John Sherbourne 
On Sunday July 12th, in church between 3 and 5.00pm we’re hosting a Cream Tea with all proceeds going towards supporting our Romanian friends. There will be cream/jam scones and tea/coffee or juice.
If anyone would like to help Karen in the kitchen then please let her know – you would need to be at church from 2.00pm to set things up and get the scones ready.
Last Sunday, as we basked in the sun on Alwoodley Village Green more than 250 miles away, in Dorset, over 1,000 people came together to celebrate a mass baptism service.
The venue was Bournemouth beach and the event which was hosted by BCP Church Collective – a group of 14 churches from Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole – saw 43 people baptised not in a conventional baptistry like ours but in the sea.
Last Sunday, however, was only the first of two special services; the second is this Sunday (the 28th of June) when organisers confidently expect last year’s total of 92 baptisms watched by well over 1,300 people will be exceeded.
Summing up the event, one the organisers, Tim Matthews who is the senior leader at Lovechurch in Gervis Road, Bournemouth said: “In a time of such uncertainty, with so much bad news around, the beach baptisms are a sign of great hope for everyone.”
Many thanks to Jean Carlise who spotted this post on social media and passed it through to me, and also to BCP Church Collective for allowing us to use their pictures.
They may have been a long time coming but I’m glad to report that MBC’s kitchen now has a new fridge and a new cooker.
Used by many of our groups, from Stepping Stones right through to Lunch Club, these new arrivals will ensure that when it comes to keeping up with health, safety and food hygene requirements we’ll continue to excel.
Following on from the success of our previous Create your own Psalm sessions, ad-hoc groups of arty and not so arty enthusiasts, we’ve arranged two more.
The first is this coming Wednesday between 7 and 9pm, that’s July 1st here at church, which if it’s anything like previous sessions will produce a host of wonderful, thoughtful and individualistic creations. And the second – on Sunday July 12th and starting at 6.45pm is a particularay exciting venture because it’s being organised and led by our young people.
As with the Wednesday session, this one isn’t looking to discover the next Rembrandt, Hockney or Banksy. On the contrary all it’s designed to do is to simply provide time, space and more materials than you can shake a stick at in order to challenge and maybe develop your thinking in a relaxed easy going way.
If you’re interested in coming along to either or indeed to both just turn up on the day. You never know you may just discover you have a hidden talent.
What more civilised way to spend a lovely summer’s day than to sit and relax in a colourful church yard, enjoy a coffee and savour a delicious bacon sandwhich.
And that’s precisely what the dozen or so volunteers who turned up today (Saturday) did.
The only thing I forgot to mention, though, was that for a good two hours before it was time for their releaxing break they had been stripping back hedges, digging out tree stumps, painting benches and doing some much needed weeding in MBC’s garden.
Many thanks to all who turned up, your efforts are very much appreciated.
Looking back through some (very) old pictures I came across this one. Judging by the way our young people are dressed I must have taken it the same day as the other one we posted a few weeks ago.
Again featuring a couple of MBC stalwarts, Rod and Roger, on this one we also find Vince Smith, Jean Russell, Roger’s brother Richard and again Madeline Stobbs.
If any of you have any old pictures that show someone who did or for that matter still does attend Moortown we’d love to see them, and if it’s OK with all concerned post them on here.
If so either pass them on to John Sherbourne or email them to him at mbcnewspics@gmail.com
www.moortownbaptistchurch.org.uk
Following Jesus and serving the community
Lasting for just over an hour our Sunday Service starts in church and on YouTube at 11am. The first Sunday of each month is Café Church and on the third Sunday we celebrate Communion.
An important part of our weekly worship is Sunday School. Here a small group of young children learn all about Jesus and the love of God.
Rounding off Sunday we have Rock Solid. Meeting between 7 & 8pm and majoring around having fun, Rock Solid regularly sets our teenagers some serious and not so serious challenges and tasks.
Monday… Our free Warm Space Beacon Café, 10am to 12noon.
Tuesday… Stepping Stones, a toddler group 10 to 11.30am.
