With thanks to Christine Butcher (licensed evangelist in Mountsorrel) for the link, here’s an interesting article on why some people new to church leave. Based on 72 interviews over a twelve month period it picks up two ’spikes’ in when and why people leave. Read it here. According to their research 86% of people leave during the first year and this offers some of the answers as to why (albeit it with a caution this is US based research and the latest we have from our diocese indicates it is a little less than this, although still sadly high).
If you’d like to explore these themes further, Bonnie Appleton has written a Grove booklet on the same topic. ‘Closing the backdoor’ draws on a range of research to understand some of the reasons why so many people leave church during their first twelve months. It is available online here or in print from here.
Thinking about how to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee? Considering the Big Lunch? Then here’s a eight minute how to video, with the experiences of one church in particular:
For more info on mission and the Diamond Jubliee go here: http://www.leicester.anglican.org/diamond-jubliee/ For Churches in the City of Leicester, it maybe that a community building Big Lunch is eligible for funding under the Near Neighbours project. For more info visit: http://stphilipscentre.dioceseofleicester.com/?page_id=1664
CUF write, “When we read the tabloids, we get the impression that there is no real poverty in this country. Those who claim they are poor are condemned as scroungers and benefit cheats; lazy freeloaders taking advantage of our generous welfare state. Perhaps that’s why, according to the latest research from Church Urban Fund, only one in five regular church-goers attribute poverty to social injustice … The issues are never black-and-white, but Church Urban Fund’s new Lent course brings them into sharp relief.”
Their new five-week Lent course, written in partnership with best-selling Christian author David Rhodes, aims to break down the barriers of prejudice and misinformation, stimulate debate and bring poverty in England back into the forefront of public consciousness.
Courtesy of Tom Ringland (and the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8955791/Vicar-raps-the-Nativity-play-in-YouTube-video.html) here’s another Christmas video which might be of interest:
Ever feel there is a course for pretty much everything in church life nowadays?! Stepping Stones is a regularly updated guide from the Mission and Ministry team to help churches, Mission Partnerships and Deaneries navigate through the myriad of short courses and resources for Christian nurture, discipleship and faith-sharing. It gives a summary of the majority of mainstream courses (and a few that aren’t!), plus for the main ones some thoughts on their relative strengths and weaknesses as a guide to what contexts they work best in.
A number of people have asked for resources for use in the Olympic and Paralympic year to help reflect further on the links between sport and faith. Here are some such resources, with more being planned for 2012.
First, the Diocese of Chelmsford has crafted a wide range of resources for use during church services. This could include sports thanksgiving services to which local clubs are invited, normal worship close to the games or similar. It suggests a wide range of appropriate Bible texts, a number of sports related prayers, some notable quotes, a list of sports related songs and even four outlines for talks from Ambassadors in Sport. It can be downloaded here.
Secondly, the Bishop of Barking, David Hawkins (who is line manager of the Church of England’s Olympic and Paralympic co-ordinator), has written a short piece touching on some of the main themes of the games and faith. The article, entitled ‘Games to inspire change?’ draws on the official vision of the 2012 Games to use sport inspire change and asks how churches might be involved. Whilst it doesn’t give all the questions, it gets us thinking as to what the key questions of engagement and theology might be. It can be downloaded here.
Look out for….
Hopefully coming soon is a list of films that help us to explore sport and faith as well as a reading list of more theological tones which help explore key areas. Also, the Spring 2012 edition of the theological journal ANVIL (http://anviljournal.org/) will be packed full of articles about theology and sport for those that would like to go deeper. All articles from the journal can be downloaded for free from their website.
Christianity magazine recently published five sporting highlights which could be used as sermon illustrations. These can be downloaded from here. There’s also a list of ten films that capture the Olympic and Paralympic spirit here.
And finally, if you are looking for a sample article for a parish magazine this one has been kindly provided by Pat Ewan which we would certainly commend…
If you are aware of other resources please let Barry know so we can keep this updated.
Yesterday, in a longer morning session and then shorter evening event, over a hundred of us explored what it means to share our faith amongst those who have no previous experience of Christianity. We were led by author, academic, blogger, church leader and current Director of mission for the Evangelical Alliance, Krish Kandiah.
The next in this occasional series of training evenings, is with Rona Orme on ministering in a church with only a small number of children. Click here to read more….
John Lennox came to the attention of many Christians four years ago when he began debating some of the world’s best-known atheiss, such as Richard Dawkins & Christopher Hitchens. This summer, he once again took to the stage in order to face Princeton ethicist, Peter Singer, on the topic of ‘Is there a God?’ The entire debate can now be watched online here:
It will pop up in a new window. Courtesy of ABC broadcasters in Australia.
To read the latest edition of the Fresh Expressions newsletter, with details of ‘The Order of the Black Sheep’, ‘Church in a Pub’, ‘Biker Church’ plus a reflection on Glocal Worship from Graham Cray go to: http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/e-xpressions/oct11?newsletter-view Also details of how to book for the New Wine / Fresh Expressions conference later in November are also included.
Pubs, clubs, supermarkets, community centres, care homes and the like are being invited to tune in and sing along with the Sing Christmas carol service broadcast live on BBC Radio Leicester. There’ll be ten traditional carols to sing along with, the Christmas story from the Bible (read by award-winning actor, TV and film star Robert Hardy and fitness guru Rosemary Conley) and Bishop Christopher Boyle gives the Christmas Thought. It’s all on Monday 19th December from 7-8pm.
It’s a brilliant and simple mission opportunity for your Church to reach out to the community this Christmas. It’s so popular that each year many pubs contact Sing Christmas asking them if there are churches that can host it in their pub!! Why not contact them direct? Pubs from all the main chains have supported Sing Christmas, and Everards in particular brief all of their managers to expect churches to contact them. Some churches make mince pies to take along, others add a few thoughts afterwards – inviting locals to a special Christmas service or event and hand out invitations.
Register your church now here and you’ll be able to download a wide range of free resources including notes for venues, a template poster, invitations which you can personalise for your venue and coming soon the song sheet. Here’s what some people said about Sing Christmas last year:
“Excellent, first time it has been tried in Ratby and we have already talked about repeating the experience in 2011. 30 adults, 7 children. We amplified a DAB signal. Thoroughly enjoyed it as did others who came.” Revd Peter Hooper, Bradgate Team Rector at The Bulls Head, Ratby
“Held during the last hour the shop was open. The superstore were very helpful, they opened the cafe specially and served coffee and tea and mince pies. 70 people – close to the maximum capacity. Broadcast quality and content were excellent.” Canon John Sharpe for Churches Together at Co-op Superstore, Glenfield
“We shared the evening with our residents and the local church, and all came together in our lounge by the Christmas tree. We had a hot drink as everyone arrived to warm up on this cold night ready to sing along. Everyone had song sheets in large print that we had printed from the web site. We shared light refreshments and the odd glass of sherry at the end of the evening and said we would join in again next year.” Tina Johnson, Hanover Court warden controlled flats, Loughborough
The Bible Society have produced a vibrant, colourful and multi-cultural video telling of the Christmas story which they are kindly making available free for parishes to put on their website. You can watch it below or go to http://www.christmasunwrapped.org.uk/# for instructions as to how to embed it on your site.
