Church News
News about recent happenings at Christchurch. This is organised as a blog, with the most recent news at the top.
New blog started
Posted on 6th December 2019
A new blog has been set up to give a platform for our ministers and worship leaders. To kick it off there are two sermons which I have been asked to post. Hopefully more will follow. The blog can be found under ‘News and events’.
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Harvest Festival
Posted on 3rd October 2019
We had an excellent Harvest Festival service last Sunday. Rev John Rackley, in his sermon, contrasted our outlook today with 30 or 40 years ago, when harvest festivals were a celebration of the abundance of food we enjoyed. Now, while remaining thankful for what we receive, we think more about floods, drought, climate change, and all the things which threaten people’s food supply. Closer to home the gifts of food brought to the harvest festival go to the Salvation Army food bank, to help those in our own locality who don’t have enough to eat. John urged us, as a church, to think about what we can do in the face of this climate emergency. At the local level we can set an example by our actions; at the national level the churches represent a large minority and can still have considerable influence.
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A Bumper Christian Aid Week
Posted on 13th June 2019
Members of Christchurch took part again this year in the annual Christian Aid house-to-house collection in the Knighton and Stoneygate areas of Leicester, raising £1391.82. This included one donation of £100! Collections in the church bumped the total to £1868.33. Well done all the intrepid collectors, and our thanks to Andrew Curry, who does all the organising. The weather was better this year than in 2018 too.
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Art Sale raises over £500
Posted on 4th April 2019
Last Saturday the Art Group and friends held a sale at Christchurch to raise money for this year’s chosen charity, Leicester City of Sanctuary, when over £500 was raised.
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Crossing the Road
Posted on 1st December 2018
The various Christian denominations in the Clarendon Park – Stoneygate area of Leicester get together through the South Leicester Christian Partnership and we are beginning to establish links with the other faith communities in the area. Last week our minister (Rev Edson Dube) shared breakfast with Rev Leigh Greenwood from Stonegate Baptist Church, Imam Latif from the Baitul Ikram Mosque and Rev Derek MacLean from the Methodist Circuit.
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Summer Saturday
Posted on 1st September 2018
The Summer Saturday art and crafts fair today was well supported and a great success. Despite being the first day of autumn (officially) it still seemed like summer. Members of the Wild Honey Tuesday group had been busy making knitted, crocheted and sewn goods for sale, also cakes, bread, jam, chutney and lunches. Other stalls had books, CDs and bric-a-brac. Marieko Terashi entertained with her piano recitals. The takings will go to support the work of the Wild Honey project.
Update: just heard that £550 was raised. Well done everyone!
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Toilet Twinning
Posted on 21st July 2018
The church’s chosen charity this year is Toilet Twinning (toilettwining.org). We take flush toilets in our homes for granted but 1 in 3 people around the world have no access to hygenic sanitation. This impacts their lives in many ways: frequent illness, children missing school, attacks on women. The Toilet Twinning charity invites us to twin our toilets with a newly built one somewhere else in the world, for £60.
Christchurch has 7 cubicles and we have now raised the £420 to twin them all, and have chosen 7 different places around the world. So when we have to go, the certificate on the wall reminds us how privileged we are in Britain.
Funds raised during the rest of the year will go to Water Aid (wateraid.org), which is a separate charity with similar aims.
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Annual Report 2017
Posted on 30th June 2018
Just realised that the 2017 annual report han’t been uploaded, although it was submitted to the Charity Commission last November! Still, better late than never, it’s there now, on the ‘About the Church page‘.
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A 50th Anniversary
Posted on 25th May 2018
A group of former Leicester University students who graduated in 1968 visited Christchurch this week. They were all members of the University Methodist Society (Methsoc) and worshipped at what was then Clarendon Park Methodist Church. They had a lovely sunny day for their reunion and were very interested to see the changes made to the church buildings and hear about what we are doing now. Christchurch still provides a place of welcome and support to students although Christian societies in universities have declined dramatically since 1968. The old denominational societies (Methodist, Anglican, etc) have all disappeared but the Christian Union is still active as is the chaplaincy in the Gatehouse.
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Unless the Lord Builds the House
Posted on 11th May 2018
In Space last Sunday we were led by Angela to think about Psalm 127 verse 1: Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labour in vain. To get us in the mode we were set to work building a church, or something symbolising the church, with a small selection of Lego©. You can see the results below! [read the full Unless the Lord Builds the House post]
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