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Page Note from the Elders 3
Loving God Music and Worship 5 Prayer 5
Serving the church AV team 7 Catering 7 Cleaning 8 Communion Preparation 8 Deacons 9 Flower Design 9 Pastoral Care 10 Safe to Grow 10 Transport 11 Treasurer 11 Welcome Team 12
Mission Craft Workshop 12 Discovery Steps 13 Elderly outreach 15 Healing Rooms 16
Jubilee Debt Advice Centre 16 New Life Ghana 16 New Life Book Club 18 New Life for Romania 18 Prison Fellowship Ethiopia 19 Schools Work 20 Soupa Trouper 20 Street Angels 21
Discipleship Bunch and Much 22 Churches Together Northallerton Area 23 Life Groups (Homegroups) 24 Ignite 25 Making Grown Up Disciples of Jesus 28 Marriage Team 30 Men @ New Life 30 The (yet to be named) social planning team 31 Support of young people away from home 32 TAFFY 32 Women’s Ministry 33 Youth 33
ContentsContentsContents
From the EldersFrom the EldersFrom the Elders Glen Cormack
A Year of Invitation
‘As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the Lake, for they were fishermen. ‘Come follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.’ At once they left their nets and followed him.’ Mark 1: 16-18
It seems almost too obvious to say, but perhaps that is why we need to say it: Jesus invited people to follow him. He did it all the time, everywhere he went. He invited all sorts of people to follow him. His intention as we see from his invitation to Simon & Andrew was that they would also invite people to follow him.
At Lead Academy in November, Michael Harvey from Back to Church Sunday talked to our Elders about the power of invitation. He pointed out that 80-95% of church attenders across the world have no intention of inviting anyone to church. We were shocked by this statistic and also challenged about how diffi-cult we find it ourselves to invite people to church.
Another more positive statistic from the Evangelical Alliance is that one in five people if asked by a friend to come to church would say yes! As an Eldership therefore, we have each personally committed to inviting ten people to church in the first half of 2016. We’d like to invite you to join us in that commitment by inviting six people to church in the first half of this year. Don’t worry about whether they will say yes or no. That’s between them and God. Our job is to simply invite people to join us in following Jesus here at New Life.
As we do that together we promise as a leadership team to work hard at making all of our services welcoming and engaging for people who do not normally come to church. Hopefully you’ve noticed a difference in the variety of contem-porary ways we are seeking to engage people in worshipping the Living God, but we would love your feedback.
Tell us how we are doing and how we can do things better. Speak to one of us with your thoughts or send an e-mail to [email protected]
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A recurring picture during our week of prayer & fasting in January was of the Fa-ther placing his hand of blessing on the life and witness of our church. In 1 Chronicles 4:10 Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, ‘Let your hand be with me.’ We sense that God’s hand of favour is with us right now. Doors are opening to us which have previously been shut. Opportunities to serve and bless our town through community partnerships with the police, council, schools, churches and other organisations are giving rise to opportunities to give witness to our faith in Jesus Christ.
This is very exciting because it is how Jesus and the early church operated and we believe it is how the Lord is calling us to work too. We are called to be like Jesus at the heart of North Yorkshire and we have to do that by carrying his values of love, faith, and hope to the people who are currently outside the church.
One of the speakers at Fresh Streams last month, Karl Martin from Central Church in Edinburgh, has two large signs in the sanctuary with 98% emblazoned on them. They are there to remind his people every Sunday why their church exists… For the 98% of people in their city who don’t go to church.
It’s time for the church in the UK to wake up and do something! So let’s get in-volved in our year of invitation.
Jesus says to us, ‘Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men and wom-en.’
And we pray to Him, ‘Dear Lord Jesus, draw people to join us at your cross in faith so that our lives may be transformed’.
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Showing our support for our persecuted brothers and sisters with Eddie Lyle and Open Doors
Loving God
Music and Worship Music and Worship Music and Worship Richard Cutting
Our team seeks to magnify the greatness of God in Jesus Christ, through the pow-er of the Holy Spirit by skilfully combining God’s word with music, thereby moti-vating the gathered church to proclaim the gospel, to cherish God’s presence and to live for God’s glory.
Highlights of the last year include the ongoing, dedicated service of the team members and the continuing development of the team’s younger members. We have seen the introduction of the regular Nights of Worship when we can enjoy longer opportunities to praise and worship God through song, and take time to listen to him and to receive from him. It has been great too to see the wonderful efforts of our Easter and Christmas choirs and musicians. We have been blessed by continued song-writing by various team members and opportunities to serve the local and national church; and we also recognise the continued blessing of God on the music at our services and meetings. We often feel we’re bringing a picnic when we should bring a feast - but Jesus does wonderful things with picnics, praise him!
Looking ahead, we want to continue to grow in relationship with Jesus, first and foremost – individually and as a team. We will also meet together more often as a team – for training, planning, encouragement, meals, etc. We will continue to work diligently on our gifts and talents so we can ‘play (and sing!) skilfully’. (Psalm 33:3) and develop young musicians providing opportunities for them to use their gifts in serving God’s people. We will also seek to add new members to the team.
PrayerPrayerPrayer (Prayer Ministry, Prayer Meetings, 24(Prayer Ministry, Prayer Meetings, 24(Prayer Ministry, Prayer Meetings, 24---Hour Prayer Room)Hour Prayer Room)Hour Prayer Room)
Elisabeth Jordan
The purpose of the team is to deepen and grow the prayer life of the church in all its aspects so that we are led and guided by the Holy Spirit in all we say and do, and are equipped to fulfil our calling as individuals and as a congregation. This involves personal support and encouragement through prayer ministry and also
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intercessory prayer for needs at home, at work, in our community and nation and throughout the world.
Highlights of the last year include:
Development of our Prayer Ministry Team. This has now become an integral part of the ministry on a Sunday morning and people continue to grow in con-fidence, both in ministering through prayer and the gifts of the Spirit and in receiving prayer. We praise God for healing, salvation, release, encourage-ment and many other answers to prayer!
Three 24-hour Prayer Rooms during 2015, culminating in October 2015 when we expanded into the Main Hall and had specific support from various Homegroups who put together a number of the 20 or so Prayer Stations. We’ve seen a definite growth in prayer awareness, crea-tivity in prayer and general prayer involvement across the church this past year for which we praise God!
The Monday night Prayer Meeting has seen increased attendance since the New Year. A weekly prayer point-er list from Glen has helped us focus on key areas and has been shared with church Partners who are no longer able to get to the meet-ings but want to be part of the hour of prayer. This has been a tremendous encouragement to all concerned and we have seen many answers to prayer.
Start of a second weekly opportunity to pray together with a Prayer Meeting on Friday mornings.
A wonderful Week of Prayer and Fasting in January which involved many of our church Partners and also the children and youth.
