Month: September 2020

This Sunday Family at Moortown sets us all an exciting challenge! However, in terms of needing lots of equipment, tools and inspiration this one appears to be remarkably forgiving. That’s because to complete it besides a piece of card, a bit of tin foil and some glue all you need are what we find all around us at this time of year… some berries, some pine cones, some acorns and some leaves. 

To find out more tune in to the Moortown Baptist Church Youtube channel on Sunday morning, or if you want a head start you can join Susie Newhall by clicking on this LINK.  

Once you have seen this little video I think you’ll agree with me that Susie made a brilliant job of her collage and just as she has shared it with us we would like you to share yours. All you need do is send a picture or even a bit of video of your work to mbcnewspics@gmail.com and we’ll feature it here on our website. 

Happy foraging everyone. 

Prayer has always been a bit of a challenge for me. I am not practised in the rhythm of prayer. But as I have reached more senior years and have often been wakeful for a short time in the early hours of the morning, just before first light, I have found that this quiet time of the day when my mind is more relaxed and perhaps has processed the other matters that has occupied it, that this is a good time to reflect and pray. It is also the time when I sometimes have a flow of ideas too. If I remember them in the morning, well that is another matter! Jesus needed time in prayer and his disciples would have regularly witnessed Him going to the garden, mountain or quiet place alone to be with his Father. Prayer and being with Father God was part of His rhythm of life. This led to the disciples to ask Him to teach them how to pray.  

So, it was with great interest that I read about Richard Gamble, who is planning for and has been awarded planning permission for an enormous Christian prayer monument, taking the shape of a continuous loop known as the Mobius strip. The Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer will be more than twice the size of the Anthony Gormley, Angel of the North sculpture. It is to be built on the outskirts of Birmingham, constructed using a million bricks, each representing an answered prayer from a member of the public. The Eternal Wall of Answered prayer will have three aims: to encourage prayer, to proclaim Jesus for the country and to preserve the Christian heritage of the nation. The site will also have a visitor centre, café and bookshop for an estimated 3,000 visitors a year, who will be able to use an app to access the database, for the stories of hope of a million people whose prayers were answered.  

The aim of the Eternal Wall is to make hope visible to the nation, to be a monument of remembrance to our faithful God who hears and answers prayer, as was Joshua’s Gilgal stones. (Joshua 4)  

“We’re trying to make the largest database of hope stories in the world visible and provoke a conversation about prayer. Everyone goes through storms in life, and hope is one of the greatest antidotes to anxiety and fear”. Richard Gamble 

I am really pleased that this project is going ahead. In these challenging Covid-19 times we need these accounts of hope and answered prayer. 

The Eternal Wall will stand for hundreds of years. They are looking for a million testimonies of answered prayer. (500 words) Eternalwall.org.uk/testimony 

Joshua 4 

¹⁹ The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they encamped in Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. ²⁰ And those twelve stones, which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal. ²¹ And he said to the people of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ ²² then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ ²³ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, ²⁴ so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty; that you may fear the Lord your God for ever.” 

Jane Coates 

Last week and this a team of volunteers along with Kate and Graham helped me to start to deliver gift bags to every family connected to the groups we call Bubbles, Faithbuilders, Excavate and Inters.  Under more normal circumstances each of these groups would meet in the church building every Sunday morning.

The bags contained a chocolate bar, a Meandering with Moses map, a Family at Moortown postcard and an age appropriate book connected to our recent Moses series.

The gift bag drop is just one of the ways along with: Church at Home, Family at Moortown’s YouTube channel, Moortots/Oasis LIVE, phone calls, WhatsApp, texts and socially distanced one to one meet ups that we are employing in order to stay connected with each other, with our children and with their families at this very strange time.

Thanks to all those who helped to deliver this week.  It came just at the right time I think as many children will be heading back to school next week; many for the first time since March. It also means that we can now move on to sort something fresh and innovative for our regular mid week week families who make up our under 5’s groups.

If you are connected to the groups I have mentioned above and you either haven’t received a bag or you know of someone who would really benefit from connecting with church in some way, whether they have younger or older children, do get in touch with me shelley.dring.mbc@btconnect.com 

I look forward to keeping this conversation going with you throughout the autumn, and as a team I look forward to us all helping one another to develop exciting and creative ways to connect and build faith.

Thanks to all those who have joined in with our little walk around part of a north Leeds wood this week.  The idea of a Meander with Moses came from our Summer series on Church at Home on the YouTube channel each Sunday.

Throughout August we found out that Moses spent a lot of time on journeys, and throughout them while embracing the good and the bad, he needed to trust God… a bit like we all had to do when confronted with ace cartographer Shelley’s unique free-hand map! 

You can still download your map HERE or there are still some paper copies in a box outside church. 

Along our walk there are certain spots where you are encouraged to stop, and ponder a little thought to encourage you to think about Moses’ story as well as your journey with God. 

It was great to hear that some people invited friends and family along with them to do a socially distanced version of the walk. There’s a lot of research to suggest that being in the fresh air and the exercise we get from being outdoors not only does us good but also makes many of us feel closer to God.   

If you have any thoughts or questions about your walk with God then do message me on shelley.dring.mbc@btconnect.com

Oh and if you have any pics from your meanderings do as Adam and John did and email them to mbcnewspics@gmail.com