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July 2008
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Lightbowne Evangelical Church is situated on Kenyon Lane in Moston, a suburb of
Manchester about 3 miles outside the City Centre. We are approximately 2 miles
from the City of Manchester Stadium, home to Manchester City Football Club and
the focus of the Commonwealth Games in 2002.
The area around the Church is made up of pre-war terraced and semi-detached
private houses and a large post war council estate.
In recent years we have seen numerical growth from those who live within the
local area, however over half of the Church family live outside the immediate
area. Moston is going through a time of transition for the better, though an
urban priority area, with all its associated problems, the new initiatives
of classifying the 'North City' as a regeneration area has seen marked
improvement, reflected in house prices and lowering of unemployment. During
this time extensive building work (swimming baths, police station, library, new
housing and industrial park, plus a link to the city's tram system) and the
demolishing of older parts of back to back terraces and 1960's style council
houses. Though poverty and depravity is still a real problem, the next five
years are going to be crucial in seeing this improvement establishing itself.
Manchester as a City has the highest number of ASBO's in Britain and Moston is
no exception to this. The local council has introduced a number of
Neighbourhood Wardens and that has helped to reduce anti-social behaviour. City
wide resources for young people have also improved.
Spiritually, the area consists of predominantly Catholic and High Anglican
Churches, but the Church has a good reputation in the area, especially our work
with children and young people. In the last few years, a network of Churches
has been established which has included a diverse background of denominations.
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We are an Independent Evangelical Church, with our roots and traditions within
the Anglican Church.
We are members of
the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches (FIEC),
the Evangelical Alliance (EA)
and Church Society Trust
(an Evangelical, reformed wing of the Anglican Church), who act as our Trustees.
Our expenditure is supported by individual giving from a large proportion of
Church members and by Gift Aid claims. As an independent Church, we have no
other source of income.
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| Organisation and Leadership |
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The Church has one full time Minister, who is assisted in leadership by members
of the Church. There can be two Church wardens, who are elected by the
membership of the Church. Up to 12 other members of the Church may be elected
to serve on the Management Committee.
The Management Committee meet monthly to
discuss the day to day running of the Church. The Minister takes an active part
as a member of the Management Committee and acts as the Chairperson.
We have a child protection policy in place and our own Child Protection Officer.
This is strictly adhered to and updated appropriately when there are changes to
the Children's Act.
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Two services are held on Sundays.
Our morning service is at 10.30 and is attended by people of all ages,
particularly families. During the service, there is a crèche and a Sunday
School.
Our evening service is held at 6.30pm, except on the first Sunday in the month
when we hold an afternoon family service at 4pm. This is very informal and
usually consists of a worship time followed by a Bible study.
Service books are used at both services and we hold a service of Holy Communion
twice monthly, once in the morning and once in the evening.
Music is mainly lead by our worship group at both services
and more traditional hymns are played on the organ.
Sunday School meet every Sunday morning whilst the Church service is in
progress. We have approximately 15-20 children attending aged 3-14 years old.
It is in Sunday school where we find most children learn their basic
bible knowledge, through activities, teaching, quizzes, games and song.
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Lightbowne has an excellent youth work programme, run by volunteer leaders who
are both dedicated and professional. The youth clubs are called The Saltmine,
with the junior section (junior school age children) meeting on Wednesday
evenings and the senior section (senior school age plus) meeting on Friday
evenings.
The emphasis is on discipleship, salvation and more discipleship. Leaders are
committed to building relationships with whole families and not just the young
people who attend the clubs. With this in mind there is an ongoing visiting
scheme and events for families to encourage involvement.
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The last Alpha course, at the end of 2005 was the most successful so far, ten
people attended. The church was used as the venue and we welcomed eight people
from the local area, and two people who already came to Lightbowne. One person
from Alpha is now going along to a house group and two more people will be
joining a house group at the end of Feb 2006. We are greatly encouraged and
thankful to God, as we look forward to all he is going to do. The next Alpha
course will begin in the autumn.
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Currently we have two daytime groups and three evening groups attended by
around 30 people. One of the daytime groups is called Mature Outlook and is
especially for those over 55 years of age.
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| There are a number of related pages in this section and in other areas of the web site. If you found this page interesting and would like to find out more, we suggest looking at these pages: |
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