On Tuesday 20th February we held a special meeting for the election of deacons. This is in addition to the regular Deacons Election in May. There were two nominees – Susie Newhall and Julia Hyliger and both were elected
Leeds Street Angels
 Leeds Street Angels: If you heard about Leeds Street Angels last Sunday and are thinking of giving it a try then catch up with Richard Thompson to find out more about it and how to get involved. If you missed it then speak to Richard (or Google) to pick up the basics of how you can be an Angel! Richard will be out again on Friday 23rd of February. If you want to join him ‘on patrol’ for the evening contact him on 07912 060 090 to set it up.
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Rewind to Easter – it’s not too late to join our team
It was way back in 2004 that Jan Fennell, then MBC’s Children’s Pastoral Worker, ran our first Rewind to Easter programme; fourteen years on it remains as fresh as ever.
In a little over a weeks time, and over four ninety minute sessions near on four hundred year five school children will visit Moortown Baptist Church to hear and see first hand what for a Christian Easter is all about.
Rewind to Easter employs a tried and tested blend of specially written teaching material, craft, quizzes, video, story telling and drama. However, with the exception of Cas Stoodley, our resident Children’s Worker the Rewind team is made up entirely of volunteers. So if you could spare some time on either or both Tuesday the 6th of Wednesday the 7th of March why not come and join us… it’s great fun and it’s unbelievably rewarding.
You can contact Cas either here at church or by emailing her cas.stoodley.mbc@btconnect.com
Baptists, equality and being radical
This week has brought the 100th anniversary of the granting of votes for women with the passing of the Representation of the People Act. But a century on campaigns continue to address gender inequality.
Equality
Now many Christians are at the forefront of arguing for equality, whilst some hold to male headship and others to more nuanced complementary (equal but different because that’s the way we are) viewpoint. I write as a Baptist, and if I am true to being a Baptist I have to go for equality. Baptists believe that authority is held by Jesus Christ alone and worked out by believers in committed relationships together. As a church is made up of women and men, young and old, different races – we hold that these believers together are competent and responsible to care, discern, hold to account, take on roles and decide.
In one of our most memorable recent meetings at Moortown Baptist 120 people were together talking, listening and discerning God’s will. Children, adults, male, female, black and white all spoke and were heard.
On this centenary, I acknowledge and celebrate that is the way forward – not just as a theoretical point but in decision making, opportunity, protection of the law, taking on roles, and bringing respect.
I read some of the arguments made, put just over 100 years ago, against giving women the vote:
- Women were creatures of impulse and emotion, incapable of making a sound political decision
- Women’s participation in politics would extinguish chivalry
- If women became involved in politics, they would stop marrying, and having children, and the human race would die out
- A woman’s place was in the home
- Men and women had different spheres
- Women were already represented by their husbands
- Women did not fight in wars to defend their country
- It would be dangerous to change a system that worked
- Women did not even want the vote
These make sobering, bizarre and scary reading for me. It is amazing that some of these sentiments are deployed when thinking about gender today.
There may be different views about, but for me, the way I hold faith and do church as a Baptist is with equality.
Dissent
Over the past year there has been a debate as to which will be the first statue of a woman erected in Parliament Square. Millicent Fawcett was chosen ahead of Emmeline Pankhurst. Pankhurst was the founder of militant Women’s Social and Political Union and Fawcett the leader of the more moderate National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. People debate which of these two played the greater part in winning the vote for women. Maybe it was both – it needed the dual effect of the militant and the moderate. What they both had in common was being people who dissented from the status quo – informed by values and belief and committed to action.
So the Suffragette motto was “Deeds not words” in response to the then Prime Minister who said he agreed with their argument but “was obliged to do nothing at all about it” and so urged the women to “go on pestering” and to exercise “the virtue of patience”. Women dissented and decided to do more than simply wait!
Now within the family of Christian churches Baptists claim to be people of dissent, I’d like to think that our commitment to Christ meaning being dissenters for Jesus in our lives – in action and not just what we preach. In that we may find a blend of the Fawcett and the Pankhurst; who knows?
Graham Brownlee, February 2018
Leeds Lent Prayer Diary 2018
The Leeds Lent Prayer Diary is a great resource for prayer and information on Christian initiatives across the city. MBC has a limited number of copies available. One for each house group with some for individuals.
