Before we move on the past (that doesn’t make sense but you know what I mean) let’s have a look at some of the stuff Shelley is presently doing with our children and their families.
If you were with us for Church at Home last Sunday you will have heard mention of some special material Shelley has produced which is designed to let those who are in either Bubbles or Pulse follow the same theme as the grownups. Last week that was the account from Luke chapter 24 of Jesus’ journey along the road to Emmaus when unbeknown to them he walked, talked and even stopped to eat with two of his followers. Below there’s a video that Shelley posted on our YouTube channel on Sunday and in it she, Nathan, Daisy and Rowan bring their own interpretation to that story by drawing around their feet whilst talking about Jesus always walking with us even if we can’t see him. There are also a few more images from this brilliant exercise below the video.
We have also had some brilliant news this week from one of our local schools. Allerton CE Primary, where several of our church family already volunteer is planning to broadcast live, online assemblies. John Sherbourne, who is a governor at ACE and who in more normal times regularly presents assembles describes this as “a really important development, as year by year bringing our Key Stage 2 children
together at home but online at the same time as they would usually meet together in the hall should bring a real sense of togetherness to their lives.” John’s first assembly which will be specially for Year 6 pupils is at 2.30pm on Thursday 7th May.
Once things get back to normal you too might fancy helping out at this amazing school. Already as I say MBC has people going in to help provide maths tuition, to listen to young readers as they prepare for their SATS and of course to go on some of the incredible trips that children go on these days. If you do have a word with John and he will be delighted to pass on some contact details.
Another thing Shelley did this week was to invite all our Oasis and Moortots families to join her online in celebrating National Superhero Day. There are a few pictures of this in the gallery above along side the footprints pics but somehow our archivist found this wacky picture in his files. No prizes I’m afraid but let’s see how many of you can email in to mbcnewspics@gmail.com an accurate left to right. 
And finally following on from last weeks church anniversary post a number of you have asked me if we have any more old pictures of Moortown Baptist Church. Well the answer is yes we have, dozens of them.
Today’s gallery spans sixty years; from an extract from our original Church Rule book right through to the programme we produced to go alongside MBC’s 2011 What Matters community project.
There’s a lovely picture of our very first minister, Rev F. W. Bond, and then a much less formal one of Rev Michael Caddick chatting to David and Sue Colledge. There are two pictures of our then “young people.” One taken outside Oxford Place Chapel showing a number of our Young People’s Fellowship members leaving a Sunday evening event, another features many of the same people only this time on a camping weekend at Whitby.
A third pic taken a generation later shows just how big MBC’s youth section was in the 1980’s as over seventy youngsters join Michael Caddick, Michael and June Flowers and Phil Commons for a group photograph.
For many years MBC ran a number of uniformed organisations: scouts, cubs, brownies and guides. Here you can see just a few of these groups – particularly impressive is the picture of our brownies heading off to weekend camp in the back of a Tomlinson’s furniture removal van.
There’s a picture of an early house group, one showing how the sanctuary looked before guitars, drums and a projection screen took centre stage and of course there just has to be one of the pipe organ (above) which arrive in a million bits from a Congregational church in Morley and which for twenty four years (1969 – 1993) dominated our platform.
It’s been good fun gathering these pictures together, and if you study them closely enough you might just recognise some people who are still regular attenders.
To see a larger version of any of our gallery pictures simply click and then click again on the image.
