Meet your new Vicar and his family | Sunday 20 March
You are warmly invited to share an afternoon tea with Chris, Imogen, Isaac and Ezra at the Church Hall, Barnston, between 2:30 and 4:30pm on Sunday 20th March. This will be a great opportunity for our Church to meet our new vicar and his family and enjoy some lovely cakes!
In order to plan the refreshments, please contact Cecelia in the Parish Office (6482404) or add your name to the sign-up sheets at the back of our churches. We do hope that you can drop in that afternoon!
Mission Partner Update – Dave Casson & Lucy Slavin at St. Peter’s, Rockferry
Please click here for the full content of the latest prayer and news letter from Dave and Lucy. This letter can also be viewed on our Mission Partner Notice Boards at Christ Church (Parish Hall Foyer) and St. Michael’s (Church Hall).
Included is further news of the church plant called, “The Barn”, meeting in the Sports Barn at Rockferry Primary School, highlighting recent craft mornings as well as the return of homegroups after the end of pandemic rules governing social distancing. Additionally news of the work with schools, families, children and young people.
Please pray for Dave and Lucy as they reflect on lessons learned at the Growing Young Disciples Conference in January and consider how to apply them in the context of Rockferry life. Please also pray for the success of funding bids they are waiting news of, which will be very helpful towards their mission.
Recommended Lent Reading
Thinking about how to make the most of Lent? Why not take up a particular practice rather than give something up? Perhaps you could commit to praying more. Or perhaps you can take up some Lent reading?
In this daily Lent devotional for 2022, Ros Clarke uncovers forty women of the Bible in forty stories of envy, grief, shame, courage and faith and hope.
Jesus welcomed women many scorned including the ill, the impoverished, the physically disabled, the sinful, the single, the older and the foreign and we discover in this book how ordinary lives, with all their triumphs and failures, are transformed as they connect with an extraordinary God.
Do try it for yourself, this book is not just for women!
Induction Service for The Reverend Chris Slater | Sunday 13 March
This will take place at 7pm at St Michael’s. Spaces are limited, so please contact Cecelia as soon as possible if you’d like to attend – we’ll do our best to accommodate you.
The service will be live streamed to Christ Church. Please let Cecelia know if you plan to attend at Barnston, to help us organise refreshments after the service. Let’s share in this important event together, as a Church family in person, at one of the two Church buildings! If you can’t attend in person, please don’t worry, the service will also be accessible at home through our YouTube Channel.
Pancake Party – Tuesday 1st March
Tuesday the 1st of March is Shrove Tuesday – the last day before LENT and we’re having a Pancake Party!
It will run from 4pm until 5.30 at St. Michael’s but you can arrive a little early and make sure you’re ready to score points for your team straight away.
Pancake themed games and activities before lots of pancakes for tea! 0-11s are welcome – younger ones will get help from older members of their team.
You can just turn up but if you know you’ll definitely come please rsvp to johnputman @ barnston.info so we can make sure there’s enough pancakes.
CAP Mornings – with Mission Partner, Jess Parkhouse
Our Mission Committee Rep for Christians Against Poverty partner Jess Parkhouse is Sam Brassey, who has been able to secure a visit for us from Jess in the coming weeks.
Jessica Parkhouse will be joining us, explaining her role for CAP on the Wirral, and how we as a Church support her in her position.
Jess will be at the 10:30 service at Christ Church on the 27th of March and the 09:30 service at St. Michael’s on the 10th of April. Please put the date in your diary to make sure you are there to find out more about the work of CAP in Wirral and to find out how you can engage more with our Mission Partners.
News and Prayer Update from our Mission Partner – Neema Children’s Home
Please click here to visit our Mission Partners page for Neema Children’s Home and read the full text of their most recent news and prayer letter.
There is news of an addition to the Neema family, an update on Miriam’s medical situation, a fantastic encouragement from the Bible, news of the number attending Neema school, of individual pupils preparing for other schools, of new swimming lessons and some helpful pointers for prayer which are copied below:
Please continue to pray with us for God’s wisdom and guidance.
Thank God for the reasonable health the children are enjoying. Also, please thank God for peace.
Please pray with us for God’s protection, good health and wisdom.
This year is election year in Kenya, please pray that we will have a peaceful election.
