St. Joseph’s Church, Merry Hill, Wolverhampton

As promised, Carol Derbyshire from Crosslinks was with us today. Full write-up on the relevant events page.

Phil has added a new page covering the new worship patterns discussion. Please feel free to comment on these – either on that page, which is probably most appropriate, or here. Thanks!

We did try to record Phil’s sermon from Sunday 11th Jan. In fact we did record it and it is on this website, but I’m not going to publish it. This isn’t because it’s heretical and dangerous, but simply because it’s unlistenable. We had some serious technical problems and in fact may continue to have such problems until we Fix Some Stuff. Discussions on how to do this are ongoing, as they say. If anybody has some money burning a hole in their pocket – or some spare decent hardware! – then let us know.

Tonight we had a very interesting session with Archdeacon Bob Jackson. (Bishop Clive was due to be with us too but circumstances prevented this.) Bob had spent the afternoon with people from across the parish, talking to them about what was happening and in particular how the “Going for Growth” strategy was panning out. This isn’t a numbers game – although bringing people to Jesus is clearly important! – but rather about quality and how the Church family is growing together.

So as well as Bob’s reflections on what he had heard – rapidly and effectively assembled into a presentation which you can pick up here – we heard about different initiatives from the churches of the parish and Bob’s (positive!) reaction to the work that the Lord is inspiring in Wolverhampton. Geoff Jellis gave us an excellent presentation on the St Jo’s social audit we’re planning to do to better understand what the community really wants and needs from us, and we also heard from St Phil’s on Personal Development and from St Aidan’s on their work giving Communion in care homes.

In the meantime St Jo’s is clearly doing something right – we feel more a family than ever, we felt, with momentum behind the growth that we’ve had and the work that we do for each other and the community as we serve Jesus. But – and you can see Bob speak about this below – there are some clear challenges because we’re getting a bit near to the point where the church is a bit too full at 10.30am on Sunday which can deter people so some prayer and thought and action are needed around the service structure. But it’s not immediately critical  – so do come!

There are four video clips of Bob here (scroll down the playlist under the video player to get to them all) and one each with quick remarks from Andy Evans and Liz Pemberton. Enjoy. And feel free to contribute your comments too…whether you were at the Going for Growth session or not!

(The screen Bob’s waving his hands at is displaying the presentation!)

CHRISTMAS 2008 at St Jo’s

“In a faith born in a barn, an open door goes without saying…”

Christmas is an important time for all of us and once again it was wonderful to have a full programme and a full church not just once but many times – Nativity, Christingle, Carols by Candlelight, and probably at other times too!

What were your highlights? I know one of mine – the Santa video put together by, well, I don’t know who – see if you can spot anybody you might know…