A five-mile Prayer Walk in July through the countryside and past significant landmarks in the Osmotherley area – we enjoyed great fellowship together and a very meaningful prayer experience.
Looking ahead, we hope to increase the reach and depth of our prayers in the fol-lowing ways: we have introduced prayer request cards in the foyer and on the web-site, which will be prayed for three times a week in our Prayer Meetings and Staff prayer; we aim to have more creative prayer on Sunday mornings for the church, our community and the world; and we will also follow a rhythm of “new season prayer” three times a year, with time set aside to seek the Lord as individuals and as a church in January, Spring and September (Annual week of Prayer and Fasting, 24-
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Prayer Station
hour Prayer Room, and half-week of Prayer and Fasting). Our forthcoming 24-hour Prayer Room will concentrate on prayer for the next generation and will closely involve our youth and children under the leadership of Greg Condon and Jen Holder.
Our next goal is to establish a permanent House of Prayer in Northallerton as God makes facilities available.
Praying Parents (Karen Hill)
Praying Parents have met on a fortnightly basis for the past 4 or 5 years. This has been a small group of parents who have come together to support and pray for one another and our children and has involved laughter and at times tears as we have journeyed with one another. The group is now entering a time of change as several of us have had changes in circumstances so that numbers have decreased over the past year. The feeling is that for now the group will cease to meet and we wait to see what God has in store for each of us.
Serving the church
AV teamAV teamAV team John Smith
As a team, we aim to technically facilitate worship and support other events. We have seen answers to prayer this past year. Apart from the obvious technical facili-tation, we have seen the team change and its members grow in the Lord. We thank the Whittaker family for all they have contributed over the last few years, and pray their ministry as a family will continue to bless them and others. We welcome the Stanleys and their fresh input to the team; and Peter Jackson has completed his ap-prenticeship and now makes a regular valuable contribution. Mike Sharp has picked up the “video baton” as can be evidenced by the quality of the latest videos. I feel there is a real opportunity here to reach out to the teenage/20’s generation through video content, first shown in church then on the website. We would welcome con-tent and ideas and help from anyone so inclined!
CateringCateringCatering The Catering Team serves all the church’s ministries by providing food, from light refreshments to full meals. We have been able to support a great variety this last
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year, whether it be for in house events, or for outreach: from the Alpha Course to New Friends’ Lunches; from Discovery Steps to Food for Thought; and from church parties to lunches for away days.
From January 2016, our team leader, Sylvia Greensit, is taking a six month sabbati-cal and we thank her for all that she has facilitated over the years apparently effort-lessly! We have a willing team of volunteers who are endeavouring to cover all the areas of oversight in her absence, as well as to cater for the church’s culinary needs, recognising that this ministry needs to keep going, because hospitality is such an important part of the church’s ministry, both to the fellowship and to the commu-nity. If anyone would like to offer their services to the team, you would be very welcome! For the moment, all enquiries relating to catering should be addressed to Susanna in the office.
CleaningCleaningCleaning Paul Maunsell
Our team serves the church by cleaning the areas and facilities being used in the church building and keeping an eye open for any areas which may require attention regarding maintenance, passing this information on to Steve Jackson and/or Terry West. During this last year, Marjorie Archer, Christine Moffat, Ken Ezard, and David Morell have excelled again with their faithful support and efficiency. Steve J’s and Terry’s prompt follow-up of various issues brought to their attention has been a real support and encouragement. It has been appreciated where clean-ing/tidying-up has been carried out by members of other teams after their various events – thankyou.
I believe God is saying to the team for next year “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be firm, steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing and being continually aware that your labour in the Lord is not futile (it is never wasted or to no pur-pose) 1 Cor 15:58.
Communion PreparationCommunion PreparationCommunion Preparation Marjorie Archer
Our ministry is to serve our Lord and the fellowship by preparing the elements and table. I would like to thank all the team for their commitment and flexibility and to thank Paul and Nora Maunsell who joined the team during the last year.
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DeaconsDeaconsDeacons Terry West
Our team exists to look after the building fabric. We are a small team who imper-ceptibly smooth the way for in-church ministries and services physically to operate as effectively as possible in our strange building. It’s one which doesn’t, for most of the week, lend itself willingly to our needs. However, considering it is about 80 years since building work started (war held up its completion) its robustness is proving most valuable.
The most significant work we have had done this last year is to cure the dampness in the crèche. This has involved replacing the high level gutter and the rainwater downpipes on that side of the building and repairing damaged brickwork. With the crèche now redecorated, the little ones can occupy it in more comfort.
Other completed tasks involved repairs to wind-damaged entrance canopy, boiler servicing, baptistery erection duties and significant numbers of more minor mainte-nance jobs.
Thank you everyone for looking after the building so well. Your care makes the deacons’ job so much easier.
Flower designFlower designFlower design Pat Lloyd
A small dedicated team places flowers in the church each week to glorify God and celebrate His wonderful creation. Highlights of the last year include arranging dis-plays to celebrate Easter, Harvest and Christmas.
Having shared the leadership for many years with Gill Cooper (Gill stood down in 2015) I feel the time is right to hand the baton over. Amanda Zelenka, a very en-thusiastic and dedicated member of the team has agreed to take on this role. I would like to thank the team for their dedication, support and encouragement. Most of the team have served for several years and would welcome new people to share this ministry. Please have a word with Amanda if you feel called to this ministry
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Harvest display team
Pastoral CarePastoral CarePastoral Care Elisabeth Jordan
We aim to bring encouraging, supportive and also crisis care as appropriate (through home and hospital visits, telephone and card ministry) to individuals and families associated with NLBC. This entails helping people practically, emotional-ly and spiritually and involves liaison with the Senior Pastor, Elders and Home-group Leaders to help in coordinating all aspects of pastoral care and to signpost people to other ministries where relevant. The Team also provides support through the Pastoral Care Prayer Chain.
Over the last year we have seen many wonderful answers to prayer as we have been privileged to support folk through some very difficult situations. A full re-view has taken place of every aspect of pastoral care provided throughout the church, looking at strengths, weaknesses and opportunities.
Looking ahead, we feel God is calling us as a team, along with the rest of the church, to grow and deepen the reach of our care for one another, and to make provision for those with more specialised needs. We are looking to train and equip those whom God is calling to join an expanded team which will be capable of meeting the needs of a growing church going forward.
Safe to GrowSafe to GrowSafe to Grow Helen Miers
Our aim is that all children, young people and vulnerable adults who have contact with NLBC are kept safe, and that the children, youth and vulnerable adults’ work is always conducted in a way which in seen to be professional by those within and outside the church.
As a team we continue to meet regularly for prayer and have offered support, ad-vice and carried out DBS checks when required. This past year those working with vulnerable adults in our church have attended a training module provided by Churches Child Protection Advisory Service (CCPAS) who also delivered a train-ing module in e-safety to children and youth workers .
