across Staffordshire and the Black Country for April 2011
In these pages you will find a selection from the material I regularly receive, some of which I hope may be helpful to you, your church or your group in your mission. Generally this should be a monthly update. Do circulate any or all of this if you wish to, or submit items for it.
So why are you on this list? Because you and I have probably corresponded over matters ecumenical at some point or your details were passed to me by my predecessor, Mr Mike Topliss. If you would rather not receive this as a regular mailing, just let me know and I will remove your name from this list immediately.
Equally if you know of a colleague who would like to be included in this mailing, do pass their name on to me – with their permission!
Below, for your convenience, is an index with hyperlinks. Click on any of these to access the relevant article. Below each is another which will return you to this index.
Philip
Revd Philip Webb,
Ecumenical Mission Officer,
Staffordshire and the Black Country
Contents:
Gift Aid changes coming soon
World Week for Peace in Palestine & Israel
OTHER DATES AND EVENTS
13th Annual (Nottingham RC Diocesan Commission) Ecumenical Conference at Swanwick
Gift Aid, which is a life line to many churches will alter this month. At the end of this tax year, on the 5th April, 28p can be claimed back in tax for every £1 given in Gift Aid before that date … but after it changes to 25p.
Gift Aid claims for donations up to 5th April 2011 must be made before 31st December 2013. Previously with Gift Aid claims could be made up to four years after the end of the accounting period but for donations eligible for transitional relief this has been reduced to two years.
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CTE have mailed the Counties asking that we circulate this information about Grow Zones as widely as possible, as a possible project for churches or churches together in building community and engagement with the wider community. Please forward as you are able to local CT groups.
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From: WILLIAM CAWLEY <williamcawley55@btinternet.com>
I have been in contact with the Trussell Trust, an organisation that runs food banks in the UK for people experiencing poverty. In times of economic hardship the existence of a food bank has been a literal godsend to many people. Trussell Trust who work through local faith groups in the area do not have an operation in North Staffs the nearest is sandwell. They have suggested that I test the water and set one up.
I enclose a link that explains a little more about the foodbank idea. I live in Leek but I feel that in these times that this is a practical way to offer help to people in difficult times in North Staffs.
http://www.trusselltrust.org/foodbank-projects
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The latest Messy Church Newsletter — out now
One of the key aspects of Messy Church discipleship is the ‘porous faith’ that seeps out from church into home life. Jane Butcher has started a dedicated website to bring together ideas and reflections on faith in homes.
Rural mess
Writing an article for the excellent Country Way magazine about Messy Church in the countryside has made them realise a few of the specific needs and advantages there are in rural Messy Churches
Anne writes about Willington, County Durham:
“This MC is unique for me in that it is totally ecumenical. An ecumenical group continued to meet for prayer following on from Hope 08 and had a vision for Messy Church. The ‘authorisation’ for it has come from the PCC in the Church of England, the Church Council of the Methodist Church and the same level of meeting in the RC Church. It meets in the Methodist Church hall with total agreement as it is the only one of the churches with a hall. It has a core group of attendees drawn from all three denominations. The team work together in advertising MC in their denomination and work together in leading MC.”
Copyright Bible Reading Fellowship 2007 – 2011.
How’s that for ecumenical mission! You might be able to offer them more wisdom on working without an ordained minister, working across several churches to put on a single Messy Church, difficult buildings, elderly teams, village networks, travel and other issues they haven’t thought of. . If you have any stories to share from your own experience, like Janet and Anne, please do email us.
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World Week for Peace in Palestine and Israel:
29 May – 4 June 2011
The World Week for Peace in Palestine and Israel is an initiative of the World Council of Churches that offers us all an opportunity to pray and learn more about how people’s lives are affected, and to take action. It’s time for Palestinians and Israelis to share a just peace. What will you do this week?
http://www.worldweekforpeace.org
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Christian Aid launch new flyer to introduce their team of Regional Coordinators. Find yours at http://dmn.2day.ws/siteFiles/files/dmn_CAidregional_1297861132.pdf
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OTHER DATES AND EVENTS
9th April - A Series of Talks – Reading the Bible Now, In St. Mary’s Church, Stafford
11.00am – 12 noon
Rev’d Canon Pete Wilcox Chancellor of Lichfield Cathedral and writer on Old Testament Topics.
“How and why can we read the Old Testament today?”
The Four Hundredth Anniversary of the Publication of the King James Authorized Version of the Bible “The most read book ever”
20 minute Talks, 20 minute Questions/Discussion, 20 minutes Coffee & Fellowship
For further details ring The Parish Office: 01785 258511
9th April - 10am – 4pm at St Thomas’ and St Andrew’s, Doxey: The Beauty of the Bible
A Day of Renewal and Equipping for everyone involved in teaching and preaching the Bible.
