It’s a privilege to be able to work with other local churches in our area and at the AGM, we reviewed all that has been going on with this vibrant network.
Prayer Meetings
We hold a ‘Churches Together’ prayer meeting once a month. The next prayer meeting is this Wednesday (17th August) at 10.30 a.m. at Sacred Heart RC Church. Please pray for local ministers, who are often looking after more than one church:
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Father Carl Schaefer (Goldthorpe Parish Church, St Andrew’s in Bolton-on-Dearne and Hickleton church)
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Father Declan (Sacred Heart RC Church, also working in Hoyland and Wombwell)
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St Helen’s in Thurnscoe (currently without a minister, with Fiona Kouble and David Hildred helping with the church)
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Wayne Ashton (Furlong Road Methodist Church, along with 2 other churches)
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Alison Sykes (Salvation Army)
Fun Days
Our fun days are a form of outreach, where we combine crafts, games and refreshments with a Christian message (e.g. Pentecost, Easter, Christmas.) We seek to find innovative ways to reach our community, such as the Good Friday Church Crawl in 2018 which looked at how different denominations celebrate Easter and the Advent Sheep Trail where we placed knitted sheep in local shops and encouraged children to find the names of the sheep and bring their responses to a joint service.
We have also been privileged to work with the Dearne Area Team and other organisations on Summer Fun Days in 2018 and will again be involved in these this summer, with a Superhero Party being held at GPCC on 14th August.
4FrontTheatre
One of the most exciting ventures for local churches has been inviting professional theatre company 4FrontTheatre to our area to perform Christian shows in our local primary schools and to our local community. In November 2018, Goldthorpe schools were treated to ‘Job & Jingle’, with 115 people attending the evening show at GPCC. This June, schools in Thurnscoe and Bolton-on-Dearne have seen ‘Fisherman’s Tail’, with 83 people attending the evening show at St Helen’s. We are looking forward to the team returning on 25th November with their new Christmas show, ‘Back In Time For Christmas’. This has strengthened the churches’ relationships with local schools, enabling us to take assemblies more frequently.
Looking ahead, we have invited ‘The Message Bus’ to our area on Wednesday 30th October and will be holding a Nativity trail in local shops in November (similar to the sheep trail, but with knitted Nativity figures), with a joint service being held on 14th December – so lots more to come!