Families who Pray| 13th Feb | 2-3.15pm
As a church dependent in prayer we seek lots of different ways in which to pray for and with each other. It can be difficult for parents and children to make it to our weekly prayer meetings though – because of when we hold them.
‘Families who pray’ is designed to be an accesible time of prayer for families. Children can dip in and out, parents too! We can pray for our children, their friends, their world and for each other too, with activities for children to give parents some space but prayer activities for children to join in with too!
Please do come along on Sunday 13th Feb from 2pm to grow together in Jesus!
How easy do you find it to read God’s word?
God’s word is living and active and as we engage with it it works deeply within us, making a difference to our minds, our hearts and our lives. It is a glorious gift given to sustain us each day and it is as necessary to our spiritual health as food is to our physical health.
These daily devotionals in Alistair Begg’s book Truth For Life are a rich treasure. They point to the person and work of Christ. They will enable you to praise Him when you are celebrating and encourage you when you are doubting, they will comfort you when you are struggling and will be a balm when you are hurting.
Do read it and take the opportunity to think freshly about a passage and reflect deeply on the verses that the commentary opens up. Joanna would love to speak with your further and books can be easily ordered through our bookstall at Christ Church Barnston. Do contact her at joannahill@barnston.info or via with Cecelia in the office.
News from Jess Parkhouse – our Mission Partner at CAP (Christians against Poverty) Wirral
During the Christmas period CAP delivered hampers & held a Christmas event, 24 clients & children attended a Talk & Christmas lunch, presents & gifts were given during the event. It was a lovely and enjoyable afternoon.
If you feel there is someone who could benefit from CAP services, please contact the Church office for more information or speak to our Mission Committee Rep for CAP, Sam Brassey.
Latest prayer & news letter from our Mission Partner in Rockferry – Dave Casson and Lucy Slavin
You’ll find news of their work with children, youth and families, the new church plant at ‘the barn’, work in local Primary schools and of the conference Dave and Lucy are attending this month.
Listen again to this term’s sermons
If you have missed any of this term’s sermons from the “He gave us stories” series please do use our “listen again” function found on this website.
New Term Card & Sermon Series – He gave us stories
I don’t know if you’ve ever thought it odd that the Bible never lists what we need to believe as a Christian. That is to say, the doctrine of the Christian faith is not expressed as a series of propositions: “You must believe x, y, and z to be a Christian.” Rather the doctrine of the Christian faith is embedded in stories. We saw last term how all of us make sense of our selves and our identity in the framework of a wider narrative. For example, scientists are heroes who work selflessly for the betterment of humanity and so we should listen to their advice; compared with, scientists work for greedy pharmaceutical companies who will happily sell medicine people don’t need in order to make a profit so be wary of their advice. Which narrative do we find more believable? Very often it has nothing to do with the data but with which narrative we find more emotionally compelling or the one which we feel has the best explanatory power. And Jesus knew this.
Jesus knew that we are not really driven by facts and data but by stories and narratives. And so Jesus embedded truth in narrative. He gave us stories. This does not mean that what Jesus said can be dismissed because it is superficially fictional. Jesus’ stories are profound spiritual insights which reveal truth and reality. They do this all the more effectively because stories draw us in, stories help us to relate to characters, stories cause us to question whether we would have reacted in the same or a different way, stories subvert our expectations, and help us to change our minds.
We have produced this Mission Partners postcard featuring names and faces of all our Mission Partners along with a verse for 2022 reminding us of the spread of the gospel worldwide through our mission partners but also in our own lives.
We would encourage you to pick up one of these cards from our church buildings and use it as a visual cue at home to keep our Mission Partners in prayer throughout the year.
We are partnered with Dave Casson and Lucy Slavin at St. Peter’s Church in Rockferry; Jess Parkhouse working with Christians against Poverty in Wirral; Joshua and Miriam Mbithi working at Neema Children’s Home in Kenya, Sena and Jane Ounate-Lare working with BCMS Crosslinks in Caen, Normandy and Diego Pachecho working with BCMS Crosslinks in Santiago, Chile.
Keep watching this space for the latest news from our Mission Partners as we receive it and remember our dedicated Mission Partners webpage – https://www.barnston.info/mission-partners and please continue to thank God for his grace in using our partnership with these people to build his kingdom on earth.
We hope to have a visit from Jess Parkhouse to some of our Sunday services in this first quarter of the year.
