Bradford North Circuit

We began this year’s events by hosting our popular Poems & Pancakes evening. Again, we had a wonderful time with delicious food and great entertainment. The weather was not the best with wind, rain and even snow flurries but the local community and also from other Churches came along to join in the fun. We had such an amazing range of poems that made us reflect on the past, think about the future and some that just made you laugh and feel so much better for it. We heard poems written by famous poets and other poems penned by people from our Church. The evening was a great success and the savoury & sweet pancakes were not to be missed they were just delicious. Win reading a very moving poem about the War  This is the third year we had hosted this event and judging by the attendance and entertainment we had I am sure it will not be the last. Elaine B, Thornton

The eco-built Fold at Baildon Methodist Church was on show on Saturdays in February. 51 visitors from throughout Yorkshire were given tours by skilled guides. There was delight in the warm, quiet experience in this, the first building on church premises in Britain to be built to standards similar to those of a Passivhaus. The Fold has never been heated: yet everyone felt warm. There is no thermostat; the air is completely changed when the CO2 monitor reaches 1000 parts per million. Energetic Scouts can bounce on the floor of the Upper Fold: the floor insulation is so thick that those underneath can meditate in silence. Baildon Preschool now meets daily in the Lower Fold. From March, the Home Farm Trust will meet on each weekday in the Upper Fold. The Fold showing the car charging points  The tours were much appreciated. They began with a presentation showing how Baildon Church, a triple-certificated Eco-Congregation, erected this bu...

About seven years ago a good idea came up – why not extend our mission to the community, to young mothers and their babies. So the format evolved, on every Monday morning we would invite mums (and dads) to have soup and hot rolls followed by tea and cake, while volunteers looked after the babies for a while. This would be an opportunity for the Mums to talk about their everyday experiences of motherhood, in a relaxed, comfortable environment. On the first Monday, Trinity’s team had two in the kitchen and three to welcome and care. Just one mum came which was proof of demand from the word ‘go’. Within a month we had six mums in our side room with their babies resting on a large quilt. We extended our mission to the local clinic, through contact with a health visitor. News travelled as fast as we had hoped. We bought our first high chairs and, as numbers steadily increased, we moved from the side room into the main body of our church. We provided more quilts and cushions placed in th...

When I retired from full-time work as an administrator, I had the opportunity to volunteer at the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague for a year. I expected to help with administration and running the library, but I was also unexpectedly asked to teach English to some of the international students there. I had no previous experience of this, but using the materials provided and brushing up on my English grammar from GCE many years ago (!), I managed to stay one step ahead of the students and help them through the year. Actually, I enjoyed it so much that on my return to the UK I went to college to qualify in English language teaching, praying that God would give me opportunities to use it – and He did! In 2017 I met Caroline Pathak and heard about the English Conversation class she had started at Northcliffe Church. I was only too happy to accept when she asked if I would like to help with this. Being part of this group has been a wonderful and enriching experience. ...

Third Sunday of Easter, Year A. Service Sheet (pdf) Call to worship Come, walk with him. Come, talk with him. Come, share with him. Come, worship Jesus, our risen Lord. A prayer of approach Risen Saviour, risen Lord, we come to you today. We come to share in your story. We come to feast on your love. We approach your throne with the knowledge that you died for us and rose again. Hallelujah, risen Lord Jesus. Hallelujah. Amen. Song: Listen to or join in with a modern worship song with an Easter theme, such as: Come, people of the risen King Or read the words of a well-known Easter hymn from your hymn book, such as Christ is alive, Let Christians sing (Singing the Faith 297, Hymns and Psalms 190) A prayer of praise and thanksgiving Father, we thank you that you come out and meet us where we are. We worship and adore you. We thank you that you walk the road with us, that you treat us as an equal even when we fail to recognise you. We worship and adore you. Yo...

