Lifelong Christian Nurture

There are many ways in which the Churches can nurture faith. Think of your Church and the way people grow in their understanding of Jesus on their journey of faith.

“We can think of faith as a seed growing into a plant, and opportunities for learning about our faith in our Churches as a support structure. This structure provides opportunities for us to develop our faith and understanding….. (and) allows our faith to be nurtured.”

Link to Shaped by God resources

Free Media Training for Young Adults (18-35)

Fantastic training opportunity: Monday 9th – Wednesday 11th June 2008

theMediaNet Academy is a 3-day training course in which industry professionals will work intensively with aspiring producers to give them a grounding in TV, radio and on-line production. They will work on the production of an on-line soap opera Joel Bloggs - a story about a young journalist facing a crisis of conscience. The story will be launched by the group using video, audio and the web.

Christians aged 18-35 are invited to apply for places at the academy. Training and accommodation are all provided free of charge. Trainees will only be asked to cover the costs of travel, plus a £30 admin fee on registration. To find out more or download an application form, visit the academy website or call  0845 652 0027.   The Media Net Academy takes place in parallel with the Churches' Media Conference at Swanwick, Derbyshire from 9th – 11th June 2008. Industry experts attending include BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones.

God's Fragile World: Global views of Climate Change

Come and celebrate our life and faith together with Bishops from around the world and join the debate about climate change. At Leicester cathedral on Sunday 13th July at 4 pm.

Fund Raising Walk for Christian Aid 2008

This year's full and mini walks start with a picnic lunch (bring your own food, drinks provided) at 12.15 pm on Sunday 11th May at the United Reformed Church, Rosemead Drive Oadby. Boots or strong shoes are essential for those walking and the route is unsuitable for pushchairs. This year the walk will take a very picturesque routefrom Mere lane and Newton Harcourt via Wistow to Kilby, down the field paths to the canal and Newton Locks before returning to the URC. So, whatever your age, pleased join us. Sponsor/donation forms can be obtained from Val White on 0116 210 1702 or Pat Lessells on 0116 271 7824

Thought for the day… Shaped by God “Sharing our Faith”

Evangelism and Church growth are not just for Evangelicals; they are for ALL Christians.
We often envisage them as happening in someone else’s situation (usually the someone else has got more resources, people and finance than us), or as happening in our situation at some point in the future if only we could be more…
In fact, they can begin to happen where we are, and they can begin to happen now. Click on link to take a closer look at the Shaped by God booklet – “Sharing our Faith” http://www.leicester.anglican.org/shaped/themed.html and go to “Confident and Sensitive Evangelism”

Youth Ministry Courses

The Midlands Centre for Youth Ministry based at St John's College, Nottingham

is looking for both students and placements for their courses in Youth and Community Work and Applied Theology.  Courses are offered at Further Education level (6 modules taught on 6 Saturdays over the year and a workbook to complete), Undergraduate - 3 year placement based degree (attendance at St John's two days per fortnight) and Postgraduate - Masters degrees for professional qualification or professional development (4 study weeks over two years and a dissertation). 

It is possible to get a relevant professional qualification at any level.

For further details please contact Gill Benson, Midlands Centre for Youth Ministry, St John's, Chilwell Lane, Bramcote, Nottingham NG9 3DS;  0115 968 3222, email:   g.benson@stjohns-nottm.ac.uk

or follow this link Youth Ministry Courses

9 Marks of Mission. “Welcoming Newcomers”

Your church has a prime advertising site – its own notice board.  It advertises you church 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  Your church notice board may be much more.  It may be one of the very few remaining points of contact between Christianity and, much of your local community.

For your link to the Shaped by God Toolkit, please go to….

http://www.leicester.anglican.org/shaped/toolkit.html

'Uprising' Youth Event

'Uprising' is an event for Christians and non-christians ages 14-18 organised by the Christian Union at Beauchamp college. It is on Thursday 24th April at Beauchamp College 7.15-9.00pm. 'The Steels' are coming all the way from Newcastle to play, with support from 'The Royal Welcome'. Free tickets are avaliable from bcu_uprising@hotmail.co.uk, or the college main office.There will be refresments and merchendise avaliable on the night. Donations for the bible society will be appreciated.

Check out the bands at www.myspace.com/thesteels and www.myspace.com/theroyalwelcome

Baptism: What, why and how we do it.

An informal and informative evening organised by Churches Together in Oadby where we can share our similarities and differences and learn from each other. Come along to the United Reformed Church Rosemead Drive Oadby at 7.30 pm on Monday 19th May and join in what promises to be a very stimulating abd lively discussion. Refreshments provided.
For further details contact Rev'd Mandy Flaherty on 0116 212 2484 or by e-mail at heddamand@aol.com

Stoughton Village Fete

St Mary and All Saints' Church, Stoughton invite you to Stoughton Village Fete
on Saturday May 10th 2008 Commencing at 12.30pm
Free entrance.
Silver Band, Lots of stalls & games. Refreshments available all afternoon.
All proceeds to St Mary and All Saints' Church, Stoughton.

