Here is some news for you -

Healing Meeting - On Sunday 15th August Dave Wade from the Newfrontiers Church in Blackburn is coming to preach. We are expecting to see people healed as Dave has experience in this.
So on Saturday the 14th August a bunch of people will be giving out flyers around Hyde town centre. Fancy helping out? Get in touch with Stu Gosling

From CCM to India -  If you were at church last Sunday you would have noticed a waterwell, right there in the middle of room! Together at CCM we want to collect £500 to give a village in India their own source of fresh water. If you want to give, please put your donations in the waterwell at church. If you pay tax, dont forget to giftaid!  We also want to raise money for a medical camp (£250) and to release a sex worker from the red light area (£500). More about these other projects next week. If each church member gave £15 we would have enough for these 3 projects.
Clare and Sue are having a stall at the Oldham Carnival on 7th August, selling crafts and running a tombola to raise money for the India projects.  Recieved any presents that you cant use? Do you have any New and Unused good Quality items, like photo albums, wine, perfumes, gift sets. If so would you donate them to us for our Tombola? Please bring them to church THIS sunday so we can use them for the Tombola on the following Saturday.

Thats all. So just remember that it is easier to walk to Denmark with a large rucksack than it is to drive to Norwich and you will have more fun once you get there. (Deep sigh)

Newday - a bunch of CCMs youth are going to Newday (youth event in Norwich, which is somewhere near Denmark). They need some equipment. Do you have -
2 x two or three man tents, 1 x Cooking tent, 1 x Double burner stove and gas cylinder, 1 x camping kettle, 2 x tables with folding legs, 2 x cool boxes, 6 x Ice-packs, 2 x washing up bowls, 2 x large chopping boards, 2 x large cooking pots with lids, Set of kitchen knives / long-handled wooden spoons.

Can you help with anyone of that? If so email me. Thanks.

India Trip - You may remember the inspiring visit from Rev. Sudheer Kumar (REAP India) in May? Dates are now finalized for the the ten day mission trip to work with him in India. These are 30 Sept to 12th October 2010.  Clare Taylor, Sue Ward and Roberta K. are going, but more team members would be very welcome. The team will be running evangelistic outreach meetings to villages, dedicating waterwells, operating a medical camp, running mercy camps, visiting and speaking at some of the current ministries. This is a great opportunity to get a taste of mission, see first hand what God is doing outside the UK, and to be part of it!  See Clare Taylor for more info.

I am desperate to see us grow. I want to see more people Join us from Hyde, Denton, Dukinfield, Ashton, Oldham, Chadderton, Reddish, Levenshulme, Gorton, Burnage,and Fallowfield. That list of locations is where many of you live and I know that I have missed out a whole bunch of places! We are a spread out group of Missionaries. So I want to see Good bring us new people.

In September we start CCM:City (evening meeting in Fallowfield) and we also have CCM:East (every Sunday at Hyde Town hall), both of these venues need to grow not because we are all about meeting attendance but because who we gather on a Sunday is a fair indication of who is part of CCM!

We are a small church throwing out a very very wide net, so we really need God to help us.

So 9am, Sat 3rd July at Kingsburn Hall (Map is here). We will start promptly and finish promptly (I promise). We will pray hard for an hour.

It would be awesome to see 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.

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.

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, tim@ccm.org.uk, twitter, facebook or on my blog.

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, or find me on twitter or facebook.

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)

They are moving to Plymouth. I hear rumor that living by the sea, in an area with more sunshine and less rain than Greater Manchester is deeply rubbish. So I give them a couple of months before they decide that living in the Glorious North of England is by far the better option. Everybody repeat after me “SUNSHINE AND SEA IS RUBBISH. HILLS AND RAIN ARE AWESOME.” repeat this every morning 10 times and I promise everything will be ok…....

Prayer - We are going to run some prayer meetings. Why? Because prayer works and we have a bunch of stuff to ask God for and even more stuff to thank him for. We will have a series of three meetings at a variety of times and locations. You may see one prayer meeting at a time and place that is difficult for you but this shouldn’t cause you to panic. We are conducting a small experiment of running these meetings at different times to see what suits people best. This is not to say that we will then fix on one time and location for all prayer meetings until Jesus returns. No. We are flexible like a very very bendy thing.

The basic theme of these meetings is Momentum. It seems to me that as a church we are gaining some momentum (visitors, growth, salvation etc) and we want this to carry on and increase. I am expecting God to move, speak and blow our minds. You really don’t want to miss these. Seriously.