As the work with vulnerable adults continues to grow within the church, the team has written a policy for all workers who minister to these people, which is to be added to the NLBC main Safe to Grow policy. In the coming year we are looking to develop more policies and guidelines, especially to cover residential visits by our young people and specific areas of the vulnerable adults’ work.
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TransportTransportTransport Dickie Elliott
Our team provides transport to and from church on a Sunday morning for young and old, and thereby encouraging one another as a church family to attend church. We also help with transport for the special quarterly services for older people, enabling people to attend who otherwise could not. I would like to thank the team who serve this ministry so faithfully!
TreasurerTreasurerTreasurer Jane Henderson
This has been a year of transition during which Malcolm Lloyd retired as Treasur-er in March 2015 after many years faithful service and Jane Henderson was ap-pointed as his successor. This has necessitated changes to accountancy systems and bank mandates - a busy time! The ministry of NLBC continues to expand and so our expenditure increases - the two main areas being on salaries (staff being our main resource) and mission both locally and overseas. We are blessed with having a faithful and generous fellowship whose sacrificial giving underpins this work, however we do have a deficit of expenditure over income for the year and we would like to encourage continuing generosity in the year ahead to support our vision and outreach.
Detailed figures will be available at the annual meeting.
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Regular Tithes & Offerings
Special Offerings
Gift Aid Recovered
Sundry Gifts
INCOME 2015
SalariesMissionary
Giving
Local Outreach *
Premises
Admin
Training & Conferences
Sundry
EXPENDITURE 2015
Welcome TeamWelcome TeamWelcome Team David Blades
Our purpose is to give people a warm welcome to all church services and to en-sure a safe environment, free of distractions so they can meet and worship God. Positive comments in our visitors book from people who may be visiting for the first time is to me a good indicator of the commitment we all share in fulfilling the church vision: first impressions are so important when people are looking to find a new place to worship. Thank you to all who help clearing chairs and put-ting out tables for afternoon and evening services.
Mission
Craft WorkshopCraft WorkshopCraft Workshop Shirley Foster
Craft workshop continues to serve the community through crafts. There is a reg-ular group of ladies from the community who join us and lots of fun, fellowship and creativity is enjoyed each Monday evening the course runs. Pam Durrant is now feeling her way sharing Scrapbooking. Sometimes we have the privilege of not only praying for but praying with a member of the group. We are also pleased to encourage our group to fill in the Church prayer request cards. It is a
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privilege sharing God's word each evening, which is led by one of the craft leaders.
In early October we had a wonderful time celebrating the 10th anniversary of Craft Workshop with an evening of games and a video giving thanks to God for the past 10 years, with coffee and anniversary cake. Many of the very first crafters returned for the celebration.
We thank God for Lesley Chapman who has taught crocheting from the beginning of Craft Workshop in 2005. Now she
shares her craft with those who live near her. As Lesley is no longer able to join us now we are looking for someone in Church who would like to take up the 'vacant post' teaching crocheting. Last but not least a big thank you to Paul Maunsell and his team for preparing the craft tables for us each week
Discovery StepsDiscovery StepsDiscovery Steps Steve Cowie
Discovery Steps is an outreach and discipleship ministry for anyone who is availa-ble during the daytime. It is held at the church on Thursdays and Fridays every
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Christmas lunch!
week between 12.00 and 2.30 pm. People from a wide range of backgrounds and with a variety of needs attend for friendship, fellowship and support. This is princi-pally for those who are exploring, or are new to Christianity and is a time of fellow-ship, starting with a meal at each session. This is followed by worship, Bible study, testimonies, discussion and prayer in an informal and relaxed atmosphere in Ravens.
This is the fifth year of this ministry, where we have again seen God has been at work in the lives of many of those who attend, for which we give thanks! More have come to faith, some have been baptised and others have been added to our church fellowship. We are now in regular touch with over 30 individuals and new people are joining with us regularly. We have a great team which has again expanded this year, thus enabling this ministry to happen week by week. We also take occasional trips out of town which is a great blessing. This year we have been to Osmotherley (for a walk and ice creams) and a day out in Saltburn.
This year has also seen a major step forward in our partnerships with local communi-ty groups and services outside of the church. North Yorkshire Horizons is just one of these. This is our local Drug & Alcohol Recovery Service, which now meets with its clients in our church building twice a week. I say a big thanks to everyone involved!
This ministry is an integral part of our mission to the local community - especially with individuals who have the greatest needs. Working in tandem with Soupa Troop-er, our Jubilee Debt Advice Centre and the Hambleton Foodshare we are building an increasing presence in our town and reaching more people with the love of Christ. We believe this is just the beginning of an exciting future for this outreach, and we pray that we will see more lives changed through faith in Jesus.
There are two main parts to our strategy for the coming year:
1. Greater partnerships with local community services and their leaders. Working together to serve our community and building bridges over which we can bring the love of Jesus and share the gospel.
2. More activities that are based outside of our church building and in the communi-ty itself.
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Saltburn
Elderly OutreachElderly OutreachElderly Outreach Mandy Lawley
The purpose of our ministry is to reach out to the elderly in our community, show-ing love and care with the sole purpose of them coming into a personal relationship with Jesus. We are always encouraged by the number attending the quarterly after-noon tea meeting and Food For Thought and have been pleased to see one or two new faces encouraged to come along with friends.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank especially Betty who has served faithfully on the team providing the beautiful flower arrangements for each table and is now stepping down. We are pleased to welcome Rachel Bainbridge to the team. We hope to continue as a team to be a blessing as we serve.
Healing RoomsHealing RoomsHealing Rooms Jean Davies
This ministry began in June 2009 and ended on December 2015. It was only made possible by the generosity of the Methodist Church who supplied three rooms in their building each week for free, and the church members who always made us very welcome. I would like to give thanks to everyone on the steering committee who helped launch this ministry, particularly Rev. Andy Bryer and Pastor Elisabeth Jor-dan who was my covering pastor.
I also want to give thanks to the team of volunteers who turned up faithfully each week to pray for the people. Their devotion and commitment was incredible, turn-ing out every week in snow, rain and sun giving their precious time to the communi-ty.
Every week we spent the first hour praying for the community and very often the team themselves needed prayer, so ministry was given to them, before we prayed for anyone else that came. Many of the team received healings including myself.
In the five and a half years we have functioned we had at least 383 ladies who visited and 258 men. We were amazed to find that people were travelling from Newcastle, Whitby, Hawes, Darlington, Stockton, Middlesbrough, Harrogate to receive minis-try. One lady in particular who travelled a long way said over the time of ministry she had gone from being suicidal to leading a team in her church. We were privi-leged to lead many to Christ and also to witness them receive the baptism of the Ho-ly Spirit and being released into the gift of tongues.