Rev. Dr Peter Ensor, Tutor in New Testament at Cliff Bible College will speak on “The Bible in Preaching” in the morning and “The Bible in Apologetics” in the afternoon.
Sessions for leaders teaching the Bible to young people and leaders teaching the Bible to children will run in parallel led by leaders from CPAS.
Please bring a picnic lunch.
Tickets will be £5 this includes light refreshments and will help cover the costs of all visiting speakers
9th April – Faith, Hope and Love – Christian Witness in a Multi Faith Society is an exciting conference organised by an alliance of Christian Churches in Birmingham and Churches Together in England that hopes to tackle the often difficult but also exciting question of what it means to be a Christian disciple in a multi faith world.
The conference is on Saturday 9th April from 10am to 4.30pm at Mount Zion Community Church, Birminghamd B6 4TN
Further details may be found at
http://faithhopeandloveconference.blogspot.com/
or via the CTE website at
9th March to 15th April – Lichfield Cathedral’s King James Bible Exhibition … The Chapter House, Lichfield Cathedral. An extensive programme of events to mark the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. See www.lichfield-cathedral.org for full details.
23 April: The New Testament Church of God Men’s Ministry Resurrection Breakfast
8.45am – 11am Cost: £16 @ the Molineux Stadium, Wolverhampton, WV1 4QR
Goto http://www.ntcg-handsworth.org.uk/index.cfm?page=11 to register or VIEW FLYER
A 5-district fellowship breakfast hosted by the LifeBuilders ministries of Bilston, Dudley, Handsworth, Highgate & Wolverhampton. Includes a full English Breakfast in the flagship Hayward Suite, with a stunning view overlooking the football pitch.
Booking deadline is 10 April – you will not be able to book after this date. Book via your local Lifebuilders director or online. Women are welcome to attend.
Top of Form
Please contact us to get more information about any of these upcoming events or if you wish to add an item to our schedule.
For more information about similar events in Birmingham & the Black Country, mainly from the black majority churches, go to http://dmn.2day.ws/dmn/section/September
And feel free to extract and circulate anything you feel of relevance in your situation.
24th April: Easter from the Scottish Churches: This year’s Easter Resource is available from the ACTS website www.acts-scotland.org The link to the resource can be found under Latest Updates on the right hand side of the Home Page with the title ‘Through the Week’ the title of this year’s resource.
Prepared by Rev John Butterfield of the Methodist Church, the inspiration for this year’s theme comes from ‘Matthew’ and offers a meditation for each day from Palm Sunday to Easter Day.
Fresh Expressions Day
A national day conference exploring how the mixed economy can thrive in deaneries, circuits and synods. Working towards a church in which tradition and dynamism, established ministry and fresh expressions of church inform, energise and complement each other. The day will include an address from Archbishop Rowan.
Friday 6th May 2011, 10.00-16.00. The King’s Centre, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES. Places are £30. For more details and to book online click here
5th June: The Big Lunch
The Big Lunch is back with a bang! This years’ event is taking place on Sunday 5th June so now’s the time to start planning. The 2011 Big Lunch website will go live soon so that you can be the first to register your event and get a handy Organiser’s Pack in the post. The packs will give you everything that you need to start planning your event, from invites and recipe ideas to badges and balloons.
In the meantime, please email or phone 0845 850 8181 if you have any questions, or if you’d like to find out about opportunities to talk about your Big Lunch in the press.
If you intend to hold a big event with over 50 people and you’d like to apply for some funding to help make it possible, the Big Lottery Fund Awards for All scheme could be just what you need. Small grants are given out throughout the year to help people make a difference to their community.
There are certain requirements that you have to meet in order to apply – you must be a community or not-for-profit group, a Parish or Town Council, a Health body or a school – and to get funding in time for your Big Lunch, you need to get your application in soon. It would be a good activity for a Churches Together group or LEP. It’s best to look at the website for further details or call 0845 4 10 20 30.
Faith for the Future
A SERIES of eight district events organised by Saltbox in conjunction with Staffordshire Police, Staffordshire Fire & Rescue; Staffordshire County Council and SCIO (including local CVs). Each event aims to provide faith leaders and project workers with resources, advice and helpful contacts and are seen as being ideal for church and other faith leaders, plus others who run local faith based projects. Dates are: 12th May – Rising Brook Church, Stafford; 17th May – St Peter’s Westland, Newcastle; 26th May – St Aidan’s Chadsmoor, Cannock; 7th June – The Church at Perton, and June 21st – St Peter’s Hawksworth, Tamworth. For registration and details contact Tel: 01782 207200 Email: Helen@saltbox.org.uk
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From the WEST MIDLANDS REGION CHURCHES’ FORUM
c/o Birmingham Churches Together St George’s Community Hub, Great Hampton Row, Newtown, Birmingham B19 3JG Telephone: 0121 236 3966 email: office@wmchurches.org.uk
Preparing for Local Elections, May 2011: could Churches in your area arrange a meeting with the candidates for your local Council election?