So the first Meeting will be on June 15th at 730pm. This will be held at a venue in the centre of Hyde. Stu Gosling will let you know more details as soon as he has them.
The second will be an early-ish Saturday morning thingy on July 3rd. I (Tim Simmonds) will let you know the time and location.
The third meeting will be an mid week early morning affair on July 12th. Alistair Metcalfe will let you know the time and location.

I honestly believe that when we pray God listens and gets involved.

Minan - Keep praying. She is making progress, but it is slow and painful. We want to see her healed and we want her Mum and Dad (Alex and Anna) to know God’s presence with them.

There will be no emails or blogs from me for a couple of weeks as we are going on holiday. We are going to Dorset and Cornwall where it is warm and sunny. I fully expect this warmth and sunshine to be really annoying.

SUNSHINE AND SEA IS RUBBISH. HILLS AND RAIN ARE AWESOME.SUNSHINE AND SEA IS RUBBISH. HILLS AND RAIN ARE AWESOME.SUNSHINE AND SEA IS RUBBISH. HILLS AND RAIN ARE AWESOME.SUNSHINE AND SEA IS RUBBISH. HILLS AND RAIN ARE AWESOME.SUNSHINE AND SEA IS RUBBISH. HILLS AND RAIN ARE AWESOME.

On Sunday night we had The Chapel (it was our biggest night ever. Woop Woop!!). The Chapel usually finishes at about 8pm which means I am usually home and unpacked by 9pm. This week however was a little different. This week we ran The Chapels first club night - The Crypt. It was a great night. The DJ dropped a number of incredible tunes (I think that is the correct terminology…), Chapelites brought their mates along, people wandered in off the street and we generated a whole bunch of interest. We probably had 50-60 people through the door.

Anyways at about 10:30pm I realized a number of different things - 1) I am 33, 2) 10:30pm on a Sunday evening is quite late for me, 3) Parties in Student land kick off at about 11pm, 4) Christians always go home early, 5) The basslines that DJ B+ was playing may well have shifted my spleen about a foot closer to my head.

So on Monday morning I stared blankly at the people I was meeting and tried to look like I could even hear what they were saying over the ringing in my ears!

Anyways, The Crypt and The Chapel were both successful and I need a holiday to reorganize my internal organs.

So here is some spleen-shifting news for you -

Minan is improving. The prayer and the treatment is working. She has been eating and playing which is very positive indeed. Does anyone have children’s chair with a low table or attached tray that they could borrow? Minan is a little weak so it needs to be sturdy to support her.

I am sure there is more news than that but that’s all I got at the moment. If I have forgotten something that is vitally important then send me an email and I will make the necessary arrangements.

So always remember that Dubstep is a style of music that sounds like R2-D2 being beaten up by a Rubbish Lorry.

I was chatting to an attendee of The Chapel the other week and she told me that she worked in Radio. She expressed frustration that the only way church told her to influence culture was by having Non-Christian friends at her work place. She wanted more than this and wanted to know how she could create and produce culture that would be influential. She got my brain whirring.

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 is The Crypt

Why do we want to do this? Because Community thrives on Culture and quality Culture creates Community. At least, I hope so!

Anyhoo, here is some news goodness for you:

Meena - Keep thinking and praying about Meena. Therapy for Leukemia are hard on the body and she is exhausted. Remember her mum and dad (Alex and Anna) as they sit with Meena in hospital. We hope she can be out of hospital soon but Alex and Anna are having some trouble with accommodation. Lets pray this gets sorted soon!

Food - We will be eating food after church on May 23rd - I will hand out food requests on Sunday.

Rev. Sudheer Kumar of EARE Ministries (Harvest India) is visiting us in mid May and on Wednesday 19th May, 7:30pm we are hosting a special evening meeting at Trinity Baptist Church Gorton (M18 8TX). Sudheer will be speaking about the amazing ministry he leads in South India among the poor. Oldham Family Church has supported this ministry for the last four years, sponsoring a water well, providing clothes and pensions for poor people.  Further to the disastrous flood in December 2009 we held special CCM collection which is enabling the building of 2 cement houses for families made homeless when their wood houses were swept away in the flood.

India Trip A group from CCM is planning to make a mission trip out to India in October, there will be a meeting at Sue Ward’s on Thursday 20th with Sudheer for anyone interested in exploring the possibility further. Contact Sue or Clare Taylor for further info.

Colin - Once again, Colin is going on walkabout for 2 months. Rumour has it he is going to spend a month on Curry mile looking for the perfect curry, and another month in rehab to easy his addiction to peshwari nan. So, if he calls or emails you please follow the prearranged protocol and either a) hurl abuse (which is what I shall do and am looking forward to the opportunity!) b) pretend you have no idea who he is (Apparently this is what Mary will be doing) c) threaten to stop giving money to the church.

