Beeston Methodist Churches Together

A lot more is happening than perhaps is known about Beeston Methodist Churches working together.

The co-ordinating committee working towards getting the five churches in Beeston and Chilwell together have determined that we should do nothing separately that we can do together. We have an online diary to help eliminate clashes of events.

Hope NG9 is developing and has come from the desire to care for those in need which has arisen from the current economic climate. Food is distributed from the Hope Cafe and clients are helped in different ways.

The Benevolent Society has helped the needy in Beeston and Chilwell for over 150 years. Their main source of income is from the Beeston Methodist Carol Choir singing around the streets of Beeston at Christmas.

Submitted by a Guest blogger at The Wesley Guild meeting 24 January.

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Thoughts on the web

Worldwide web means just that, for when an internet site goes live it can be viewed anywhere in the world by anyone who has access to the net. It is therefore incumbent on those who have responsibility for controlling websites to ensure that:

  • the site shows their organisation in the most positive light, emphasising its successes rather than its failures
  • nothing is put on the site which is contentious or inflammatory, with a request for comments thus encouraging others to reply in a derogatory manner denigrating the organisation
  • the church does not ‘wash its dirty laundry’ in public, thus giving the world a false impression about the organisation.

The worldwide web can be a good servant and used in the right way spread the gospel; but it can also be a bad master and very, very dangerous.

Submitted by a Guest blogger at the Wesley Guild meeting on 24 January.

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Change from Despair to Hope

As part of a pulpit exchange for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity our visiting preacher was the Curate of Christ Church, Chilwell, Rev Sonia Barron.

Her theme was ‘We will all be changed’ and the service  included a children’s address with a video-clip from ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’.

Change became Hope with illustrations of daffodil bulbs: dry bulbs to a flower. Her own personal tragedy highlighted the message of change and hope. Her clear delivery was well received and made the service readily accessible to all.

Submitted by a Guest blogger at the Wesley Guild Meeting on 24 January.

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We will all be changed

Today is one of the few Special Sundays in our church calendar when a particular concern takes precedence over the common lectionary in determining the theme of our main worship service. This is the Sunday that falls within the octave of Prayer for Christian Unity, traditionally observed in mid-January between the Feasts of the Confession of St Peter and the Conversion of St Paul. So we have a visiting preacher from one of the local Anglican churches and our own minister is reciprocating elsewhere.

The particular flavour of the international celebration this year is the hope of transforming unity. “Change is at the heart of the ecumenical movement. When we pray for the unity of the church we are praying that the churches that we know and which are so familiar to us will change as they conform more closely to Christ. This is an exciting vision, but also a challenging one. Furthermore, when we pray for this transforming unity we are also praying for change in the world.”

You can read a summary of our Ecumenical activities here, but I don’t believe that we can take particular pride in our efforts in this sphere. We are struggling rather to put flesh on last year’s Church Council resolution to work towards closer ties with neighbouring Methodist churches. How much harder will it be to work effectively with clergy and congregations of other denominations, especially when there appears to be little more enthusiasm there than we ourselves show?

One ray of hope is the grass-roots level work with the Hope Café in Beeston, a joint enterprise between the churches, which is providing care for homeless and hungry people in the town. Another example of actions speaking louder than words?

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We three kings of orient are…

 I was somewhat surprised to receive, on January 6, a “gift from the Three Kings.” In our household we normally mark the twelfth day of Christmas only by packing away the decorations and sweeping up the needles from the drooping tree. No reading of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”, no touring Sternsinger or other mumming and wassailing.

Methodists should not, however, neglect the insights written into Matthew’s nativity narrative [ch. 2] of the visit of the magi to the infant Christ in Bethlehem. Making a long journey from the east following some celestial sign, they brought treasured gifts and offered homage fit for a king. These eastern Gentiles, like Luke’s Jewish shepherds, had somehow divined the special character of Jesus. Christ’s incarnation was not just for the Jews, but for the world: for us all.

In continental Europe, January 6 is celebrated nationally and even politically. After David Cameron’s recent defence of Britain as a Christian country, we might hear even more about Epiphany in future years. The card manufacturers might catch on to it too!

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