Bradford North Circuit

Bishop Rev Muno Rumal Shah, now retired but formerly  Bishop of Peshawar in Pakistan, visited Bradford a couple of months ago. Bishop Shah has blessed and encouraged the work within Asian Christian ministry and also appreciates the work within the interfaith community. He now works at Central Office in Lahore, Pakistan.  St Andrew’s Methodist Church has strong links with an Asian Christian community in the village of Shanti Nagar in Pakistan, which used to be our home village. We now attend regularly at St Andrew’s. We also wanted to let you know about our Asian worship, which happens on the second Saturday of every month. We would be really glad if anybody would like to join us. For more details, you could contact us via St Andrew’s . Also, we have bibles available in Urdu and Hindi and if anybody requires these would you let us know please. Please let us know if anybody needs any prayers; we would be more than happy to...

“So glad that Paul, the weatherman, got it wrong!” The week before Christmas, St Andrew’s held their annual outdoor carol service. Numbers have declined over recent years, so we decided to do things a little differently. Despite the terrible weather forecast of continuous rain and potential high winds, we still met as planned and God provided us with a mild and dry night. The evening consisted of carols led by some members of West Yorkshire Brass; a light parade led by Joseph, with his donkey hand puppet, Mary and an angel with a sparkly star; and a nativity tableau by the Junior Church/Youth which gradually formed between carols and narration. We finished by chatting over coffee and mince pies inside. Around 150 people attended including many from our uniformed organisations. Some Guides even gained their carol singing badge that night. As the brass band were thanked, they remarked on how uplifting the evening had been with so many young people being present and...

The annual Nativity service at Thornton Church took place on Sunday 13th December. The children took turns to read the Christmas Story and the congregation joined in with the carols. This was followed by a Faith Lunch and a party. All the children got a present and the annual 'Santa Awards' were given to the cast and production team of the pantomime. Elaine B , Thornton

Dear Friends, As I came to preparing this article, I started to think about the years in my life, which ended with a six and what of significance for me, personally, happened in those years. 1966    My brother was born and as a family we moved into the house in Leeds where my mum lived, up until a year ago. 1976    I attended my first cricket match at Headingley, Leeds.  A match between Yorkshire and Lancashire.  A little disappointed that Geoffrey Boycott did not play. 1986    I finished my Accountancy and Finance degree and started work as a trainee Chartered Accountant.  Beth and I got married. 1996    Beth and I went to Oxford for me to train for ordained ministry. 2006    Beth and I went on a tour of the Holy Land.  A fantastic experience. I have a love of history, with, my favourite battle happening in Sussex on 14 October 1066. It is interesting, when ...

Greater works (John 14:12) I read a really good book on holiday.  It argued that we should seek more healing in our churches with the aid of the Holy Spirit.  Healing and deliverance was what Jesus did all the time, and what the early church continued to do (as Jesus had promised they should), as in the book of Acts, and for the next few hundred years.  But then from the time of Constantine such good works were discouraged and declined.  Some said that only the holiest saints were fit to do it; others that is was presump-tuous to try and copy Jesus.  Later, some claimed that miracles such as healing has ceased with the apostles; and nearer our own time many have declared that today we should know better than to believe that such supernatural things ever happened at all.  Thus, by one means or another, acts of healing and wholeness, once the lifeblood of the Christian faith, have been all but throttled – despite the occasional outbreaks of Pentecost...

We celebrated our Harvest Festival on 4 October and what an amazing service it was. Many of our community groups had decorated our windows with Harvest displays and the church was almost full, with lots of mums and tots from See and Know, mums and Brownies, and Guides. As is the way at Thackley, there was an air of flexibility about the service, with many last minute additions/deletions to accommodate various traditions, which included parading the flags, offering Harvest Gifts for CAP UK, our jam pan clatter for Water Aid and our monthly birthday box. It was a delight to have the little ones from See and Know sing one of their songs and empty their Smarties tubes of change into the clatter. What is this clatter? In the run up to Harvest, we collect jam jars of change and make a “clatter” as we pour them int...

Calverley Church was a hive of activity on the weekend of 25/27 September. It all began on Friday morning, when a group of local schoolchildren arrived to bake bread. Another group came in the afternoon – total of 57 children! As the pictures show, they really got ‘stuck in’! On Friday evening, Christian comedian, Andy Kind, had people rolling in the aisles, with his unique brand of humour. (For those who missed Andy, he is due to make another appearance in the circuit, at Baildon Church on Saturday 14 November. For tickets, see the Baildon web site). On the Saturday, local community groups were encouraged to come and display what they have to offer to the people of Calverley. A broad range of activities on offer were viewed by an excellent turn-out of people, as the photos show:- The weekend continued on Sunday with the Harvest Festival service at 10.30 am and a special Harvest Songs of Praise in the evening, featuring The Wesley Singers. The s...