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