Chads News - 21st May 2025

 Dear Church family,

One of the things that makes St Chads so special is the joy of being a family of all generations, glorifying God, loving community and following Jesus together.

Last Sunday Zeke gave us a brilliant update on our youth ministry and led us in praying for our young people, especially as they get ready for two key events: the youth weekend away and youth takeover service. As many of you know, Zeke will be moving on this summer and we are in a prayer and reflection about how we can best support, equip, and lead our amazing teams who serve with our youth and children — both on Sundays and during the week.

This is a key priority for St Chads and the PCC will be meeting early in June to decide on the next steps.   We’ll be sharing more with you after that, but in the mean time, we’d really value your prayers. And if you feel God is saying something to you —maybe a prophetic word or something on your heart — please do share it with one of the clergy, wardens, or PCC members. We’d love to hear from you.

Another way we live out being one family across the generations is through our monthly ‘Blended’ services (at the 11am service).   There are many aspects of these which are lovely, but we’ve also been sensing for a while that they’re not quite hitting the mark — and that now’s the right time to stop, reflect, and dream again.

Anyone who’s led church will tell you: bringing all ages together in worship is a beautiful but tricky thing. There’s no perfect model.  But we believe it’s time for a refreshed vision for our Blended services — one that’s shaped by our core values of glorifying God, loving community, and following Jesus. Getting a clear, shared sense of why we’re gathering in this way, and what we’re aiming for, will really help us move forward.

So, we’re going to spend some time listening — both to God and to you, the 11am congregation. We’ll be doing this in two ways: through conversations with different groups in the church, and through a short survey that we’d love everyone who’s part of the 11am to take part in. Whether you’re a child, a teenager, a parent, or someone who has never had kids or whose children are grown up — we want to hear from you. There are more details about this below, so read on for that and a number of other things coming up in the life of St Chads.

with love,

Richard.

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