John Sherbourne

To listen again to Graham and Margaret’s welcome, and to find out how you can add your ribbon to MBC’s prayer feature please click HERE 

Then to switch over to our pre-recorded YouTube channel and meet up with all these people HERE

Following the MBC ‘Re-set’ item published on the church website on 28^th August which you can read by clicking HERE  Sunday services will continue to be shared online and we are looking at how we can offer a service in the building in harmony with this. How we share services is a priority and in this way we believe that we will be a church open to the community in the widest possible way. Currently, we are working on what needs to be in place in terms of volunteers, equipment and support. This is the most complex meeting to run and so there is no date set for using the building for Sunday services just yet.

We will keep you updated on the progress we are making. Meanwhile, we are offering a couple of ‘pilot’ activities in a safe and meaningful way.

We shall open the Music Room on two occasions during the week from:

Monday 5^th October 10am-12pm for prayer offering 30 minute bookable slots

Friday 9^th October 10am-11am for bible study

We are listening and learning and so wish to know if these times for prayer and Bible study are accessible for you or would another time be better.

Safety in numbers

As the MBC building is a ‘Designated Place of Worship’ we do not need to conform to the ‘Rule of Six’, however we do need to decide safe numbers on the basis of capacity in the room.  We can offer 12 seated spaces for each session in the Music Room.

The layout of the room for each activity will be arranged in order to comply with social distancing guidelines.

Booking your slot

The slots would need to be booked in advance by contacting the church office on moortown.baptist@btconnect.com or calling 0113 2693750 and leaving a message. Someone will then get back to you and confirm your slot.

For the Monday prayer, please book by 12 noon on the preceding Thursday.

For Friday Bible study please book by 12 noon on the preceding Monday.

Other lockdown restrictions

It is possible that rules may change and local lockdown measures may be put in place. This will mean that our plans and programmes are subject to change.

Our priority remains to be a safe, meaningful and open church.

Doing it safely

Those who are attending will be required to:

• To confirm that they are free from COVID symptoms. You will be asked at booking confirmation and also on arrival at the activity.
• Wear a face mask. A face mask must be worn by anyone over 11 years old prior to entering the church building, unless you are exempt from wearing one. The bible study leader/s will wear a face shield.
• Use the hand sanitiser provided
• If possible to have been to the toilet prior to coming to church. The disabled toilet and the one next to it will be available if needed but would need to be cleaned and sanitised after use
• Bring their own bible/study material
• Tea and coffee will NOT be provided but you can bring your own and take your cup home with you
• Prayer sheets and study notes may be available in paper form. If attendees handle any such materials they will be required to take their copy home with them and not leave anything on the premises
• Once the activity has finished attendees will be encouraged to move on promptly to minimise the risk of contact and spread of infection.

Data Protection/Privacy

Attendees will need to be signed in and out of the building and to provide contact details for NHS track and trace purposes. In line with guidance issued by the Dept. of Health, we will keep your details safely and in compliance with GDPR legislation for 21 days before securely disposing of or deleting them. We will only share your details with NHS test and trace, if asked, in the event that it is needed to help stop the spread of coronavirus. We will not use your details for any other purpose or pass them on to anyone else.

Small groups – meeting at home or outdoors

Home groups and other small groups can continue to meet in safe ways. This may mean a video call, walks or meetings outside. Some groups have met in homes.

We ask to you observe the recommended safety measures when meeting. Whilst church meetings for worship are exempt from the “rule of six”, we recommend that numbers are limited to six in homes.

We are piloting use of the building for small groups to see if we can offer this to homegroups.

As a church, we can provide you with the latest guidance for safe meeting.

These guidelines are in place to ensure your safety and the safety of those around you.  We very much look forward to hearing from you and hope to see you soon.

Every blessing

Ministers, Leadership Team and Staff

We are continuing to carefully and prayerfully plan the refreshing of Moortown Baptist Church through the autumn. As we look forward we are seeking to blend different ways of being church with use of the building. In doing this we know that  strengthening contact among the church community with reaching out is our priority.

In this we are continuing to listen to what God is saying to us and to one another’s experiences, expectations and insights.

As part of this process we’ll be asking questions across the whole church over the next two weeks, and encouraging your feedback on this.

Our ministers, Graham and Shona, are both on a phased return to work.

Graham is preaching, working alongside teams and visiting. He can be contacted in the usual manner.

Shona is preaching and connecting with people. She can be contacted by phone or email and will get back to you.

We shall be back in touch with you on what we have learnt and any plans/updates.

Every blessing

Susie, Shona, Shelley and Graham

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.