Leaders Away Day – vision for the future

Last Saturday 40-50 leaders at Springfield Church gathered to look at some the areas that we believe are vital for the health and growth of the church going forward.

Backwards and forwards……

Happy new year to everyone. It’s always good to review a past year and look forward to a new one. 2011 was generally a “good year” for me and mine. The economy may have been tanking, the world was in turmoil but there have been some really positive things last year.

Cafe Church – First Anniversary

Well it was the first anniversary of Springfield@Roundshaw congregation yesterday. It was lovely to celebrate with them and to enjoy all that has happened in the past year. It has been wonderful to see the way that people have pulled together and have built a warm, vibrant community.

The Church of England, decline and children….

There was a speech at last week’s General Synod (governing body of the C of E) that the Church of England was facing a catastrophic decline in numbers in the next twenty years.

Great leaders away day

Well yesterday we had a wonderful leaders away day – although technically we did have an open invitation to anyone in the church who had a vision for reaching out into our community. I have to say that Springfield does have a great set of people.

Visit to Cambridge and Westcott House

I had a great day yesterday visiting our curate-to-be Donna at her theological training college of Westcott in Cambridge. My training college was Ridley (the other Anglican college in the Cambridge Theological Federation). Each theological college has a different outlook and theological emphasis.

Is religion about to become extinct?

The BBC is reporting a new study that suggest that religion is dying and on its way to extinction. It’s a fascinating study and I’m very interested by it. It is no. 8 in my series Theological Questions To Which The Answer is No but it is more subtle than a straight rejection.

Church up, Church down, Church ahead

There have been a number of conflicting church statistics of late. I wrote an essay back in 1996 at theological college. And being a college essay it usually had some grandiose title. Mine started with a quote by John Kent (whoever he was – I never did find out!). “The barbarians have arrived, twilight has [...]

A brief guide to Messy Church

There was a little flutter on Twitter last night regarding Messy Church @davemagill not trying to be deep and meaningful, but two songs then an hour of craft ain't church – was fun though— The Church Mouse (@thechurchmouse) November 20, 2010 All very amicable but it got me thinking that it would be good to [...]

Youth Keep on Growing – what whould we do?!

Well Becca (our youth pastor) had this idea for a monthly youth event at the local sports  centre. At first things were fine. We had a good number coming along – mainly our younger youth and some of their friends.