Always remember that looking directly into the eyes of a dog is an odd thing to do. Fact.

Right here is some blubtastic news for you -

Rev. Sudheer Kumar of EARE Ministries (Harvest India) is visiting us in mid May and on Wednesday 19th May, 7:30pm we are hosting a special evening meeting at Trinity Baptist Church Gorton (M18 8TX). Sudheer will be speaking about the amazing ministry he leads in South India among the poor. Oldham Family Church has supported this ministry for the last four years, sponsoring a water well, providing clothes and pensions for poor people.  Further to the disastrous flood in December 2009 we held special CCM collection which is enabling the building of 2 cement houses for families made homeless when their wood houses were swept away in the flood.

For more info watch

India Trip - A group from CCM is planning to make a mission trip out to India in October, there will be a meeting at Sue Ward’s on Thursday 20th with Sudheer for anyone interested in exploring the possibility further. Contact Sue or Clare Taylor for further info.

Meena - We need to keep praying for this little girl. She has leukemia and is in hospital. The doctors are positive but we must pray. She is undergoing chemotherapy which is very tiring for her and stressful for her parents. We hope she can be out of hospital soon but Alex and Anna are having some trouble with accommodation. Lets pray this gets sorted soon!

CCM:East - CCM:City - Colin talked on Sunday about how from September we will have two locations on a Sunday. In the morning we will meet at Hyde Town Hall and in the evening we will meet at Luther King House (LKH) in Fallowfield. Don’t panic, you do not need to go to both! The Chapel is going to morph (evolve?) into a creative community/outreach/events/thingimewotsit. So on Sunday evening we will meet from 6-8pm at LKH then for a month or so in Oct/Nov we will go to Baa Bar and party with open Mic nights, DJ sets, interviews, comedy, and frivolity. Why? Because we want to be a church that creates and influences culture so that more and more people can hear about Jesus. If you have any questions please get in touch.

Anyways, there are 37 days until the world cup and 114 days until the Reading Festival. I love the summer.

So thanks for bailing me out yesterday. I totally forgot to organise the food for yesterday so I spent the week texting and emailling the CCM massive and you all pitched in with a fantastic spread (best so far)! I ate my own body weight in banoffee pie (which is fair amount of banoffe pie). We will eat again on Sunday 30th May.

Here are some other bannoffeetastic news items of joy for you -

Meena - We need to keep praying for this little girl. She has leukemia and is in hospital. The doctors are positive but we must pray. She should be out of hospital soon but Alex and Anna are having some trouble with accommodation. Lets pray this gets sorted soon!

Friday Night Puddings for Women - Carolyn Richards would like to invite all the women in the church to hers on Frdiay 30th April for puddings, chat and knitting (!). She lives at 184 Mottram Road Hyde SK14 2SL. If anyone wants to bring pudding then please get in touch with Carolyn

Eden Dude - Mark Lewis moved to Manchester on Tuesday, got a job on friday, worked a long shift on Saturday night (which finished at 4am) and was dragged out of bed by Colin to help set up church on Sunday. So invite him round for dinner!! Does anyone have a bike they could lend him for a few weeks? If so then let me know.

Colin - If Colin intiates any contact with you on a Monday there are a number of different things you can do - Hurl abuse (my personal favorite), ignore him (probably the wisest), threaten to stop giving financially to the church (not tried this yet, but am curious to see what would happen), move house (time consuming and he does have a habit of finding people) or if all this fails then you could just tell Mary (this may result in Colin becoming just another missing persons statistic but if needs must…..).

Anyways have a cracking week and please don’t ever forget that driving your dads car into your neighbours new mercedes will not make you popular. Not ever.

Soooooooo I need you guys to help me out. When you read this email could you offer to bring some food? Email/text me and say - “What shall I bring?”. That would be awesome. (If this doesnt work then I will just call you all up anyways).

Anyways here are some more nuggets of news -

Vicky Armstrong needs a van. She has found a whole bunch of free furniture for Sarah Cumberbatch but needs a van to get the furniture from Macclesfield. So, do you own a van or know someone who owns a van?

Meena - We need to keep praying for this little girl. She has leukemia and is in hospital. The doctors are positive but we must pray. If you know her Mum and Dad (Alex and Anna) please call them say hi, offer help, pray and support.

Small Groups - This Tuesday (20th April) Christine’s small group and The Witchells group will be meeting together at Hyde town hall at 730pm to pray for Tameside. Contact Stu Witchell or Stu Gosling for details.

Thanks for reading. By the way, I killed a mouse. I am pretty happy about this (Sorry Hannah). I have a picture on facebook if you interested? No?