Suggested donation £1.25 from Kate Slater or Graham Brownlee.
First come first served.
An update on MBC’s Beacon Cafe
MBC’s Beacon Cafe, open here at church every Monday morning, is going from strength to strength; not only with new people coming almost every week but with many regular attenders bringing along friends and neighbours.
“Staffed” entirely by volunteers (more are always welcome) each week we have craft activities, there is always a selection of board games, a growing library of books, lots of conversation and of course some amazing cakes (all free but donations are appreciated).
For the last year or so we have been focusing on being a well-being space and we have a core of people who are there every week to listen to people if they would appreciate someone to talk to.
At 12pm we always close with a short but valuable time of prayer, and since we started this has grown from six to eight people to upwards of thirty.
So if you are at a loose end on a Monday morning please come and join us – you will be most welcome. If you would like to know more about Beacon your contacts are Kate Slater or Janis Armstrong.
As PULSE moves from Commitment to Kindness we look back at a month of both physical and faith based endeavour
Today (Sunday January 28th) we closed our morning Service by welcoming three of our children’s groups back into church to share with us what they had been learning about throughout January.
Collectively Faithbuilders, Inters and Excavate, that’s all our children aged between 5 and 11 operate under the name PULSE. And based on a passage of scripture from 1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 8: “Training the body has some value. But being godly has value in every way. It promises help for the life you are now living and the life to come” they have been working their way through a programme that combines tough physical exercise with four equally challenging tasks namely: practicing hearing about God, practicing praying to God, practicing talking about God and finally practicing living for God.
The project is so designed that what ever is being discussed on a Sunday can also be talked about at home throughout the week; with both the children and their families being encouraged to fill in and return their own, personalised log books.
Below is a short video which leads you through January and which shows you step by step each of the four different exercises.
Today’s Service finished with the church praying for the children and then the children praying for the church; hardly rocket science but a rare and most welcome two way engagement.
In February PULSE moves on to engage with what the bible in general and what Jesus in particular has to say about Kindness. If the commitment the children have shown to Commitment is anything to go by I can safely predict that from here on in not only will Moortown Baptist Church itself be awash with it but so too will lots and lots of local homes.
https://youtu.be/4cyfXvRcWCg
Engage with ENGAGE and discover how from Ukraine to Sudan and from Mozambique to the Thai-Burma border BMS World Mission is transforming lives
Originally called The Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen, BMS World Mission as it’s now known works among some of the most marginalised and least evangelised people, in some of the most fragile places on earth.
Its aim is to bring life in all its fullness through seven key ministries: church, development, education, health, justice, leadership and relief.
Founded in 1792, BMS alongside a whole raft of partner organisations now works on four continents and is supported by both individuals and by local churches from not only here in the UK but across the world.
Over the years, here at Moortown Baptist Church we have not only seen a number of our members go off to serve with BMS World Mission, we’ve supported them as individuals and the society itself in a number of different ways.
For instance some of us make one off or regular donations, even more have signed up to the BMS Birthday Scheme; on your birthday you receive a card but you send BMS a gift. We collect postage stamps, get sponsorship for fun runs etc. or we host Coffee for a Cause events.
Nowadays the best way to keep up to date with everything that’s happening with BMS World Mission is to sign up to receive its ENGAGE magazine. Published totally free of charge three times a year you can arrange delivery either through the post or on line by visiting https://www.bmsworldmission.org/get-involved/stay-informed/engage/
Recently, during a morning service Roger Robson the BMS World Mission Secretary here at MBC gave us an update on our contact with and support for the organisation. If you missed Roger’s presentation or you feel this is something you could support please have a word with him.
The most recent edition of ENGAGE, Issue 40, comes complete with a 2018 Prayer Guide. Although, sadly, for security reasons some World Mission workers must remain anonymous this in addition to highlighting 365 prayer points really does personalise matters by not only introducing us to a number of individuals and families but also to the specific projects they are involved with.
Messy Social – give it a whirl, 3pm this coming Sunday
Our first new style Messy Church – Messy Social is at 3pm this coming Sunday, 28th January. This will be an opportunity to hang out, play pool, table tennis, football, board games etc. All that and a hot meal!
As you would expect we are always glad of more help so if anyone would like to get involved in our Messy Church team please see Cas or Graham.
