Our Vision 2013: Mission

Our Vision 2013: Discipleship

Our Vision 2013: Networks

Walk Humbly with your God!

Welcome to 2013, and happy New Year! But before we rush on, let’s reflect on the last month of Christmas services. They were well attended, there was creativity and consistency. A big thank you to my clergy colleagues, the worship team, the church wardens, stewards, the welcome team and the army of volunteers!  A special thanks must go to Joanna Pearson, who planned everything, and Kim Mason, who delivered the detailed organisation.

I believe that in 2013 the Lord is calling St George’s to consolidate.

I love Eugene Peterson’s phrase, ‘a long the obedience in the same direction’. Sometimes in life we need to just keep going! I think that’s where we are at right now.  We have a clear vision in sharing life, loving Leeds. We have a new structure for our community life through networks. We have found a great way to make solid, lifelong, Christian disciples through the Academy of life. We have two ambitious projects; sending a team, led by Joanna, to work alongside St Augustine’s church, Wrangthorn; also setting up ‘St Barnabas Theological Centre’ to train leaders for the CofE in partnership with St Michael le Belfry York and St Thomas Crookes Sheffield.

Consolidation means doing what God has asked us to do, and working together to make it solid. It means declining to take on other initiatives that are costly in terms of time, staff energy, or money.  Consolidation means balancing our budget; paying for what we’ve already got, before seeking to expand again. It means keeping our staff team at its current size. It means being disciplined in not taking on new things, unless we can identify old things to stop. Consolidation is good, because it allows us to catch up with one another, and catch our breath.

The verse I have for St George’s in 2013 is Micah 6:8 ‘walk humbly with your God’.May God give each of you grace, to walk humbly with him in 2013.

God bless.

Jonathan

 

Jan/13: Pray for…

Pray for…

 

• St George’s to “walk humbly with your God” in 2013.
• John and Michelle Walker to settle in well.
• Consolidation of Networks; Academy of life; Wrangthorn; St Barnabas Theological Centre.
• Pray also for our gift day on January 27^th , for 50 new monthly givers and an extra £65,000 to balance the budget.

Jan/13: Thank you for…

Answers to prayer:

Christmas services

… Thank you for all the visitors to Church over the Christmas period and for the teams at St George’s that put it all together.

… for people’s openness to hearing the gospel message, when it is put in words they relate to.

St George’s Worship team

… Thank you for the effort put into Contemporary Carols which
attracted over 1200 people in one day!

 

Jan/13: Mission Partners

Andy and Uta Buckler

Andy works for the French Reformed Church (ERF) in Paris with responsibility for training and ‘formation’ which involves him in visits to other churches to encourage them in evangelism and church growth.

In their latest prayer letter Andy and Uta write: “We feel God has honoured our desire to immerse ourselves in the French culture (and church!). But it has not all been easy dealing with the spiritual and cultural issues posed by living in a foreign culture”

We give thanks that their children are settling into new schools, especially that Daniel is getting on well having moved to a school in the UK. Please pray for the family as they decide whether a UK-based education is best for Daniel in the longer term.

Please pray also for Andy and Uta as they seek to protect their children from a prevailing negative and cynical culture and are faced with the difficulty of putting their ‘faith at the heart of their family when anything religious is systematically excluded from school and society’.

Their prayer letter is a reminder of the real cost involved in mission
overseas – this family needs our prayers.

Israel/Palestine

The Israel/Palestine Network continues to liaise with the Jewish community. Some of us recently attended a synagogue service at the Etz Chaim synagogue where we were warmly welcomed. Five of us hope to discuss the Israel/Palestine issue with some of the Leeds Lobby Network – a group from the Jewish community who are keen to publicise the good things about Israel in the face of so much negative publicity. We had one afternoon of discussion in the summer and hope now to move on but in a different mode.

Four members of the network are considering whether to meet together on a more regular basis to pray together, perhaps monthly. In February five from the network will meet up with a group of people from Harrogate to make final arrangements for their two week mission activity based in Bethlehem; this will take place in the autumn.

We would ask people to pray for leaders to emerge in Israel and Palestine who will call their respective peoples to repentance, to accepting the need for difficult compromises and for people on each side, in the words of Rabbi Michael Lerner, to embrace the other.

To find out more about mission partners at St George’s visit our website.

Meet the interns: Christina

“Personally I’ve found being an intern an amazing opportunity and privilege – I’m really excited to see what God’s got in store for the rest of this year and beyond!”

Christina is a placement intern working at Holy Trinity Meanwood.

“Holy Trinity is a small parish church in North Leeds with both traditional and contemporary worship. I’d love to share a bit about what life as an intern looks like, how God’s been at work, and some of the highs and lows.”

“Life is… Busy, Exciting, Learning”

Don’t let anyone persuade you the internship is a relaxed year!

At Meanwood I work with Chris Orme, the vicar at Holy Trinity, and my role is really varied. I spend some of my week doing admin jobs and helping Chris in the office but I also co-lead a home group and help to run gather, the café-style church at HT. I help at a local lunch club for the elderly and also get to do some assemblies at the local primary school!

Alongside my ministry in Meanwood I spend 2 half-days down at St George’s, with the other interns, where we have training in leadership and study some theology. Being an intern is also about learning on the job – being stretched practically and eased out of your comfort zone, but it’s also about helping out and mucking in as part of the team!

