Our church have become a Project Partner with Diego Pacheco. Diego is the Pastor of Iglesia Cristo Redentor in Chile. The church was launched in March 2019 in Vitacura, which is in the suburbs of Chile’s capital city Santiago. It is one of the wealthiest areas of the country, but sadly one of the most gospel needy. Diego is currently pastoring the congregation, but in order to work there full time, he requires financial and prayerful support, from gospel partners around the world. At Iglesia Cristo Redentor, Diego leads small groups and one to one bible studies, preaches at Sunday services and trains others to understand the Bible for themselves. The church is also committed to reaching out to unbelievers in the area, with the good news of Christ. Long-term, they hope to create a gospel hub from which other churches can be planted and supported. For further details and updates from Diego please visit this mission partner page
Remembrance Sunday update (03/11)
With the change to national lockdown rules we have had to amend our plans for marking Remembrance Sunday. We will now be marking Remembrance Sunday during our 09:30 live service broadcast, as well as a separate broadcast beginning at 10:50 to share in the national Act of Remembrance.
Our annual Memorial Service will be available from 3pm on our youtube channel. Please click here to visit the channel.
Remembrance Sunday
(please note update above)
We will be marking Remembrance Sunday at all of our services on November 8th, thinking of those who lost their lives in conflicts, from our parish and across the world. At a time when all nations face a common crisis, we pray all the more earnestly for peace between peoples, and for a growing faith in the God who will make all things well. Do join us at 8.30am, at 9.30 am and at 10.55am (timed to allow us to share in the national Act of Remembrance at 11.00am)
Later that day we will have our annual Memorial Service, when we remember those who have died in recent years, and pray for those who mourn them. Please contact the Office if you would like to come or to have someone remembered (648 2404).
Children’s GroupsUpdate
It has been a delight to be part of the return of children’s groups on Sunday mornings. We had missed you all so much since March and have really enjoyed connecting with you again!
So far we have spent 4 weeks in the book of Judges, learning about Ehud, Gideon and Samson, but most importantly about God and how he loves us constantly, despite our regular rejection of him as King. It’s amazing how much we can learn from the way God related to people living so long ago.
We’re moving into Ruth, then Samuel before our Christmas series explores how and why the Son of God came to earth for us. Places are available each week at the 09:30 service in a pre-school group, primary group and secondary group as we split the space in our hall to create Covid-secure groups. Please call the Parish Office on 0151 648 2404 to book your place.
The rule of six…
Please click here for Peter’s comments on living well through the next six months, by taking on six sixes as a guide and support to us all. This idea came from the Bishop of Oxford originally and you can find Peter speaking about it more fully on our facebook page via the icon at the foot of this page.
Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund
Christians know what Jesus Christ has done – but who IS He? Do we know what His deepest heart is for His people? Many of us are uncertain as to what the future looks like for us at this time and perhaps are wondering how we are to function as fragile people relating to other fragile people. In his book Gentle and Lowly, Dane Ortland beautifully articulates what the heart of our Saviour looks like. His focus is Matthew 11 v 29 where Jesus says He is gentle and lowly in heart. This is an invitation to us to find rest in Jesus. Are we feeling weary or faltering? Or wonder how we could mess up like that….again? Do we know that God loves us but suspect we have deeply disappointed him in some way? This book is written, in other words for normal Christians, for sinners and sufferers like you and me. It opens up the immensity of Jesus’ tender love for us. Read it and find your heart warmed at the fire of the love of God. Please contact Cecelia in the office if you would like to order a copy.
New Mission Partner
Our Mission Committee Rep, Sam Brassey, writes: CAP (Christians Against Poverty) is a Christian Debt Counselling Charity that has been established for over 20 years, they have over 300 staff members and help over 23,000 people a year with debt management. CAP have a base on the Wirral that is run by Moira Nelson. The Wirral branch has recently employed a debt coach who started during the Covid-19 pandemic and in that time she has completed the CAP training courses and become a fully trained debt coach. The Mission committee idea for our Church is to help with the funding for the Wirral CAP debt coach. In these unprecedented times many families in our local community will be facing financial hardship and this is where as a church we could help a specifically trained, local, Christian person who is part of an award winning national Christian charity to serve families in our local area. CAP’s mission is to restore hope for those who are lost & hurting and to bring life-changing freedom to people in desperate need. This reflects our own Church values in having compassion for our neighbours.
Harvest 2020
In our Harvest services on Sunday the 4th of October we considered the words of Isaiah 58. This included many challenges and encouragements, not least that God wanted his people to get real about the way they followed him. In Isaiah 58 the text exhorts its hearers/readers to share food with and spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry. For this year’s harvest offering we are encouraging one another to give directly to the Wirral Foodbank through this link: https://wirral.foodbank.org.uk/give-help/donate-money
The Wirral foodbank reports that this year, in four months, 71 tonnes of food was distributed and 6,500 people were supported – this is an increase of 51% on the same time period last year. So please visit the link and give what you can as part of your thanks to God for all he has done, and all that he provides for his people.
New Warden at Christ Church Barnston
Robert Moots works as an academic rheumatologist – treating patients, leading research from laboratory to bedside and lecturing about of all of this across the world. He has a special interest in helping grow expertise in care of musculoskeletal diseases in developing countries, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa. Robert is married to Shirley, a nurse by training. Meeting, in typical Mills and Boon style, in a London hospital, they have three children. The Moots have attended churches in many areas over the years, in the UK, USA and Africa, before joining Christ Church Barnston some 6 years ago and making it their home. Robert regularly preaches and leads services, and wonders if becoming a Warden is a way of keeping him quiet!
News Page Launch
Welcome to our new look news page on the website. We want to keep you up to date with what is happening in the life of the church, the services, activities and the people that make up our week to week life. Just at the moment, when we are finding harder to be together in person, it seems important to maintain contact with people, and we think that our news page will help. You can expect to find weekly notice sheets, parish news/events, updates from our mission partners, interviews with members of our congregations, editorials by the clergy and other Church of England Diocesan or national news. So we do hope that you will keep in touch with this page by visiting regularly – maybe you could link up with it through Facebook or Twitter.
And do let us know if there are things we should be including.