A meeting of regional representatives from the West Midlands Region Churches Forum met on 15 February to identify questions that can be asked prospective candidates in the run up to the May Local Elections. Last year, churches were highly successful in providing space for General Election Hustings. The WM Region Churches Forum encourages local Churches across the region to consider organising a Husting for the Council Elections in May. The questions below are offered as a framework.
Briefing
The range of questions appropriate for a local election will be different from those for a general election. As the responsibility of local authorities are more localised and community orientated than that of Westminster Government, questions should focus on a) locally based issues, b) candidate’s knowledge of the community they wish to serve, and c) their willingness to listen and build trust with people if they are elected.
A husting is an ideal opportunity to observe the way in which candidates listen and dialogue with their audience and for them to show they are interested in building mutual accountability and trust. The following questions are offered as starters for a debate with candidates and are aimed at revealing their ability to listen and engage with an audience.
Partnership between Council and local community
- What is your vision and understanding of a local community?
- How will you go about consulting with the people of this community and listen to their voices?
- What will you do to build trust and develop partnership between the Council and the people of this community?
- In what ways will you help this community to develop its corporate voice?
- In what ways will you help the Council to listen to the voice of our community?
- How will you balance views of the majority when they conflict with legitimate concerns of minority groups?
Voluntary and Community Life
- What do you know about the voluntary and community sector in this community?
- What value do you place on the contribution of voluntary and community groups?
- What support for the voluntary and community sector will you fight for, if you are elected?
Local response to national policy
Cuts
- What areas will you prioritise for cuts and further efficiencies in the next 2 year’s local authority budgets of 2012 and 2013? (Although reductions for 2011/12 are set, further reductions will be required in 2012 and 2013).
- Do you think that further efficiencies can be gained through improved working methods, and if so in what ways?
- What do you think about sharing services with neighbouring councils as a way of reducing costs and improving services?
- How will you be sensitive to the human cost of reorganisation that involve staff redundancies, relocation and establishing new offices?
Big Society and community organising
- How will you assist and enable our local community to organise itself?
- What do you understand by the term, Big Society?
- How will you support the initiative for community organising?
Good communication across levels of Government
- How will you help to inform national government and local MPs of our issues?
- How will you go about learning of best practice in neighbouring councils?
- How will you liaise between the different strands and departments of Council and manage your relationship with the employed staff of the Council.
- To what extent do you feel bound by the national policies of your party?
Questions specific to the needs of your locality.
- These are your local questions relevant to the needs of your local community
- General Questions
- What world-view informs your politics?
- What issue would lead you to defy your party on a vote in the Council chamber?
- What social action projects will you assist or put into place?
- What do you understand to be the limits of your powers if you are elected?
Revd Bill Anderson, Chair of WMRCF and Chair of the Birmingham District of the Methodist Church
Revd Colin Marsh, Secretary, WMRCF telephone: 0121 236 3966; email: office@wmchurches.org.uk
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REFERENDUM 5TH MAY 2011 – you have a voice
You are urged to use your vote on 5th May and encourage people across our faith communities to exercise their considerable voice.
The Referendum is about the Alternative Vote or AV for short.
Are you unsure about what this means in practice?
To prepare and inform :
- You can get further information by turning to the website of the Electoral Commission (an independent government body) where they will have access to its own booklet explaining the referendum. www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/file/0005/109877/Eng-web.pdf
- Supporters of the proposed change to the Alternative Vote argue that it will make for fairer voting and better government. Their campaign is called “Yes to Fairer Votes” and its website is www.yestofairervotes.org An Anglican priest in Birmingham, the Rev. John Nightingale, is a Committee member of the “Yes for Fairer Votes Birmingham” group and is willing to help others if they would like to arrange a speaker or find out more about the issues. He can be contacted Tel: 0121 458 6182 or 07811 128831 or email johnnightingale@btinternet.com
- Opponents dispute those claims. Their campaign is called “No to AV” and its website is www.no2av.org
I also came across the Debating Democracy Campaign of Faithworks who are offering £500 to churches and networks who would like to run a hustings or event to help their local community engage in the upcoming Referendum.
