddlers group.

Megan has a degree in French & Education. She plays the flute and sings with our music group. She will start her role at St Wilfrid’s in early July.

Megan, thank you for all that you have done here, and we wish you well in God’s service in this new position.

All the Fun of the Vicarage Garden Party

We held The Annual Vicarage Garden Party today. It looked as if it might be spoiled by poor weather, but although the plant sale moved inside the Barnabas Centre, it was thought that that may actually have increased sales. As the weather improved, many people moved back outside.

Delicious teas were available with a wide variety of cakes – a temptation to anyone’s diet! There was also a delicious fruit punch. People stayed on to make sure that they were there when the raffle was announced.

It was good to see and meet many of the church’s friends and neighbours. Thank you, Steve and Angie for putting your garden at our disposal.

Did one of your raffle tickets win? If not, there’s always next year!