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In reading through the notes we kept I was able to remember that people wit-nessed to us their healings. Many people had miracles with eyes, ears (various complaints such as tinnitus, loss of hearing), Sinus, neck, shoulders, arms, back, hips, chest, legs, knees, ankles, feet, depression, suicide, addictions (one being heroin) leukaemia, cancer, emotional healing, pancreas, family restoration, sleep pattern restored. I could enlarge on this and tell you numbers such as 12 with eye problems, 15 with neck problems, but it is enough to say that everyone that came received wonderful ministry from the team. Each one of these miracles changed their lives. Many people came very distressed, but left filled with the peace of God, many witnessing absence of pain and now able to use their ankle or arm without pain.
Lastly, even as this season has finished, we are looking forward to the next season, where people can make an appointment and receive one hour of personal prayer into their situation, hopefully hosted at NLBC.
Jubilee Debt Advice CentreJubilee Debt Advice CentreJubilee Debt Advice Centre Betty Mattison
Jubilee Debt Advice Centre is part of New Life Baptist Church and also supported by Community Money Ad-vice. We offer free, unconditional, face to face debt ad-vice to anyone who asks for help or who is referred to us.
With people’s prayer and support we have enabled people to take a step back and look at their finances and debts and begin to take control of their situation.
Jubilee continues to see people in their homes or the church by appointment, and in September we started a Drop-in every Wednesday morning in the foyer with the help of Eddie Cooper. Our clients include self-referrals as well as those from Horizons, Mental health and Children’s support teams. We continue to share Gods love to individuals in our community in a very practical way as we continue to help people with compassion to sort their finances, whether debt management or basic budgeting.
New Life Ghana New Life Ghana New Life Ghana Liz Foster
We support Pastor Osmond, an amazing man who has devoted his life to sharing the Gospel, leading people to Jesus and bringing hope to poor and needy children
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in Ghana. We have the privilege of working with him and touching the Father heart of God through our regular giving, visits to share in his ministry and our prayers. In particular, we contribute towards the costs of the Home of Hope, a children’s home for 30 children, and Fayef International School.
2015/16 has been a challenging year in many ways for Osmond and the New Life Ghana team as we move forward in supporting Osmond’s work in new and excit-ing ways.
The greatest sadness was the death of Naomi, Osmond’s wife in April last year. We were privileged that Osmond chose to come to Northallerton to find peace and comfort as he grieved. During his time here, we saw him encourage himself in the Lord and encourage others as he shared his testimony. A particular focus for him was sharing the story of his conversion from Islam to Christianity and the publication of his first book, ‘One Thing That Changed Everything’.
New Life Ghana celebrated its 10th anniversary and the joy of the first group of students finishing their education at Fayef Interna-tional School. With help from our supporters, each sponsored child has been able to start the next stage of their education. Howev-er, the cost of this far exceeded our expectations. Please join us in praying for the answer to this situ-ation.
We have also been praying this year for guidance on whether NLBC should link with one of Osmond’s churches in the very rural village of Honi. Again as a result of the generosity of individuals this year, we have helped the villagers to begin building a church to withstand the rains.
We continue to send Osmond funds to help him pro-vide a children’s home and an education for needy children who would simply be selling on the streets without his help. These funds also help to keep the school bus and Osmond’s car on the road, maintain the school and home and this year install electricity in
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Graduands 2015
Lady at Honi
the school. The borehole continues to provide fresh water – Osmond tells us that ‘nobody can put a price on the difference it has made to my life’.
We feel the Lord is saying “I want to move this project on – stay focussed and in-volve others; I have placed the people in Ghana to do this with you.”
New Life Book ClubNew Life Book ClubNew Life Book Club Sylvia Greensit/Liz Campbell
New Life Book Club aims to bring together a group of people, both church and non church, in a friendly and informal environment to dis-cuss a variety of books by different authors. We study various genres of books and read ti-tles that individual group members have en-joyed and recommended as “good reads”.
Several new people have joined us this year who are not members of NLBC and we have enjoyed discussing books as we get to know each other better.
In the year ahead we aim to encourage new members and continue to build closer relationships with each other as we endeavour to practically demonstrate the value of love towards one another.
New Life for RomaniaNew Life for RomaniaNew Life for Romania Joyce Bainbridge
New Life for Romania seeks to provide support to people in Romania who live in poverty and to share the love of Jesus in both word and deed.
We are happy to report that last year’s appeal went very well. We are thankful for all those who helped support the work in any way. In November 2015 we were delighted to be able to send a truck load of aid and shoeboxes to the Transylvanian region of Romania. A team of six people visited Romania shortly afterwards to help deliver some of the aid. In particular, it was a joy to visit families who are on the family project. Family boxes which were donated by home groups from NLBC were particularly well received. It was a privilege to be able to pray with each of these families and in certain cases feel a wonderful response. It was good to see that certain families have been able to improve their quality of life. While in Ro-
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mania, the team also visited some churches, an orphanage, a school and the hospital in Aiud.
We frequently and prayerfully review the Romanian project and are keen to continue the work. In particular, we wish to increase our relationships with the churches around the areas of Aiud and Simeria, where we have our main contacts. Pastor Steve is hoping to visit some of the churches within the next few months, and it is hoped that new links will be forged and old ones strengthened. We would like to explore new avenues, which could mean eventually changing ways of doing things. Our desire is lead people into a relationship with Jesus, in addition to providing them with much needed support
Prison Fellowship EthiopiaPrison Fellowship EthiopiaPrison Fellowship Ethiopia Jean Davies
Another exciting year in Ethiopia. Each year in February Rev. Kingsley Armstrong gives a conference to over 200 pastors of the churches in Ethiopia to enable and encourage them. In 2015 Jean Davies and Delycia Quinn were prayer support and were able to pray for and with many of the Pastors for their healing and help. Jean and Delycia then went on to visit nine of the prisons. When the gospel was preached, many came to Christ, prisoners received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and many were healed.
Jean and Delycia were able to check on the Refuge programme, which supports the children of the prisoners through sponsorship. We are currently sponsoring over 55 families. Many families are saved from starvation through this programme
Each year NLBC generously gives towards Bibles for the prisoners, it is wonderful to see the joy this creates when they receive their own Bible, which they would never be able to afford.
The projects of schools for the women and children are flourishing and some of the long term prisoners are now in adult education. Because of the progress the French Embassy have now stepped in to promote further education and are releasing a lot of money to enable this. The chicken projects are providing eggs and meat to the
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prisoners’ diet, also teaching skills, providing work, enabling them to have money to save towards when they leave prison to start their own businesses. The food projects are providing a balanced diet, plus skills, and money for families and later. The lat-est project that began, which was facilitated by Delycia Quinn was a crochet project in four prisons. The prisoners teach each other to do this, and then they are able to sell the products to make money for their families.
