The Bethlehem Mouse comes to Scampton

The Bethlehem Mouse is obviously a popular character as 175 people squeezed into the church to see him.

Seasonal fun had by all

A lovely atmosphere at the Christmas concert with Mel on his classical guitar, Jeff Heskins as George Formby, Proseccos close harmony, The Last of the Summer Whiners, Pete the Kamikaze Pilot, Hannah and Maisie singing Calypso carols, Kings, Angels and Shepherds, lots of free food and a Christmas message. You missed a treat if you couldn’t make it.

Christmas starts with Christ

Loads of children came along to see a dramatic bible reading of Genesis Chapter 1 verses 1-5 by Hannah Bloom, Pete the Puppet appear as an angel, and Maisie Imogen and Izzy sing 10,000 reasons. What a great start to our season of Advent.

The season of invitation continues

Our season of invitation continues and is gaining a huge response as 200 people come along to our remembrance service, including a couple who, after visiting the website, specifically made the journey from Doncaster to attend. Following a two minutes silence, children were invited to place large poppies on the war graves.

Join us

Over 27 million people worldwide have now attended an Alpha course, an opportunity to explore life and the Christian faith in a friendly, open and informal environment, running in tens of thousands of churches, coffee shops, bars and homes across the world. No pressure, no charge, no follow up

“What Alpha offers, and what is attracting thousands of people, is permission, rare in secular culture, to discuss the big questions: life, death and their meaning”
The Guardian

The Course
Our course kicks off at 7pm on Monday 5th February 2018 at Scampton Church of England Primary School, LN1 2SD. The evening is all FREE.

The course then continues on Monday evenings for 8 weeks 7pm-8:45. Join us for food each week, a short film and plenty of opportunity to bat around your opinions, thoughts and questions, in smaller groups.

More detailed information and sign up arrangements in the January newsletter, and also here.

A great big thank you

A young child went up to their mum and said…”you know – I’d like to go to church mummy”. His mum thought this a bit strange as the family were not ‘church goers’, but wanting to encourage her child to explore different experiences in life she agreed that the family would go to the next Scampton Church Family Service to see what church was like. This happened to be the Harvest Celebration. At the end of the service mum asked…”was church what you expected?”. “No” said the child “It was much much better”.

A great big thank you to the family for taking the ‘risk’ and coming along and a great big thank you to Jon for taking the photos at our Harvest Celebration.

Informal and contemporary in style

Our new evening service which kicked off in June and ran through the summer has been extended to run through the Autumn… It’s informal and contemporary in style.

As you no doubt know the key principal at Scampton Church is to make Jesus known in a modern, relevant and unstuffy way, and that’s the starting point for this service. It included a chance to have a chat, learn new songs, a space to pray, watch a film clip, and have drinks and cake as the evening unfolds.

The summer series of three short video talks looked at ‘Building the church at Scampton’. The video series is now continuing through the Autumn and gradually unwraps the real meaning of Christmas.

Rev’d Sue Deacon opened her garden at Parsonage Lodge, Scampton on for folks to come along, bring a picnic and some chairs, and view the airshow. Although the weather wasn’t the best ‘airshow weather’ , about £100 was made for church funds. Well done Sue – lets hope the weather is a bit better next year!

Love and forgiveness

A series of three family services based on the story of Joseph (Genesis 37 – 47) ran through the summer. It began with Gods plan to build His own people with the promise to Abraham, and how Abrahams great grandson Joseph came to be sold into slavery.

The story showed how God has a plan for His people. Even though it didn’t look like it. God was in control and was with Joseph even when his brothers lied about him.

God stayed with Joseph giving him strength and wisdom to be the best in every situation he found himself in. In the last service was all about loving and forgiving, Josephs brothers said sorry for the wrong they had done and God enabled Joseph to forgive his brothers. Links were made to how Jesus shows what God is like. Even though we have done things wrong, he forgives if we ask Him. The bible reading for each service was a short video. You can watch the last episode here.

Pictured: Izzy Woods (10), sang a parody of ‘any dream will do’ from the musical Joseph and his amazing technicolour dreamcoat.

An uplifting service

The Reverend Sebastian Mattapally was inducted as the Rector of the Springline Group of Parishes at Scampton Church on Thursday 27th July, by the Bishop of Lincoln – The Right Reverend Christopher Lowson.

In an uplifting service attended by representatives of all of the parishes along the Springline Group, and from his previous church in Eastbourne, Sebastian swore allegiance to the Queen, the Bishop, and gave his commitment to work with the people of the Springline Group of Parishes together as servants of Christ.

We welcome Sebastian and his wife Alida and look forward to living out the Gospel together amongst the opportunities and all of the challenges in our parishes.

Learn, sing, play, dance – and have fun.

As part of our commitment to welcoming children into our church family we started a children’s music group.

The idea for the group was inspired by Izzy (aged 10 years) who was keen to sing and would like others to join her. She said “I really enjoy singing. It makes me feel very happy and lets me forget about everything else”.

The idea is to encourage children who have a bit of an ear for music to come along and sing, dance, move, play and learn as a young Christian. We have a small number of young people who already play at our family service. We would dearly like this to grow. So if you have in your family, or know of a young person who can sing or who plays an instrument and would like to join a band (grade 3 and upwards please) then ping us a message.

Practices are usually on a Saturday around 4pm for an hour ready for the Sunday family service. (but this is open to negotiation to find the best practice slot which suits everyone).

Here’s a photo of a couple of young musicians playing at the last family service, but remember that the invitation is to come along and learn, sing, play, dance – and have fun.