Merton College Oxford Concert St Wilfrid's Kibworth

The choir of Merton College, Oxford, consisting of graduates and undergraduates, men and women, will entertain us on Saturday 10th May at 7.30 pm with a programme of much-loved choral music: serious and light-hearted items, including excerpts from the contemporary masterpiece by Karl Jenkins, 'The Armed Man, a Mass for Peace'. Conductor will be the choir's Director, Organ Scholar, Chris Chan.
Drinks will be available in the interval in the adjoining church hall.
Tickets at £7.50, or £10 for premium reserved seats, are on sale in Kibworth Beauchamp at Ireland & Longhill, 10 Station Street, at the Kibworth Post Office on High Street or from Roger Whiteway on (0116) 279 2543 or rogerwhiteway@aol.com

Effective Christian Presence and Enterprise Project

This project is located in Yorkshire and Humber Region but the talks may be of interest to those of us in the Leicester Diocese.
The website to find out more details is www.faithworks.info

Life Words

It is known that 80% of people will visit church in a year. Life Words have produced a leaflet for visitors as well as for prayer cards on rest, direction, faith and peace. Copies of the ‘Look Around You’ foldout card are available to order on the ‘Life Words’ website: http://www.sgmlifewords.com/uk/en/inspire-upcoming.php

The Big Hope

David Coleman at Church Army points to this:
Woody Allen’s saying that he was not afraid of death, he just didn’t want to be there when it happened, forms a central element of the latest film from www.hopeinfo.co.uk Big Hope a short film developed by the Christian Enquiry Agency and Church Army and released Monday on www.hopeinfo.co.uk and YouTube. The three minute film explores the theme of hope in suffering and death against the backdrop that according to recent research * over half of people believe in some expression of the afterlife. It also poses the stark question- is there any hope of life after you die? With a view to kicking off a national conversation about hope in life after death.

David Coleman a member of Eltham Park Baptist Church and based at Church Army's Sidcup Office says; “The final episode of The Passion broadcast on the BBC on Sunday explored the resurrection of Jesus and the hope this brought to his followers. We all hope to see loved ones again and that hope translates into a firm belief for the majority of us. Big Hope poses some questions about coping with suffering and death and we want people to go on line and share their views about this subject with us.”

Big Hope is the second film from www.hopeinfo.co.uk – the public face of Hope 2008 a national churches initiative. The website launched earlier this year by writing to every resident of the UK’s Hope Streets inviting them to view the first film Fresh Hope, and pioneering a free online secrets of hope life coaching course.

The site was the idea of Gareth Squire Director of the Christian Enquiry Agency who says, “We want hopeinfo.co.uk to be a place where people of all faiths and none can express their hopes and dreams and engage in a conversation about the true nature of hope.”

To view the film Big Hope see www.hopeinfo.co.uk and go to the films section.

Blog Popularity Increases

The popularity of our blog is steadily increasing and this week we reached more than 100 different visitors to the site in the six weeks since we started. Many are now returning regularly to read the posts and make use of the calendar feature. 
By subscribing to the RSS feed you can find out every time a new post is added to our site. 
Let us know what you think of our blog – what are the best bits and what would you like us to add to make it even better?

Quiet Day

Our first Quiet Day promises to be a very special occasion.

Led by Rev'd Dr Alison Morgan of ReSource, it will take take place at Gartree House, Illston on the Hill from 10 am - 4 pm on Saturday 17th May 2008.

The theme for the day is Streams of Living Water. Why not put this day aside to allow yourself to be spiritually refreshed?

To book your place, please phone our Lay Convener, Liz Smith, 0116 241 4270 or e-mail Liz at admin@thurnbychurch.com

Helen Bence,
Convener

Mission and the Occasional Offices

Peter Williams will be facilitating the "Growing Family Sized Churches" group to look how we can better use the opportunities for mission which occur when churches are asked to conduct baptisms, weddings and funerals. The diocese is running a course on this topic this month and we would encourage partnership churches to send their chosen representative to this course as part of their work in this area...

MISSION AND THE OCCASIONAL OFFICES
Tuesday 29th April, Church House, Leicester - 9.30am - 1pm

Facilitated by Revd. Mike Harrison, Director of Mission & Ministry
A chance to consider how we can approach these offices as mission opportunities, and what might be appropriate and sensitive forms of evangelism in these contexts. There will be an exploration of some recent thinking around the subject and a variety of approaches and examples reflected upon.

For bookings contact Claire Stapleton at Church House on 0116 248 7417 or E-mail: Claire.Stapleton@LecCofE.org