Tuesday… The first of our Housegroups, only this one is in church between 12noon and 2pm.
Wednesday… 10.30am – 2pm. Lunch Club, games, quizzes and always a hearty lunch for our seniors.
Wednesday… 7.30 to 9.30pm. Our hybrid Housegroup. With half the group meeting at church and the other half online.
Wednesday… 7.30pm – 9.30ish. Ladies Housegroup in the comfort of someone’s home.
Wednesday… 7.30 to 9pm. Country Dancing.
Thursday… 2pm to 4. Open Door Craft Group. Our second Warm Space of the week. No experience needed, Free refreshments and always lots of chat.
Thursday… 7pm to 9pm. Bible Study, in church.
Friday… 10am to 11am. A second Bible Study, again in church.
Friday… And finally, between 8pm – 10pm, another Housegroup, again in someone’s home.
In addition to all this we also host or provide a Pastoral Team, which without overstepping the mark provides confidential support to anyone who needs it, we host a Parkinson’s Exercise Class, two Extend Exercise Classes (ideal for our older friends), Pilates, Pathways, a Christian Counselling team, Leeds and Moortown Furniture Store, PACT (Neighbourhood Policing Teams) and local councillor surgeries. In addition, and particularly at certain times of the year we host special Services such as those associated with Easter, Nativities, Christingles, Baptisms, Mission weekends etc. etc.
For more information about Moortown Baptist Church please email
admin@moortownbaptistchurch.org.uk
Moortown Baptist Church. 204 King Lane, Leeds LS17 7AA
Once again Rod’s Summer Tours have swung into action.
This one, which took place on Friday was to Whitby and I’ve been assured by the driver that “a good time was had by all.”
Nine years ago, on the same day that the ITU World Triathlon Series hit Leeds, Gareth Davies, a member here at Moortown and also Chair of the Leeds and Moortown Furniture Store took part in a slightly less exhausting challenge called The Sprint Triathlon, which was made up of a mere 1500 meter swim in Roundhay Park Lake, a 20km bike ride and finally a 7.5km run.
Well this Sunday, that’s June 7th, Gareth is at it again only this time the event takes place in Chester. In essence The Deva Centurion 100k is pretty similar to the 2017 event in that it’s a 2km swim, a 80km bike ride and a 18km run but on this occasion Gareth is swimming, riding and running in aid of one of MBC’s most respected home grown projects: The Leeds and Moortown Furniture Store.
There’s a copy of a Facebook post below that the Store’s General Manager Rachel Dodson is using to publicise the event, so should you be so inclined, the link you will need to sponser Gareth is right HERE
Fifteen years ago MBC mounted one of the most challenging projects in its then fifty six year history. It was called What Matters and it ran between Friday the 16th and Sunday the 19th of September 2011.
The object of the initiative was to ask not just the people we knew but local school children, churches and community groups to show and tell what matters to them.
After weeks of planning and prayer the result was an art installation of more than three hundred photographs which ran the height and width of the sactuary, alongside ten display boards that between them explored the myriad themes their captions revealed.
Without doubt, however, the longest lasting legacy of What Matters is The Wall.
Still there in our Sports Hall, what you see on The Wall is what you get when you ask forty or so teenagers to show you what matters to them. The answers, from clean running water to ten pin bowling, and from family and friends to recognising national flags was an illuminating insight into what they truly felt.
The next time you’re in church, why not pop into the Sports Hall and have a look at The Wall for yourself. And if you’ve got time, pause and look carefully at each of the painted breeze blocks and ask yourself what if anything has changed.
Oh and while you’re there you might like to take a minute or two to try and fathom out where the letters that make up the WHAT MATTERS headline came from.
But if you haven’t, don’t worry, here are the answers… WHAT MATTERS is made up of…
W = Waitrose
H = Homebase
a = Manning Stainton Estate Agents
t = Comet
M = Metro
a = a long gone Chinese takeaway on Stonegate Road
TT = Netto (in the Meanwood Shopping precinct
ER = letters taken from Marks and Spencer at Moortown
And S = Sainsburys
