Provides Loans to Any Baptist Church for Capital Projects
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Illu stra tions : Marin a Mandar ina | shutterstock.com and freepik.com www.baptistbuildingfund.org.uk The Fund (established in London in 1824) provides loans to any Baptist Church for Capital Projects. The maximum loan is £250,000 per Church, interest free, repayable over ten years by half yearly instalments. At the end of the repayment period Churches are expected to make a thank-offering to the Fund - to enable us to cover administration costs and to increase the Fund so that more Churches can be helped with loans. Projects for which the Fund makes loans are usually one of three types: Repairs and renovations to existing Church buildings including updating heating systems and conversion to 'Greener' energy Purchase of a building for Church use New buildings or extensions Please visit our website at www.baptistbuildingfund.org.uk where you can view more pictures from some of the projects which the Fund has been able to assist. If you require further information or have any questions that you would like answered please feel free to contact our Secretary:- David Leverett FCA Crugybar 66 St Mary's Road Kettering Northamptonshire NN15 7BW Tel: 01536 522276 email: [email protected] Registered Charity No. 218823 CONTENTS FEATURES 6 Faith, teamwork and You 14 prayer Bob Morris explains how a youth just don’t club has grown know how Pioneering with children 16 How Baptists are nurturing our weird children and young people church is It’s Messy but it’s Church Nick Lear considers pressures children and young people in our churches face 18 Jacky Storey on Messy Church - more than a bridge back to ‘real church’ Stuck at home, nowhere to go Organising Chaos Faith that Sticks 12 A ministry to serve families whose 22 Sian Hancock takes the ‘school’ children are on the autism spectrum out of Sunday Baptists, children and 24 communion A reflection from Andy Goodliff 28 A home for every child who needs one Age shouldn’t be the most important By Kirsty McIntyre from Home for factor in youth ministry - Andrew Ginn 26 Good Family Time 30 A vital investment for the future, REGULARS says Rob Parsons 10 The crucial role of 38 Prayer and Worship Ideas 32 And what does the Lord pastoral friendship Some popular ideas from Prayer require of you? General Secretary: Lynn Green Spaces in Schools Harnessing a passion for social justice, by Amy Wearing News BMS World Mission 40 News from around our Union 34 A BMS Action Team in Uganda 36 Resources Focus feel ‘It’s not an option not to help’ Baptist People Four all-inclusive resources to 42 Pauline Anderson - Family help people of all ages explore Events Worker at Loughborough Baptist 35 Special events for your church their relationship with God Church SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION Order your own copy of this magazine via annual subscription - starting with the current or next edition. Single copy subscription: £6.60 for three editions (Spring, Summer and Autumn) Multi copy subscription: £58.00 for ten copies of each of the three editions (Spring, Summer and Autumn) See www.baptist.org.uk/shop to order your subscription, or buy individual copies 3 Church for Everyone Photo: KudryashkaPhoto: | shutterstock.com This edition of Baptists Together gifted. Everyone potentially has a role, Bob Morris offers magazine is themed around children, from supporting parents, mentoring, another explanation in his young people and families (CYF) – participating in Messy Church or youth piece about the growth of the Fusion and how exciting to be able to share groups, to anything else that helps youth club (p14 ). ‘My definition of so many examples of commendable them respond to and understand the teamwork’, he writes, ‘is to get people practice and enlightened thinking invitation to follow Jesus. around me who are not like me.’ across the country. In the pages that follow we are confident you will find a This echoes the findings of the Children’s, youth and families worker? rich mix of articles and resources. Evangelical Alliance when it looked into We all are. May there be something the exodus of children and concluded in the stories and ideas in this edition Amid the variety, a distinct theme ‘It takes a whole church to raise a child’.1 of Baptists Together to encourage and emerges. Raising children and young challenge you, and those around you. people in the faith is a wonderful but difficult privilege, not one simply to 1 www.eauk.org/church/campaigns/ be delegated to a leader, however whole-church The Editorial Group EDITORIAL GROUP: PRODUCTION TEAM: Baptists Together Stephen Keyworth Paul Hobson is produced three times per year by: Michele Mahon Mike Lowe