Last November, Mike and Rebecca Ducker gave a conference for the prison chap-lains, who are remarkable people: some have been prisoners themselves for their faith. Last year over 13,500 people came to faith through their ministry. The presi-dent is now a Christian and has asked Pastor Daniel to help eradicate FGM and child brides throughout Ethiopia. He has now made it law for all children to receive free education up to grade 4 and for all people to receive free health care at point of need. Pastor Daniel is also seeking out injustice throughout the prisons, implement-ing through Justice for All, release of wrongfully imprisoned people, the building of new prisons, legal aid, and intermediary hearings before court proceedings.
Schools workSchools workSchools work Jen Holder
Over the last 12 months the schools work has continued to be a blessing to the chil-dren’s ministry at NLBC. We go into all the local primary schools being asked to do collective worship. We have also had the privilege of being able to connect with the ‘Lift the Lid’ project. This project has enabled us as a church to equip some of the local primary schools with Christmas and Easter resources in order for them to teach about Christianity in their schools.
The roadshow continues to be a popular event, with all the local schools opening their doors each year to the team. This team changes each year, but it is such an amazing privilege to work alongside the young people that come and help.
My prayer for the schools work this coming year is to be able to support the schools with lessons and engage with any other projects that schools may be involved with in order to continue with building relationships.
Soupa TrooperSoupa TrooperSoupa Trooper Wendy Bousfield, Pat Lowes, Liz Hill
The purpose of Soupa Trooper is to be the outreach arm of Discovery Steps and is based in the community outside the church building. We take the good news of Jesus
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along with practical help and support out into our locality. We also support individuals who are in need, on a one to one basis.
Highlights this year have been working with a local pub, The Jolly Minister, where we have regular events to offer friendship and support to those in that area of Northallerton. There have been a number of these during the past twelve months including an Autumn BBQ and Christmas Carol Singing with hot turkey sand-wiches and trimmings. These have drawn huge support with over 100 locals attending on each occasion and we are building bridges with our communities.
Looking to the future, we feel it is time for further change and advancement. We will aim to continue to expand the relationships we have with our local communities and hold events outside our church building, to bless and support our communities demonstrating the love of Christ in a practical way.
Street AngelsStreet AngelsStreet Angels Steve Cowie
Northallerton Street Angels is a new church based part-nership brought about by request from North Yorkshire Police in response to our community’s concerns. By patrolling the streets between 10.00pm and 3.00am eve-ry Friday and Saturday night and interacting with people
on the streets and in night time venues, the Street Angles will be there to care, to listen, to talk and to offer friendly, practical help. Led by NLBC, members of our church along with the other churches in town, local community volunteers and North Yorkshire Police’s local Northallerton team will work together in this initia-tive to help contribute towards keeping our town a safe place. We will provide reas-surance to those out on an evening in town that help is at hand if they need it.
In achieving these aims we will be demonstrating the practical love of Jesus on the streets - being the Church on the streets and where appropriate we will share our faith. This new venture will be ‘commissioned’ on Sunday 3 April at NLBC and launched on the streets of Northallerton in May 2016.
With around 40 volunteers from within NLBC and beyond, we now want to take
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Carol singing at the Jolly Minister
this God given opportunity to serve our community and be the visible presence of Jesus on the streets of Northallerton
Discipleship
Bunch and MunchBunch and MunchBunch and Munch Greg and Jane Condon and Gillian and Tony Harrison
The vision for Bunch and Munch is to get the church to meet each other, make new friends, to widen friendship groups and increase fellowship via the medium of food!
We shared the idea and launched our first Bunch and Munch gathering in September 2015, the biggest highlight being the numbers – 76 people were in
that first draw. The plan is you put your name/the namess of those in your household on a card, those cards go into a hat (which is actually a giant cupcake!) and are drawn out in bunches of 3 households. These 3 households are given each others’ details and arrange between themselves when and where they will get to-gether for some food – meal or snack, in any location they like.
The church is a family and this is trying to organise more family meal times! Many people spoke to us saying the Christmas term was too busy but they’d sign up to the next one in 2016 and some others were hesitant and weren’t sure if it was for them and so would wait and see how it panned out and sign up to a later draw. We hope they will. All the feedback has been positive so far and people have been asking us when the next one is.
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We hope and pray in 2016 we’ll be able to do more draws. We hope God’ll use this to bring people in church closer together and feel more linked in and support-ed.
Churches Together Northallerton AreaChurches Together Northallerton AreaChurches Together Northallerton Area NLBC reps: Margaret Brice and Nigel Prince
Churches Together Northallerton Area (CTNA) continues to link together a wide range of projects and activities. The annual CTNA events went very well, as usu-al, with a good turnout for the Lent Lunches and the Walk of Witness at Easter and a well-attended Carol Service, despite the most challenging windy weather!
The Christian Aid street collection raised a total of £7283 with £525 of that being raised by a small but dedicated team from NLBC.
Under the CTNA umbrella United for Christmas provided a Christmas meal at the Town Hall for those who would otherwise not have one, and gave out 50 food hampers donated by Hambleton FoodShare.
One of NLBC church Partners, Margaret Brice, continues as the part time project co-ordinator for Hambleton FoodShare which is approaching the end of the third year of offering emergency food to the hungry: they have issued approximately 2,850 par-cels in total and are now expanding to help others further afield during this coming year. Thank you to all who faithfully contrib-ute food and financial donations and also to our wonderful pray-er supporters in NLBC. Please contact Margaret if you wish to be added to the prayer letter circulation.
The Contact Centre continues with its valuable work and is always keen to hear from anyone who wishes to consider volunteering. There have been external
changes which have impacted on this vital service and continued prayers would be much appreciat-ed for the team and families concerned.
The computer group continues and would wel-come new members who would like to learn more about the wonderful world of IT.
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Life Groups (homegroups)Life Groups (homegroups)Life Groups (homegroups) Oversight: Phil Hinton, Diana Lucas, Simon Miers
Being part of a Life Group (Homegroup) helps us to become more effective disci-ples of Jesus. We meet regularly to allow time for deeper friendships to develop, both with God and with each oth-er. In giving and receiving mutual support and encouragement, our aim is to grow and mature in our faith as we apply God’s word to our lives. Together we learn to listen to the Holy Spirit as he re-veals his plans and purposes, not only for us but also for our friends, colleagues and neighbours. We support each other in prayer & learn how to discern who God is leading us to draw alongside so that we can also play our part in encouraging others to come to faith.
As part of the church family we have spent time discussing and praying through our new Vision values of Love, Faith, and Hope. This ongoing reflection is leading us all to consider such things as:
LOVE - what does it mean for our groups to be places of welcome, sanctuary & pastoral care?
FAITH - how can we actively develop the gifts and character of each other to fulfil our God-given potential?
HOPE - who are our neighbours? Where is God encouraging us to demon-strate His love & grace? How do we each play our part as we pray for God’s kingdom to be revealed through us into our community?
