Christ Church Manchester News - 30th June 2010

I hope you are fit well and spoiling for a punch up. Here are some vital pieces of info for you -

Prayer Meeting -  On Saturday at 9am we are meeting at Kingsburn hall in Burnage to pray. Click here for a map. We are meeting to pray because we want CCM to grow. We want it to grow numerically, in discipleship, in mission and in Gods power. So we need to pray.

You maybe thinking Saturday morning is a ridiculous time for a prayer meeting! You maybe right! We are going to start promptly at 9am and finish at 10am on the nose. We are going to pray hard and expect God to answer.

So July 3rd 9am at Kingsburn Hall in Burnage (814 Burnage Lane, Burnage, M19 1RS). You maybe thinking that Burnage is a long way from where you live and you are probably correct. However, CCM is so spread out that a meeting anywhere in Greater Manchester will be miles away from someone! Remember, it is an experiment to see what works. Show up and see what it feels like!

Prayer requests - Minan is now out of hospital. The family still need prayer and support. So keep them in your prayers.

Ian Collinge - Ian strained his throat a few months back and it seems to be getting worse. He needs to be able to speak and sing at a number of important events over the summer. Please pray that his throat heals quickly.

Lisa Upton - Lisa has a dodgy back. Recently she has been experiencing sever pain in her back that is quite debilitating. Pray that God straightens and strengthens her spine.

Faith Purcell - Faith also has a dodgy back. Pause right now and pray for these guys.

So have a good week and always remember that chasing a mouse in the dark with a carving knife is not big, clever or ultimately successful.

Sunday Mornings at Christ Church Manchester

We meet at Hyde Town Hall every Sunday morning from 10:30am until around 12noon. We meet together because we love worshipping, we love spending time with each other and because we love Tameside and East Manchester. Simple really.

On an average Sunday (although, they are far from average!) we turn up have some coffee, catch up with old friends and look out for our new friends. Community is important us. We want to share our lives with each other in real and meaningful ways. Sunday mornings are a small but important part of that.

Once we have had our fill of tea and coffee we will usually have a few songs of praise led by one of our worship leaders and a band of musicians. We have a number of different nationalities represented among us and so our worship can take on a variety of different flavours.

After a couple of songs the kids all go out to take part in various different activities. Kids are as important to us adults, so we like to have a lot of fun with them as well as teach them about Jesus at the same time. We run a crèche for the under 3s, a group for the 3 – 6s, a group 6-9s and a group for the 11 – 14s. We have dedicated leaders (who all have CRB checks and are well trained in child protection) for each of these groups who work hard to make sure that we offer quality kids work to our children and teenagers.

While the kids are out partying hard the rest of us listen to 25 – 35 minutes of teaching. We like to use the bible and we like our teaching to be focussed on God and real life application of the gospel. Most of the teaching is done by people who go to Christ Church but occasionally we get visiting speakers as well.

Once the speaker has finished we spend some more time worshiping together and reflecting on the teaching.

The meeting usually finishes at 12noon. At this point people with kids collect them from the children’s work. We finish off our time together by consuming tea, coffee, cake and biscuits.

Sound good? Come down and check us out.

The Chapel - Creative Community

Manchester is a city jam packed full of innovation, creativity and culture. There is so much to do and anybody who claims to be bored in Manchester is clearly not trying very hard.

In a city like Manchester the Church really needs to step up to the creative plate!

With this in mind we decided that we start The Chapel. We want to influence and create culture. We want to encourage, support and release people who are creative into whatever area of culture interests them. I want the church (not just the leaders but the whole community) to create and support culture. I want to see Christian artists, musicians, designers, and whoever creating work that is meant to be consumed by the world at large. I also want to see the church producing forums and settings where secular artists can be supported. I don’t want Christian culture I just want culture.

Our first baby step towards this was The Crypt. The Crypt came out of the fact I bumped into a DJ who loves dubstep and electronica, and wanted to help us out. So we ran a club night, people showed up, christians looked awkward, people danced and we partied.