The Baptist Union of Great Britain Colin Norris Mary Parker Baptist House, PO Box 44, 129 Broadway, Colin Pye Tracey Vallance Didcot, OX11 8RT Tel: 01235 517700 Jonathan Somerville Email: [email protected] Ruth Whiter Website: www.baptist.org.uk Registered Charity Number: 1125912 Contact [email protected] for a plain text or braille version of any articles. Further copies LETTERS: For additional copies and subscriptions, see We welcome your views and ideas for future editions of Baptists Together. Write to www.baptist.org.uk/shop the Editorial Group at [email protected] or using the Baptist House address. For an electronic copy, see www.baptist.org.uk/baptiststogether The views of individual writers expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Group or Baptists Together. To advertise in future editions Please contact Tracey on 01235 517711 or Photo credits: Unless otherwise stated, photos are taken from Baptist Union archives email [email protected] Facebook “f” Logo CMYK / .ai Facebook “f” Logo CMYK / .ai Printed and distributed by Verité CM Ltd www.facebook.com/baptistuniongb @baptistuniongb www.veritecm.com Baptists Together is printed on paper which is fully FSC Certified 5 You just don’t know how PRESSURES CHILDREN FACE weird church is Photo: Freepik.com Photo: Playing sports, going shopping – or sitting in a pew? Staying in bed, watching Youtube – or singing hymns? Living a distinctive life as a follower of Jesus; but still wanting to fit in with your peers. We really shouldn’t underestimate the pressures the children and young people in our churches face. By Nick Lear he BBC TV programme Top I wonder if many children in our orange squash. Their friends are living Gear has been immensely churches look at what their friends do the Top Gear experience while they popular, attracting some on Sundays with the same amount are Sunday drivers. Be honest, which of the top viewing figures of envy. Their friends get to stay in would you rather do? Can you imagine for BBC1. Despite the bed / play games / enjoy sports / go trying to ‘sell’ church to your school well-publicised issues shopping / watch YouTube / and so friends the next day? Most adults in Twith the presenters the show remains much more. Church-attending children churches have grown so used to what popular and its return was eagerly get up early, go to a service, sing songs we do that we don’t realise just how awaited. Cars are driven to places and hymns, sit through a lesson, hear weird church is for the vast majority of and in ways that cars have never been about events that happened thousands people in our country, even more so for driven before. They are driven around of years ago and drink over-diluted children and young people. a track at maximum possible speeds. Cars are used unconventionally: as darts; converted into amphibious vehicles; and so much more. The show at an early stage in their life does things with cars that the vast many children and young people in church majority of us will never do, but the big kid inside me would love to do. are being asked to make the sort of decision Yet all I ever get to do in my car is that many of us adults don’t have to face pootle around on the roads within the speed limits. – choosing between their friends or their faith 6 PRESSURES CHILDREN FACE Ten years ago I became aware of pressure they are under should not statistics that showed that children be underestimated – pressure from were disappearing from our churches at parents to attend church (and perhaps a faster rate than ever before – 25,000 in to make a commitment to Jesus); ten years! It prompted a national prayer pressure from their church leaders to day named On Our Knees. Drawing live a distinctive life as a follower of upon feedback from participating Jesus; pressure from their peers outside churches about the answers they’d church to conform to their values and received to their prayers, a strategic lifestyle; pressure from within not to response emerged. But ten years At an early stage in their life many upset anyone and not to stick out from on the difficulties of raising children children and young people in church the crowd. Is it any wonder that some and young people in the faith are still are being asked to make the sort of of them adopt a chameleon lifestyle present, even if churches have made decision that many of us adults don’t where they change how they are (and changes. Their experience of church have to face – choosing between their who they are) to blend in with their is alien to their friends and potentially friends or their faith; a choice that surroundings? Is it any wonder many alienating them from church. may make the difference between parents have a struggle to get their popularity and mockery.