The answers to these questions continue to challenge us and will impact our indi-vidual and corporate ministry. As the year unfolds we want to be able to discern
what God is asking us all to do differently and be willing to take the next steps of faith and trust to be able to put these things into practice. Exciting times!
Young adults
Since the end of 2013 we’ve been asking what a ministry with young adults would look like and then in November 2014 Zoe and Rob Campbell and Greg and Jane
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Condon began leading a homegroup which over the course of time began to act as a young adults focussed homegroup. When we pushed in this direction we felt God answering our prayers by bringing more and more young adults into the group, including lots of folks from the forces based at RAF Leeming and Catterick Garrison.
The highlights have been seeing more and more come along to the group, growing in confidence in their faith, inviting friends along to socials and growing in their prayer lives. As well as doing studies together, we’ve spent time praying in small groups, group members have tried their hand at leading sessions; and we’ve en-joyed a wide variety of socials. The icing on the cake for 2015 was organising Bar Humbug, an open mic café as our church Christmas party which went down a storm with people of all ages, and it was exciting to see this new group not only engage with whole church but be creative and serve the church through coffee and music.
Gerard Kelly speaking about his work with ‘Bless Network’ says “churches in the UK and across Europe have become painfully aware of their ‘missing generation’ – the ab-sence, from their ranks, of those in their 20’s and 30’s.” We hope and pray that our young adults group is the first step in our church grappling with this issue. As we move forward into becoming a Life Group with the rest of the homegroups we pray God will keep us on track with the vision to be loving, faithful and hope giv-ers.
Jen Holder
Ignite is the name of our children’s ministry. 2015 has been a really exciting year for the children’s department. We have re-branded and launched Ignite Kids, Xtra, Tots, Sunday and Cell, as well having and awesome year in the local primary schools.
As team leader I can’t wait to see what God has in store for 2016. We have had such an amazing first year of Ignite that I believe God is going to take the chil-dren’s ministry to a new level. We’ve witnessed children going deeper into wor-ship, attending church without parents, writing psalms, praying for friends, pray-
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ing and receiving healing as well as having lots of fun and gaining in confidence. The team that serve this ministry is amazing too. They are committed to seeing the spir-itual development of all the children, giving up their time week in, week out and with-out these fantastic people there would be no children’s ministry, I would like to thank everyone who has had any input into the children’s work at NLBC, however large or small. Let’s always remember…’A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove, but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.’
Ignite Kids is our monthly event for all primary school chil-dren. The aim of this group is to learn about Christianity through fun, games, worship and friendship. We’ve seen a slow increase in numbers over the last few months, with chil-dren attending more regularly and even bringing along
friends. Since the re-launch the dynamic of this event has changed. The older chil-dren are now in the same groups as the younger boys and girls. We’ve seen chil-dren enter into worship, get excited about our new prayer tents and even pray for healing for one another. We’ve also completed 3 holiday clubs this year, including one in which I spent most of the time in a wheel chair after breaking my ankle. The team were amazing ensuring the holiday club continued seamlessly – they are such a blessing, and we are fortunate to have such an amazing selfless group of people serving in this way.
I believe that God is never more pleased than when he sees his children enjoying being in his presence. I pray that over the coming year, more children will come and sit at the Father’s feet – not just learning about him, but coming to know him.
Ignite Xtra is our weekly club for all primary school chil-dren. This club began in September 2015 with a small group of children coming along to play some games, eat some sweets and listen to a short ‘God’ slot talk. Over the 5 months Xtra has been running, we have seen a steady in-crease in numbers with new children attending each week.
One of our Xtra highlights has been the way the children were encouraged to par-ticipate during the week of prayer and fasting. The children engaged in pray-
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Ignite Kids game
er stations during the service, while the adults worshipped. This was such a blessing for the team as most of these children were not from a church background.
I believe this group is going to grow and that God will honour the time we as a team spend with them, building relationships with the children and their families and seeing God move in amazing ways through the faith of these little ones.
Ignite Sunday is our Sunday children’s ministry. Each week the children meet together for games, worship and teaching about the Bible and how they can live the Christian faith out in their own age appropriate ways. The re-launch of the Sunday ministry has encouraged regular Kids Worship as well as children participating more regularly in the Sunday morning services.
One of the many highlights of Ignite Sunday was the Nativity service, where all age groups were included in our nativity production. It’s also been so exciting to see children coming to church and getting excited about God’s word. We’ve had Psalms written and read out in the main church service as well as boys and girls be-ing asked to pray for the Communion.
I believe that this is just the start of what God has in store for Sunday mornings with the children at NLBC. I pray the children will lead the way in worship, prayer and showing the love of Jesus to the church community.
Ignite Cell is our weekly discipleship group for Years 4-6 children. This group is like a home group for children and has been running for 4 years. We’ve seen the children in this group not only grow in their faith development but in confi-dence of who they are in Christ. It is such a blessing to see them grow and encourage one another in their faith as they study God’s word, play games and drink hot chocolate (with
marshmallows, of course).
Cell group has had many highlights in 2015 including learning about the persecuted church through joining with Open Doors. They’ve had their own secret church meeting as well as developing prayer areas for the 24-hour prayer team.
My prayer for this group of wonderful Christian children is that they would grow even more in their love for God, for his word and for one another. The success of this group has warranted the creation of a second group. We are hoping to begin our second Ignite Cell group after Easter in order to encourage as many children to encounter God in a more personal way.
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Ignite Tots is our weekly mother and toddler group. Each Thursday parents, grandparents and children’s carers come along to NLBC for our morning session. This group is fun for the children with plenty of toys to play with, while relaxing for the adults with lots of conversations happening around the room. We have juice and toast for the children which is always a fa-
vourite as well as toast and tea for the adults. This group has been running for many years now, seeing many families go through time and time again. We have been sponsoring two Ethiopian children for many years and so the project in the Ethiopian prisons is also close to our hearts.
My prayer for this group is that we see these families wanting to know more about Jesus, while we as a church support them in any way they need.
Making grown up disciples of JesusMaking grown up disciples of JesusMaking grown up disciples of Jesus Glen Cormack
Last year was our first year working with our joined up discipleship process. We want to create a discipleship journey which gathers people in, leads them to faith in Jesus Christ, helps them get rid of their unhealthy baggage and frees them to grow in likeness to Christ.
Gathering events >> Alpha >> Grace Course >> Prayer Course >> Mentoring >> Life Groups
The above process will change and develop as we go along, however it helps us to have a mental picture of how we go about making a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Gathering Events: We are starting to create a variety of relaxed opportu-nities for the church to gather socially and invite their friends. A couple of examples which are starting to gain momentum are our New Life @ Caffe Nero evenings and the time out together group. We encourage everyone to be bold invite their friends and come and have fun together.
Alpha: We continue to run Alpha in the autumn to coin-cide with the annual national advertising launch. This continues to be a wonderful tool for introducing people to the basic build-ing blocks of the Christian faith. Over the three months it’s
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great to watch people make friends and get to know Jesus. If you haven’t been through the Alpha course, why not invite a friend and come along with them?