I’ve found the past 3 months incredibly exciting: full of new experiences and challenges, and lots of new friends (as I didn’t live in Leeds before becoming an intern).

“God at work”

I’ve really experienced God’s grace and blessing so far this year: I’m loving my placement and feeling really useful. He’s provided for me in many ways – he’s given me great friends, an amazing choir to join (which has nothing to do with the church!) and has blessed me with lots of supportive family and friends. At Meanwood we’ve had some amazing answers to prayer over the last few months, including a renewed sense of unity between the traditional and contemporary congregations, the provision of a new young organist to re-energise the church choir, and much more!

“Highs and Lows”

One of my weekly highlights is helping at the lunch club, where I get to drink tea and make friends with the elderly people who come along. We chat, giggle, share a meal and sometimes play dominoes together which is always a lot of fun. Another highlight for me was the Interns Retreat day in November, the interns and spiritual directors took a day away from the busyness of life to listen to God and spend some time in silence and reflection; I found this really helpful and refreshing!
At the beginning of the year I think co-leading the home group Bible study was the most challenging part of my ministry, but God has really equipped and strengthened me in it over the past few months. Another challenge is being able to set aside time and energy to digest, process and apply all of the fantastic theology and training we receive. It’s so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day jobs, meaning ministry can be reduced to replying to emails rather than seeing everything as part of the bigger picture of spreading the gospel, building the church and bringing God’s kingdom!

Personally I’ve found being an intern an amazing opportunity and privilege – I’m really excited to see what God’s got in store for the rest of this year and beyond!

To find out more about the internship at St George’s visit our website.

St George’s go Walking

At St George’s there’s a wide range of ways to get involved, get connected with others to Share Life and Love Leeds.  Walking group led by Alison Oldfield (left) and Lindsey Pallant (right), is just one way to meet others and feel part of the Church.  But it’s also a great way to invite friends with a similar interest and build the Church.

 

 

 

 

The walking group have planned the walks for 2013.  You can find the guide on our website (below) or from the foyer in Church from Sunday 6th Janauary.

What is the St George’s walking group?

We think that walking is a great way of Sharing Life and getting to know one another, whilst enjoying the beauty of the Yorkshire Dales and the fabulous walking on our doorstep.

So a few years ago we set up the St George’s walking group.

We go out on the second Saturday of each month.  We usually walk in the Yorkshire dales and generally speaking the routes are between 10 and 13 miles (around 15-18km).  Usually the starting point for our walk will be within an hour of Leeds (although in the summer months we might go a little further afield).

Where have we walked?

Over the last couple of years we’ve walked in a whole variety of places across the dales and beyond.  Our recent walks have included:

• Covering the length and breadth of Wharfedale from Gargrave to Grassington, Ilkley to Ingleton, Settle to Skipton.
• Our famous “Kilimanjaro training walk” from Kettlewell up and across the hills to Buckden Pike which takes in views of the 3 peaks and 4 dales of Yorkshire
• Traversing the White Horse at Sutton Bank
• An annual walking weekend away which has taken us to Hathersage in Derbyshire dales, Whitby and the East coast and, this year, lovely Swaledale.

What next?

We are really excited about our programme for 2013!  We will be returning to some favourite haunts like Kettlewell and Grassington  but this year we are also planning some new adventures including scaling Roseberry Topping and hanging out with aristocracy at Castle Howard!  And in September we’ll be returning to the Derbyshire dales for a walking weekend away.

If you like walking then we’d love you to join us – whether you have been at St Georges for many years or have only just arrived.  Whether you are free every month or just occaisionally the walking group is a great way of making new friends and sharing fellowship together.  We’d love to welcome you.

To find out more about St George’s Walking group visit our website.

Winter with Take Off

Take Off Network are a group of small groups that meet under the flight path in north west Leeds.  Judith, one of the Network leaders, shared stories of the Network gathering together before Christmas.

“We seem to have been busy this term and I have discovered that having a programme set out has drawbacks as I seem to need to keep changing it!  We do all enjoy meeting up and i think it is important to arrange lots of events as not everyone can get to everything but most people can get to something! Events around food work well (after all, Jesus frequently met people over meals and miracles happened around food as recorded in the gospel)

“We have invited people who don’t belong to Small Groups to join in Netwok events”

This term we have had a meal at Thai Edge followed by a walk around Roundhay Park, an afternoon sharing food and making Christmas Hampers for Kidz Klub, and a Christmas Party.  Some members have attended Academy of Life and it has been good to do that on a Network Table.

“We are learning to grow close and to serve one another”

We have invited people who don’t belong to Small Groups to join in Netwok events to maintain a sense of connection – we would love to expand the Network as different people enrich the fellowship.

We are learning to grow close and to serve one another – and to have our corners rubbed off! Take Off is a work in progress and very worthwhile. Busy lives and other church commitments mean numbers are erratic both in groups and network.

We are exploring the possibility of a weekend away again this summer, either together or utilising the Women’s and Men’s weekends away respectively.  Other possible events include a “Song’s of Praise” type evening, meals no doubt, and an evening with one of the Staff hearing about their work or having some teaching.”

To find out more about Networks at St George’s visit our website.