Lavender Studio

305 London Road Leftwich Northwich CW9 8HA

Saturday 11^th November 10am to 5pm

Sunday 12^th November 2pm – 6pm: refreshments available.

Mixed media art £20 – £60. Tiles £4. Bookmarks £2.

In aid of MHA Chapelfields to Buy a Heavy duty wheelchair.

 
 On Thursday 19th October we meet in the SS room at 7.30pm. Peter Bridge will start by sharing his choice of an author or a book, then anyone else can share. Hope you can join us. Allan

Every tree in the forest will sing for joy when the LORD comes to rule the earth.

In October each year every Methodist Church in the land counts their congregation each Sunday. Then, in November, we look at the member changes over the last year. All this is used to put together what we call the statistics for mission for the Church. These figures give us a snapshot of how the church is doing. I have to say that nationally the figures are not great reading and in most churches across the connexion you can see a decline in membership and attendance. We in this church are bucking the trend a bit in that our membership is just about stable at the moment and attendances are just holding their own. This of course does not give us permission to be complacent. The truth is that there are a lot more seats in our Church which we could fill every week.

It seems to me that, while we are not growing, we seem to be attracting a few new people into the life of the Church here in Hartford. This is a good thing and we need to build on this so that we become an attractive church that people want to come to. It has been said to me by a number of newer people that, in general, we are a very welcoming church, which presumably is why these people continue to come. If that is the case we need to continue to build on that, remembering that welcome also means drawing people into the community of the church. This doesn’t mean that we give them a job, although if they want one why not? What it does mean is that we try and include everyone in the life of the church. I  also think we need to do other things as well. Newcomers and indeed old stagers won’t come very often  if our worship life is poor. We need to ensure that the worship in this church is as good as it could be and that it has a variety of styles that can enable us all to meet with God. What I am saying is that we need to think about what we do well and then to think about any improvements we can make.

Of course our primary concern isn’t about recruitment.  We are not here to recruit more members of Hartford Methodist Church; rather we are here to “Show God’s love to the people of Hartford and the surrounding area” and “to make more disciples of Jesus.” The core reason for the existence of any church is to help people to get to know Jesus and continue to be his disciples. This is the most important thing that we do as a church. It is probably our biggest challenge, but if we get this right then hopefully  more people will want to join us. The church should not be a recruitment organisation, it should be evangelistic  in outlook.

These are challenging times for all the churches, but I do believe that w have to look to God, do what we do well and think about how we help others to come to know Jesus.

God Bless Chris.

 

HARTFORD METHODIST CHURCH

Action for Children (NCH)

Coffee Morning

 On Saturday 4 November 2017: 10.30am – 12 noon

in the Methodist Church Hall

There will be a Cake Stall, Gift Stall and a Christmas Stall –so why not start your Christmas shopping early!! This is a lovely morning with time to chat and have a coffee as well as support one of our own charities. Contributions to any of the stalls are most welcome. Pat once again will be making a Christmas Hamper to be raffled on the day.

Tickets: £1.50   Available from members of the Ladies’ Fellowship.

Please support us by coming on the day!

ALL ARE WELCOME