Grace Course: The Grace Course is produced by Freedom In Christ minis-tries and is designed to help people who have come to faith in Jesus get rid of their baggage from the past. It’s run like Alpha with some video teaching and time for discussion and prayer. Half way through the course there’s a day away where participants go through the steps to experiencing God’s grace.
Many Christians go through their whole life carrying bur-dens that hinder and stunt their Christian growth. We encourage you not to be one of them. Come on the Grace Course and be set free to live the life God has planned for you.
Prayer Course/the Spirit, the Bible and me: The Prayer Couse is an excellent 6 week guide through the Lord’s Prayer by Pete Greig. The videos are short, thought provoking and full of great ideas to inspire us to pray. It’s been great to see a growing hunger for prayer in our fellowship and this course is a great springboard for diving into conversation with the Living God.
We are concerned that many Christians are struggling to maintain a healthy de- votional life. As an alternative to the Prayer Course this year, we plan to run a course called the Spirit, the Bible and me. This will do what it says on the tin: we’ll choose a book of the Bible and learn how to apply God’s Word in our daily lives under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We’ll meet once a week for six weeks after Easter to share what we’re learning and encourage each other in our faith.
Mentoring: Last year we ran a Disciple Course called “Mentoring Matters”. Its purpose was to identify, equip and resource mentors to help another disci-ple to grow in their Christian faith. Since then, we’ve started to build a men-toring culture here in New Life. The mentor and the mentoree meet once every 4 – 6 weeks to chat, read the Bible and pray together about life the uni-verse and everything. There are now over 30 mentoring relationships at New Life. If you’d like to be mentored or think you’d be able to help mentor some-one else, please speak to Glen.
Disciple: To support and underpin all of the above, we’ll continue to run occasional Sunday evening gatherings designed to help the church develop good spiritual disci-plines. These evenings are relaxed and con-
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versational with the aim of tapping into the wisdom in the room. Rather than a monologue teach from the front, we focus on giving opportunities for the group to share their experience and knowledge.
Life Groups: In September this year we will be launching ‘homegroups – the sequel’… Life Groups. Life Groups build on all the good stuff which happens in our homegroups. Their aim is to help us live out our church values of love, faith and hope. These groups will be open, welcoming and caring, focussed on
growing in faith and sharing faith and looking outwards with hope and a hand of help to the communities we inhabit. (See the full home-group/Life Group report).
We pray that through being intentional about the Lord’s commission to make disci-ples that he will grow his church here in New Life and help us to make grown up disciples who make grown up disciples of Jesus Christ.
Marriage TeamMarriage TeamMarriage Team Alan and Sylvia Greensit
We seek to promote the sanctity of marriage and long term relationships by run-ning the Marriage Course and Marriage Preparation Course; and we also offer a listening ear to married couples who are struggling in their relationships
We had a small but very successful Marriage Course with several couples benefiting last year and were able to hold the course at a time that suited everyone. The feedback was very positive; and this coming year, we will go through the HTB Marriage Preparation Course with a couple who are getting married in the summer.
Marriage is being attacked at every level. We need to preserve the sanctity of mar-riage and support couples through difficult circumstances. Marriage and family life is the very bedrock of society so, through the Marriage Team and subsequent Mar-riage Courses we are able to provide tools for a stronger relationship. Although we are temporarily taking “time out”, the passion for good relationships in marriage is still at the core of our worship to God.
Men @ New LifeMen @ New LifeMen @ New Life Richard Cutting and Brian Campbell
We seek to deepen the friendship, fellowship and faith of members while also
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providing a non-threatening environment to introduce new men to the church.
Highlights of the year include:
Monthly breakfasts on Saturday mornings have been well attended with usually about 20 men coming along, some non-church goers have attended. These are normally held at Sam Turners’ spacious café and meet quarterly in the church foyer. Thank you to our kitchen helpers and those who have shared testimonies and thoughts!
Live Six Nations Rugby – February ’15 in church foyer – also introduc-ing Christion Vision for Men (CVM) resources to the group.
Curry night – May ’15 at Richard Cutting’s. Great food and conversation with a great range in ages attending!
New Wine & CVM Men’s Day in Leeds – in Nov ’15 a small number of us joined over 250 men at this great event. It re-enforced how we should be brave to stand for Christ in our workplace and that God will be faithful and will bless us. We were reminded that regular prayer times will strengthen us and empower us for daily life.
We will continue to provide regular opportunities for informal gatherings of dif-ferent sorts which are also easy to invite non-church goers along to. We will also increase the spiritual input to the group by offering further additional gatherings which have Bible & prayer input, likely to be every other month. The book Spadework by CVM (published by Scripture Union) looks at the lives of 52 men in the Bible – what we can learn from their lives and action points – “a punchy resource”. We will also assist in introducing men to the church Mentoring pro-gramme.
The (yet to be named) social planning groupThe (yet to be named) social planning groupThe (yet to be named) social planning group Karen Hill
This team has come together to help plan and organise social events for NLBC. We were greatly encouraged by the Board and Confused games night that we held. This saw people from all the age ranges within the church joining together to play a variety of board and card games. It was a great time to get to know other peo-ple that we may not normally connect with.
The group have many more ideas in mind so watch this space for more get to-gethers, and feel free to offer up suggestions of something you would like to see happening.
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Support of young people away from homeSupport of young people away from homeSupport of young people away from home Mike and Claire Turner with Greg Condon
We aim to support all students and young people who go away for education and training, both in preparing for and undertaking their chosen career path
We continue to give thanks for the great young people who are currently away studying or working and for many examples of their faith and hard work in car-rying The Gospel to their generation.
Over the summer holidays we ran a cooking course at church for our older teen-agers who were leaving 6th form in preparation for life away from home and university. Seven came regularly, bringing 2 non-church friends, and it really started to feel like a great outreach opportunity. We met, prepared food, cooked together and enjoyed a feast usually followed by washing up and an after dinner game together. We covered; Veggie food, Italian, Far East (Chinese, generic stir-fry and Cambodian food), Pizza Night, Curry Night, Mexican and Americana and wrote down recipes as we went in our new recipe journals. We also had visits from older students who shared student food tips and shared reci-pes. Our last night together before term started was rounded off with an infor-mal communion. It was a fantastic success and to be repeated.
Please continue to pray for the development of joint fellowship with the young adults group that is now being set up. Also, please pray for the future of this work as we continue to find the right way to support our students, especially during vacations that nowadays are often dedicated to pursuing work experience and travel opportunities. Please pray for our new students as they seek to settle in churches, find friendship groups that recognise and respect their faith and take an important step of choosing with whom they will live for the remaining years. These are decisions that are so crucial to them finding “rest” when away from home.
