Annual Report 2019-2020
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WED 3 APR
Bake Sale The Macclesfield Express publishes this picture of Sophie and Jemima, whose Bake Sale raises £420 for East Cheshire Hospice in memory of Lilly, a friend of Jemima’s from her former school in Surrey. |
FRI 19 APR
Good Friday We hold a Quiet Service and Reflection at 9:30 am, while the children make Easter Gardens in the classroom. |
SUN 21 APR
Easter Day Our two morning services combine for a single Easter Celebration at 10:00 am. James shows us the photo of the sunlit altar cross among the smouldering ashes at Notre-Dame Cathedral. He talks about how the message of the cross, God’s love and forgiveness for us all, shines through the mess, brokenness and confusion of life and brings hope to us all. This is the truth of Easter – that through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we can know God now and have eternal life with Him in the future. |
THUR 25 APR
Ogb One of the three new PCC members appointed at our Annual Church Meeting is Ogbeialu, or Ogb for short (say it O.G.B.). Ogb has been part of HTH since 2013 and works in Macclesfield as a solicitor specialising in large loss personal injury claims. She worships here with her sons Joseph and Robert and her mother Nkochi. Favourite film genre: period drama. |
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MON 20 MAY
New Homes Bonus The PCC (HTH is a registered charity and the PCC is its board of trustees) is pleased to note that we’ve been approved for a £16.5K ‘New Homes Bonus’ grant by Cheshire East Council towards our site access, safety and welcoming improvements. The PCC creates a project group to consider our options for a new building. |
THUR 16 MAY
Prayer Breakfast About ten people meet in the coffee lounge for one of our monthly Prayer Breakfasts. They start at 7:00 am and spend 30-40 minutes praying for our several mission partners in Macclesfield and around the world, using the Mission Prayer Sheet produced by Mike. Next they enjoy tea, coffee, toast and cereal (no porridge today as winter is over) until about 8:30. Those who don’t have to rush off then clear everything away. Our industrial dishwasher makes short work of the washing-up. |
SUN 19 MAY
Nora Nora tells our 10:30 service: ‘When I was given the date to go into hospital for a knee replacement operation, I was filled with fear. A few days later, I found myself singing What a friend we have in Jesus in my head, although it was a song I’d never sung aloud. When I came across the words, I read and re-read them, letting them soak into my spirit and understanding that if I took everything to God in prayer, I wouldn’t suffer needless worry but experience peace. I sat and did some knitting before my operation and when the nurse said ‘Right, shall we go?’ I was almost looking forward to it.’ |
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SAT 8 JUN
Hurdsfest We have a joint stall with the Hurdsfield Neighbourhood Partnership (a group that James chairs) and distribute a leaflet listing all that’s happening in Hurdsfield. Astra Zeneca prints the leaflet for us and two of its staff look after the stall with us all day. |
SAT 8 JUN
Half Day of Prayer We hold a half-day of prayer from midday to midnight, then our vestry prayer room remains open for prayer from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm during the week. |
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SUN 9 JUN
Gavin Gavin tells our 10:30 service: ‘A foot injury called Plantar Fasciitis in August meant I’d had to stop running. By the autumn, even short walks were excruciating. A physio said that any improvement might take up to a year. By March I had seen very little improvement and was becoming very frustrated and despondent, with attempts to add small amounts of exercise resulting in lots of pain on subsequent days. At our youth service in March, my son Nathan led our prayers and gave us all the opportunity to pray for someone nearby. Wendy M kindly prayed for my foot with an astonishing result. Very quickly the following week I noticed less and less pain. Increasing my running distances wasn't followed by pain and I told the physio that I didn't need further treatment. I have re-joined the Macclesfield Parkrun and I am incredibly thankful for the healing, which has made me appreciate the ability to walk and run so much more. I really want to encourage us to take every opportunity to pray for each other.’ |
SUN 23 JUN
Edgar Jonas Edgar, Tearfund’s Country Manager for Mozambique, visits us and leads us in a worship song in both Portuguese and Sena, a Bantu language spoken in central Mozambique. Yes, that means we’re singing in these languages too. The picture shows Edgar reconnecting afterwards with the HTH team that visited the Diocese of Niassa in 2018. |
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WED 10 JUL
Year 6 Talk Jenny from HTH is a doctor and a My Fertility Matters project tutor, and as part of our gift to Hurdsfield School she leads a workshop for girls in year 6, using colourful, luxurious materials and props to explain the amazing things that the body does to prepare before a baby can be made. The boys’ day, a week later, is more energetic, with lots of running around when they become ‘agents on a mission’ and discover many mind-blowing facts about their own, and women’s, bodies. The key message is that everyone is a double champion (one out of half a billion sperm and the chosen egg from 400,000), and that we should respect our own bodies and those of each other. |
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SAT 27 JUL
New Wine: United 19 About 60 of us go to this Christian Festival in Peterborough. It’s a week of sharing (most people camp), inspiring speakers, Bible teaching, seminars, live music, cafes, entertainment, crafts, a marketplace of Christian charities, thousands worshipping together, a trip to Peterborough Cathedral and this balloon. |
SAT 3 AUG
Soul Survivor Eleven of our young people arrive at the last ever Soul Survivor summer festival, to enjoy a week of camping together, worship and learning more about their faith. Activities include coming together with many thousands of other young people for twice daily worship and teaching sessions. They also attend optional, smaller afternoon seminars on topics such as The whole Bible in one talk, Am I a Christian? and Science vs God. A highlight is a week-long game of Human Cluedo: everyone from HTH is secretly assigned another person from the group to ‘kill’ [don’t worry, it is only a game] in an assigned location (for example: by the shower block) with a specified weapon (for example: camping blanket). |
TUES 13 AUG
Holiday@Home More than 30 guests gather at church for a three-day Holiday@Home. The programme includes Musical Moments – an afternoon of joyful interactive music and singing with Beckie, David and Hilary demonstrating a range of recorders from across the centuries, and the Bear Town Ukulele Band from Congleton who lead a singalong to Music from the Shows. That’s as well as craft activities, relaxing over the newspapers, a two-course hot lunch every day, and lots more. Some 25 volunteers, plus others driving, help to create our twelfth August holiday-time for people aged 70 or over. |
SAT 31 AUG
Funday We host a Funday for children aged 4 to 10. The day has a sea theme and we look at the story of Peter walking on water. It's loads of fun with lots of games, crafts, challenges and fish finger sandwiches. |
WED 18 SEPT
From Russia with God’s love Mission partner Colin Cleaver (left in picture) joins our Prayer Gathering and brings four Russian men, all leaders in his Rassvet church in Novosibirsk, