It was a great day!  The sun shone, the BBQ was perfect, the games were fun, the music was fab, the atmosphere was relaxed, the church looked brilliant, the cakes were amazing and everyone had a great time!.  We think about 250 people came and enjoyed it all.  Helen was delighted with winning £25 for her contribution to the painting that Mike organised, and Ruth thinks that her team of face painters decorated about 100 children.  Tory noted the steady stream of people wanting to have their nails done, and Dave ran out of coconuts in the first hour! So thank you to everyone who made the day such a joyful event – from those who came to set up, to those …

As a Christian community we are increasingly aware that life is all about connection – our connection with God and with others.  There is so much about connection in the bible… so much in the story… perhaps you could say that it’s a all about connection – with God, with each other, with the world around us… In it we read stories of connection and stories of disconnection, we read stories of how God wanted to reconnect us to himself, and how we repeatedly disconnect ourselves from him and other, and we read stories of Jesus who was so connected with his Father and yet allowed himself to become disconnected so that he could reconnect us to God.
This is what …

God is working all the time… although we can’t always see it or recognise it.  But sometimes God’s actions in our lives feel so real that we can’t help but talk about them.
As we journey together as a church family we want to encourage each other with stories of what we see God doing in our lives.  Simple stories, simply told. Real. Authentic.
To help us in all this we are going to make sure that each week we hear from each other when we meet.  So come ready to share your stories.  Get used to looking out for the workings of God and listen out for what the Spirit is saying to us as a family being shaped into the …

I am excited about what is happening on Sundays over the next few weeks through to the end of November and wanted to let everyone know about it.
This Sunday is normal (if there is ever a normal Sunday here!), and I am going to be looking a the Sower in the last of our ‘Level Teaching’ series…
The week after (25th October) we are going to have a healing service where the focus will be on us praying for each other and blessing one another in Jesus’ name.
On the 1st November Louise and Toby are going to be baptised with Dan reaffirming his vows… Always a great time – if there is anyone else who wants to be baptised let …

Check out this really fascinating and inspiring video about ‘simple’ church – a church about people not services…  Worth watching : )

For most of the last two thousand years people have associated the word ‘Church’ with something on a Sunday – a service, a mass, a worship event, a teaching hour. As a result other things are also linked to the word – songs, hymns, buildings, pulpits, pews, priests or teachers, worship bands, liturgy… All of these are good things… but…
We want our church here in Twerton to be known for what happens on Mondays not Sundays.
On Mondays we are involved in God’s mission. On Mondays we are praying and connecting with God, on our own and with others. On Mondays we are engaged with the problems of our neighbours and our friends. On Mondays we are wondering what God is …

Over the next few months (and years) it is my hope that our church here in Twerton will learn to ‘be church’ in a completely new way. Instead of organising ourselves around our services and programmes we want to see what happens when we see ourselves primarily as people engaged on a mission.

When we think of church many people instantly think of a building and the things that go on inside it. We want to change that and turn it on its head. We want everyone, when they think of St Michaels, to think instantly of people – people like themselves – people making a difference in the world.
We hope that St Michael’s is different.