Dear Friends People sometimes wonder which is busier for ministers, Christmas or Easter? Both, of course, have lots of ‘extra’ services, and Advent and Lent groups and meetings in the build-up to the festival. Yet at Christmas it feels more straightforward because it’s all on one theme. Yes there is the waiting, and trying not to push ahead into Christmas too early, but it’s waiting for good news; and if school carol concerts etc come along fairly early in the process, we can cope quite easily with celebrating and then waiting again for that celebration in all its fulness. During Lent and Easter, it’s very different. And during Holy Week there is quite a tension between walking the journey with Jesus and his disciples, and knowing what the end of the story is. We don’t want to rush the journey; we don’t want to be only half-present because we know that everything turns out all right in the end; we want to feel Jesus’ sorrow over Jerusalem; the disciples’ incomprehension; the unbearab...

My Lord and my God! Service sheet (pdf) Call to worship: Call out together, you who are separated: My Lord and my God! Let your voices join as one as we come to worship: My Lord and my God! Let your praise be joyful and fill the place where you are: My Lord and my God! Prayers Father God, We praise you, as we gaze up into heaven, that you are a God who is just and fair, A restorer, You can bring good from bad. Already in Spring we see your verdant growth, And green shoots in this pandemic. Thank you Father for being our perfect God, a God of resurrection and hope as we were reminded on Good Friday, our sins nailed to Jesus’ cross once and for all and on Easter Sunday Your glorious power of resurrection. We are sorry for the things we have done or not done, that have not moved us, nor others closer to your love. Silence....... But the resurrection reminds us of your blood, and only your blood that can forgive, bringing reassurance of sins forgiven, Victory...

Dear friends Christ is risen! He is risen indeed – Alleluia! We hope you have been able to celebrate Easter with joy despite the strange circumstances. Thank you to all of you who have been phoning each other and keeping in touch with people, especially those who live alone. These phone calls are much appreciated and help us all feel cared for at this time. Thank you to all of you who have made and displayed Easter crosses in your windows, helping us to witness clearly to our faith in our neighbourhoods. Please email Rev Christine photos of your crosses; a slideshow of these is being prepared. We hope that everyone is receiving orders of service, whether by email or through the post. These have been prepared by Circuit ministers and local preachers, and we are grateful to all those who have helped with these. It has been very moving to join in worship from our various homes, knowing that others are worshipping with us. Many others have enjoyed joining in the services on...

Today’s the day - everything is changed. Death’s cave is empty, save linen cloth as calling card for Love. That life has won, and hope’s made whole, thank God! Alleluia! Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia! Holy and risen Lord, we come to worship you on this special Easter Day. We thank you for all you have done for us. We lift our eyes to honour you, living Lord Jesus. You have overcome death; fill us with your joy and new life. Amen You might like to read, sing or listen to an Easter hymn. Perhaps  Christ the Lord is risen today, or Low in the grave he lay (H&P 193/202, StF 298/305). This is perhaps the strangest Easter Sunday we have experienced in most of our lifetimes. Not able to gather as God’s people on this holiest of days. Not able to spend time with family and friends. Not able to visit dale or coast. Yet even as restrictions bite, we affirm God’s love in Christ Jesus, and seek to help each other hear the Easter message. We gather in ...

Read John 19.31-42 Near to the place of crucifixion is a garden, where the body of Jesus is taken to be buried. Gardens play a significant role in the telling of scripture. In Genesis, the garden is celebration of God’s creation and a place of harmony between God and humanity. It is also the place of broken relationships, showing human limitations and failure.  In the New Testament, the garden of Gethsemane is a place where burdens are brought, and tears are shed. And the garden of Jesus’ burial is, of course, also the setting for resurrection, where the risen Christ is himself mistaken for a gardener.  At this time of year, many of us will be venturing out into our gardens once more. In the strange circumstances of our current crisis, the garden may be one of the few places where we can enjoy being outside and exercise. The garden in springtime is a place of new life – with buds showing and plants growing. This picture of new life can illustrate for us the truth ...

Read John 18.1 – 19.30 The word ‘Finished’ is double-edged. I grew up in a house at the bottom of a long cul-de-sac - but I hardly ever went to the top of it, because there was no reason to do so; the end of the cul-de-sac was a ‘nothing’ place to me. A finish can be like that, a dead end with no place else to go. Perhaps Jesus death is no more than that, like the full stop at the end of this sentence. But we can also understand a finish in a different way - as an accomplishment or as a fulfilment, with all its sense of being made whole.  So, what is it that, in Jesus’ words, is finished? Is it an end to the suffering on the cross and the extinguishing of life in the body of Jesus? Or is it a reference not just to the passion but to the whole ministry and mission of Christ, now made complete? It is both of these things - but also something more. For surely, in John’s gospel, that cry of ‘It is finished,’ tells of the glorification of Jesus, the lifting up of the Christ, th...

