Highbury Home - 5 - Reports 2008

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experience and has made “going to work” fun and always different.

The start …

The first couple of months involved meeting people, learning about Cheltenham and the church (which I’m continuing to do now) and finding out so many things. It meant I could get involved in services in different ways, go to toddler groups, prayer meetings, home groups and Pittville School with Youth For Christ, among other things. This all culminated at the end of the summer with the Champions Challenge Holiday Club. It was really interesting to see the churches of Highbury, St Luke’s and St Michael’s working well together in this holiday club, seeing each other’s gifts and sharing so much with the children.

Plans in place …

Prayer

The autumn term was the chance to put some plans into place. Through meeting and chatting with people and seeing the running of the church I was able to encourage new and different things to happen. One of the main additions was the prayer training. This was incredibly exciting for me as prayer training was something I had never been involved in before but was a chance for us, as a church to meet, learn from each other and develop something that is important in our lives. Prayer changes, and it was great to be part of this.

The prayer training was merged in with the Sunday services. The mornings were used as a place for Richard to talk about prayer and the

children were also covering prayer in Junior Church. The prayer training culminated in the 24 hour prayer event. This was an interesting time, and I feel encouraging for many.

We have also introduced the chance to come forward for prayer at the end of services. I don’t think anyone has come for prayer yet but it is still something we must be ready for.

Children

Other things that happened in the autumn were the introduction of the Xstream group. This is a Junior Church group following on from Splash, for those in school year 3 and above. Judi Marsh has been a fantastic addition as a leader, and has been an asset to a strong Junior Church Leaders’ team.

We had a really enjoyable Harvest trip for the young families from the church and we were joined by the Beavers and their families. The beautifully warm and sunny day seems a world away now, but it was a great part of the church’s Harvest celebrations.

Sunday Special was also a new addition to the autumn term and is reported separately in this magazine.

The Light Party is a yearly event at Halloween run by Highbury, St Luke’s and St Michael’s. The aim is to share something of Jesus at this time of year. This party meant a chance for children to celebrate Jesus and the beautiful things he brings us.

Christmas …

The encouragement for Advent was to consider being part of the nativity and this related to various services and