Please circulate this information and link http://www.faithworks.info/index.asp
Revd. Colin Marsh, Secretary, West Midlands Region Churches Forum
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GDOP London confirm Saturday September 17, 2011 as Wembley Day, when 1,000 leaders from across the British Isles are expected to gather at the stadium for a Strategic Prayer Summit.
GDOP London believes this will be part of the momentum for the whole church in the nation to start praying towards the London 2012 Olympics. GDOP London is in dialogue with More Than Gold and other Christian organisations to see how this Wembley event will help generate prayers and unity towards the London 2012 Olympics and national transformation.
GDOP London Convener Jonathan Oloyede writes: “It’s very inspiring to note that the Wembley Directors and staff are looking forward to the church in the nation coming to Wembley. They have actually said to us “don’t just take the Grand Hall for the leaders’ summit. We can also offer you the whole stadium!” GDOP London and national network of churches are therefore asking market place and church leaders to place Saturday September 17 into their organisation’s diaries and church calendars. Many church leaders are getting plugged in and excited about the 500 Days of Prayer, which was launched last year at the Emmanuel Christian Centre. A number of regular events have been planned which are acting as a runway track of Nights of Prayer in March, May, July and September leading up to the Wembley event on Saturday Septemeber 17 2011. To spread the fire of prayer into every town, city and village, we are calling on churches everywhere to join in and host community prayer events on Pentecost Sunday June 12.”
In the build up towards the Wembley prayer summit September 17 Christians are being encouraged to join the 500 Days of Prayer campaign, by coordinating regular 24 hour prayer days monthly or start regular nights of prayer.
For further information and media enquiries contact:
Peter Wooding: 01244 549167/07500 903067, peter@peterwoodingproductions.com
Dr Jonathan Oloyede: 08456 528 600, jonathan@citychapel.org.uk
Kim Dopson, GDOP Administrator: 08456 528 600 kim@gdoplondon.com
The Global Day of Prayer London (GDOP) is a movement of collaboration across the Christian Church in the nation towards Unity, Prayer and Transformation, and is part of a global network which began in South Africa at the turn of the Millennium. In 2009 over 250 million Christians united in 220 countries to pray. In London, GDOP has been a focus of prayer and Christian action since 2006 with prayer networks now in every London borough. West Ham Stadium 07, Millwall Football Stadium in 2008 and West Ham stadium in 2010 saw a combined attendance of 40,000 Christians praying together.
From August 1st, 2010 until December 31, 2011 GDOP London is coordinating 500 Days of Prayer calling for:
- 500 people who will stand in the gap, choose one day throughout 500 days to fast and pray
- 1000 Churches or Organisations who will take a day to pray each month through the 500 days
- 1 Million Christians who will set their mobile phone to 12noon and pray the Lord’s Prayer each day
Gatherings for Nights of Prayer at: Emmanuel Centre
9-23 Marsham Street
Westminster, London SW1P 3DW
7-10pm March 15, May 24, July 13, September 7
Coordination of united community prayer events on Pentecost Sunday, June 12.
Christian Leaders to Fast and Pray on designated days: January 30, April 30, July 30 and November 30.
For more information go to: www.gdoplondon.com
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13th Annual Ecumenical Conference organized by the Nottingham RC Diocesan Commission
Theme: Marriage and Ecumenism – Seeking fidelity in a messy world
Friday 10th June to Sunday12th June at The Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick, Derbyshire
Led by Karen Kilby, Associate Professor, Systematic Theology, Nottingham University and Tom O’Loughlin, Professor of Historical Theology, Nottingham University
This year’s theme was actually suggested by your Ecumenical Mission Officer, a member of that Ecumenical Commission for the last ten years until he took up the work in Staffs and the Black Country. These conferences are open to all Christians, and have achieved a consistently high standard.
For further information or to book a place click here.
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Glossary of abbreviations used in this and other mailings:
EMO – Ecumenical Mission Officer (Equivalent to the County Ecumenical Officer in other regions) E-mail Revd Philip Webb on clasp.bcce@btinternet.com
CTE – Churches Together in England – the umbrella body co-ordinating and encouraging inter-church work in England. See www.churches-together.org.uk
CTBI – Churches Together in Britain and Ireland www.ctbi.org.uk
CLASP – Churches Linked Across Staffordshire and the Potteries – The regional “Sponsoring Body” that encourages inter-church work throughout this area. See www.clasptogether.org.uk
BCCE – Black Country Churches Engaged – The regional “Sponsoring Body” that encourages inter-church work throughout the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton. See www.bcce.org.uk
LEP – Local Ecumenical Partnership – a local partnership supported by two or more different denominations working in covenant with each other.
Visit: www.rejesus.co.uk