What else could we do? Anything! We know artists, musicians, comedians, bloggers, tweeters, creatives and consumers. So the only thing holding us back is our imagination. You in?

If you want to know more please contact me (Tim Simmonds) in any of the following ways -  07961 233 768, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), twitter, facebook or on my blog.

Students at Christ Church Manchester

"We are at the very heart of where all the students live, study and party."

Manchester has a large and influential population of students. At CCM we want students to feel they can quickly get involved in who we are as a church and help us to grow and improve as a community.

From September 5th 2010 we will be running a meeting (CCM:City) at Luther King House in Fallowfield. This is a 10 minute walk from Owens Park Halls (massive student halls) and is just off Oxford Road, south of the curry mile. It is easily accessable from the Universities, the city centre and the south of Manchester because it is on a very busy bus route. This venue is at the very heart of where all the students live, study and party.

Until June 2010 we met in a vodka bar in Fallowfield but we outgrew that facility so are moving up the road in anticipation of further growth. The meeting will start at 6pm on a Sunday evening and we fully intend to have passionate and authentic worship, as well as relevant and challenging Bible teaching. We also run mid week community groups where we hang out, consume cake, disciple each other and probably eat some more cake.

We also have something called The Chapel. The Chapel is very much a work in progress and currently is a creative community made up of musicians, artists, bloggers, tweeters, consumers, creators and anybody who loves culture. Manchester is an incredibly creative and entrepreneurial city so we want to reach out into these communities by creating, supporting and outputting culture.

So far we have run club nights and open mic evenings. Our intention is too broaden this out to a wide range of culture activities depending on the creative talent that we have available to us.

So if you are student in Manchester or if you are soon moving to this incredible city then please contact Tim Simmonds on 07961 233 768, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or find me on twitter or facebook.

Christ Church Manchester News - 22nd June 2010

I am back from two weeks of relaxing holiday and I am still tired. "Why are you tired? You have just been on holiday AND you work for the church, you lazy so-and-so" I hear you cry. Well lets just say that Battlestar Galactica is very addictive. Wowzers.

So what been going on? I go away for two weeks and nothing happens! BORING!

Here are some Sci-Fi blasts of News joy -

Sunday Food - This Sunday we are going to hang around after church eat food, put some horrible disney kids film on, and be friends. If you havent been, you should. fact.

Anyways, once again I forgot to organise the food. So please email/text/carrier pigeon me with offers of food. That would be awesome. (Do it now, before you read the rest of this blog) (please)

Prayer Meeting - We are putting on a few prayer meetings because we want CCM to grow. We want it to grow numerically, in discipleship, in mission and in Gods power. So we need to pray.

I heard good things about last weeks prayer meeting. The next prayertastic meeting will be on Saturday July 3rd at 9am. Thats righty people, a prayer meeting at 9am on a Saturday morning!??!!?? Whats wrong with me? Well it is an experiment. It is notoriously difficult to get people to show up at prayer meetings even though they are often the most powerful and important meeting a church can have. So we are doing meetings at a bunch of different times to see what works.

So we next meet to pray on July 3rd 9am at Kingsburn Hall in Burnage (814 Burnage Lane, Burnage, M19 1RS). You maybe thinking that Burnage is a long way from where you live and you are probably correct. However, CCM is so spread out that a meeting anywhere in Greater Manchester will be miles away from someone! Remember, it is an experiement to see what works. Show up and see what it feels like!

Prayer requests - Minan is now out of hospital. The family still need prayer and support. So keep them in your prayers.
Ian Collinge - Ian strained his throat a few months back and it seems to be getting worse. He needs to be able to speak and sing at a number of important events over the summer. Please pray that his throat heals quickly.
Lisa Upton - Lisa has a dodgy back. Recently she has been experiencing sever pain in her back that is quite debilitating. Pray that God straightens and strengthens her spine.

If you are sick, or know someone I have forgotten, please email me and I will let people know.

Anyways, have a cracking week and remember that it is incredibly difficult to chase, catch and kill a mouse with a BBQ fork… (those little monsters can really shift)