TAFFY TAFFY TAFFY ---Thursday Afternoon Fellowship For Thursday Afternoon Fellowship For Thursday Afternoon Fellowship For YouYouYou
Liz Hill
The purpose of TAFFY is to enjoy the on-going building of relationships during the time we spend together. We aim to encourage one another in faith, and so deepen our own personal relationships with God, through the hearing of the Gospel and through sharing one another's life experiences of God at work!
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Looking ahead, our aim is to continue to encourage one another to share thoughts, readings/devotionals, experiences and prayers. We would encourage our members to become more aware of the Lord at work in their lives and feel able to share their experiences and observations of this. We are planning to ex-periment very occasionally with slightly different formats for our TAFFY meet-ings. We plan to advertise TAFFY to the other Churches in the area, possibly by circulating a flyer detailing the forthcoming programme.
Women’s Ministry Women’s Ministry Women’s Ministry Elisabeth Jordan
We aim to provide opportunities for women of all ages to fellowship together, get to know and support each other, and grow in their faith.
The eighth Annual Women’s Day Conference, held on 25th April 2015, with Hil-ary McNutt as guest speaker on the theme of “Confident in Christ” was an inspir-ing day, to which we were able to welcome many women as guests from around the Northeast region – a great opportunity to invest in the spiritual life of our area and to make new friends.
A number of younger women have expressed an interest in becoming more in-volved. With their help and insights we would like to reach out increasingly to the next generation, to address their concerns, and also to believe God for more of our friends and family members to come to Christ. We hope to plan occasion-al meals out and/or get-togethers in homes to get to know each other better in a relaxed atmosphere.
YouthYouthYouth Greg Condon
We hope to encourage and equip the young people of this church and this town to...
1.Meet Jesus personally 2.Get to Know Jesus as His disciples 3.Walk with Jesus for the rest of their lives.
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Godsox Cell (11-14’s) in the last year has tackled a ‘Big Questions’ series. Any questions went into the hat and were tackled by brave leaders equipped only with their Bibles and wits to protect them! It was a fab series, totally planned out by the young people dealing with questions they and their non-Christian mates struggled with . Lowlight was definitely saying goodbye to Sue who stepped down from the Cell leaders team for a well-earned rest after years of faithful service. The group now meets at Greg and Jane’s new place each Sunday. God’s brought more young people along, and they brought friends who have brought friends!
Ivar Cell (15-18’s) has boomed in the last 12 months. The summer term was the ‘studentscape’ series where to looked at the Bible’s view on; money/student fi-nance, relationships, motivation – work and assignments, keeping faith alive beyond home church and loneliness. Sad to lose a cohort of 7 young people off to work/uni/gap years but in their last term they were still bringing non-church mates along to socials and the summer cooking classes – it’s great to see them at the young adults group when they come home from uni holidays. You would’ve thought los-ing a cohort of that size would have put a dent in the cell numbers – but God is good. Bigger than ever we’re now running out of chairs each Monday. New young people coming along and feeling part of the community and experiencing God for the first time has been the real highlight
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The youth cell weekend away to Carlton lodge in March was a fab time with both cells. There was a climbing wall, prayer stations, raft building – yes the lake is cold in March(!), wild worship party, fajitas, wide games in the dark, Taize wor-ship, grill-a-Glen session and hot chocolate.
The top youth socials this year were:
The town treasure hunt-catapults were built in the applegarth, manhole cover serial numbers were closely inspected and packages of marshmallows sought out from behind salt bins!
The December Star-Wars-a-Thon where teens, siblings and parents enjoyed all 6 previously re-leased films before making our epic Cinema voy-age to see the Force Awakens went down well. It was a real popcorn chomping, feet up on the table, singalong to the theme tune family do.
Kairos – I encourage you all to pop on the Kairos website now and watch the promo video, (www.kairoscamp.org.uk) it’s only 2 minutes 42 seconds and features our group a lot and was produced by the unstoppable Thea Crocker. God really spoke to our young people, especially through the prophetic art workshop where they prayed, listened and painted then gave the art away to the people they felt it was for. As a church we received that wonderful painting encouraging us to ‘move into the colour’ – to dive deeper into the richness God has in store for us. The worship, teaching and fun was top notch – see the video when you can.
The Summer Meals with the newly finished year 13’s were a real hit, see the full details in the student work report, but it’s worth saying here that it was a beautiful finish to the academic year and we pray the studentscape series and cooking classes stood our young people in good stead as they moved off and away.
Other highlights:
Seeing the young people creating prayer stations and getting involved in the 24hr prayer room events has been a real blessing – their ideas are truly original and some fairly whacky. The prayer pin-man, prayer colouring wall and playdough play-prayer stations really helped folks attending to engage with God in unexpected ways.
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The young people’s art work really enhanced the visual impact of the ADVENTure sermon series, they also used the poems from ADVEN-Ture for their cell group material alongside the adult homegroups.
Greg’s been able to continue doing assemblies at Northallerton School in 2015 the highlight being the Christmas assembly series which was an open invitation to talk about Jesus and the Christmas story. God’s giving us a new opportunity to serve the school through mentoring – one of the Deputy Heads has invited us to work one-to-one with some struggling pupils. Please pray as this project develops.
Looking ahead:
> We’re praying for guidance for the next steps with Xtreme. Please ask God for wisdom for the leaders as they consider making some changes to the current for-mat and age bracket.
> We’re very keen to get the Young Servants programme off to a flying start this year, having been delayed last year. We want to get each young person in our youth work into a role of service in the church under as an apprentice to an adult who is serving in the same area. The theory is to help our young people be active disciples and live out their faith week by week.
> We pray God will guide us in the discipleship of the young people, we pray the sessions we deliver will always be helpful and effective. We’ll be repeating some of the studentscape series with the older Cell and are now formulating a 3 year curriculum for the younger cell group – please pray for God to have His hand on this process.
> The young people are very missional in attitude towards cell, they always seem to be willing to bring friends along to cell nights and socials. Please pray for this enthusiasm to continue and for us as we welcome in new members – we pray that we’ll always be creating a warm, loving community feel to the groups where young people feel they can belong.
> Please pray for our leaders. They do a fantastic job of discipling our teens, giv-ing up at least one night a week to serve – plus weekends away and planning time. Please pray God will bless them and grow them this coming year. Please pray for our teams to grow as the cells grow and for God to guide the team as we tackle new and interesting topics and situations.
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Elders and staff at NLBC
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Children’s Leader Jen Holder
Recordings/Events Gillian Harrison
Jubilee Centre Betty Mattison
Senior Pastor Glen Cormack
Mission Pastor Steve Cowie
Assoc Pastor Elisabeth Jordan
Youth Leader Greg Condon
Admin/PA to Glen Susanna Hinton
Elder Mike Turner
Elder Wendy Bousfield
Elder Richard Cutting
Elder Simon Miers