Read John 13.1-17 and 31-35 . Jesus took off his outer robe and tied a towel around himself. We often get dressed up for special occasions. In Jesus’ culture, an outer robe could say something important about you, about your status or authority.  In the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15), a sign of the son’s restoration into the household was being dressed with a fine robe. Jesus put aside this outer garment in order to reveal a crucial aspect of his life and ministry - as a servant of others. He laid aside his status in order to fulfil his calling to serve others (Philippians 2).  In the present time we too are having to lay aside important markers of our lives as Christians. We are no longer able to make our witness with the ‘cloak’ of church buildings and those activities we are so used to conducting within them. But in doing so, we have the opportunity to reveal some new aspect of our work, and to show how we might live our Christian life in new and different...

This account takes place before the Passover (see John 13:1) but has echoes of the Last Supper as told in the other Gospels.   There is no sharing of bread and wine, no mention of Jesus’ body and blood, but a focus on the betrayal that is about to happen. Read John 13;21-32 Jesus speaks of his imminent betrayal, and Jesus gives the sign of dipping the bread in the dish and handing it to Judas.  A Jewish person would recognise this sign immediately as a mark of special favour, for example a husband would give the piece of bread to his wife at the Passover table.  Is Jesus trying to show Judas that if he turns back even now, he will be forgiven? He chooses to leave, and it is night – the time we often fear, the time of darkness, when the light has gone. Yet Jesus says that it is now that the Son of Man is glorified (v.31). In the darkness the light shines brightly, and will continue to shine, though the shadows will hide it from our sight over these next few da...

In the talent programme ‘The Voice’, the judges sit with their backs to the performers.   If they like what they hear and think they have potential, they turn their chair around to see them. Today, some Greeks have heard of Jesus, and now want to see him for themselves. Read John 12:20-36 The Greeks ask to see Jesus; the crowd tells him that what he says is not in line with what they have heard.   Job said: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” (Job 42:5, NRSV) Have you ever come up against a challenge to your faith?  How did you deal with that?  What did you learn from it?  Did it change your faith?  Did it help you to see Jesus more clearly? “Open our eyes, Lord, We want to see Jesus” – from the chorus by Robert Cull. Can you make this your prayer? Can you ask to see more than you have seen up to now, even if it challenges what you think you know?

Yesterday we marked Palm Sunday, with Jesus coming into Jerusalem, surrounded by the crowds waving palm branches and singing Hosanna. Now we turn to the events that lead us up to the Cross and beyond. Read John 12:1-11 If you were using Phil’s Lent reflections, you will have read in Week 4 of how Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to what he was saying. Now she takes it a step further and gifts Jesus with her perfume and her devotion. Imagine the scene and enter into it, perhaps as Mary or as one of the disciples. How do you feel as you watch it unfold? How do you listen to Jesus? Ask him to speak to you and spend some time in silence. Don’t worry if you don’t hear anything, simply enjoy the silence and his presence. Offer him your devotion and ask him to lead you through this Holy Week.

Photo by  Avel Chuklanov  on  Unsplash Hosanna to the Son of David, Hosanna to the King of Kings! With all God’s people we raise our arms and voices to welcome the One who comes, even Jesus our Lord. No power-parade or cavalcade, no call to arms, just lowly palms – we welcome you .  As beast of burden carries you across the city, we worship and wonder. Hosanna! In these days we cannot welcome one another into our homes, nor welcome people into our church buildings. But as we greet the Saviour with ‘Hosanna’, we still welcome one another into our company, albeit at distance, into our church, now dispersed rather than gathered, into God’s kingdom, always present when we have eyes to see and hearts to believe in the King who comes. May we know in these difficult days that God holds us as if in the palm of God’s hand, and that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus, the One who enters our city and hearts this day. Amen You might like...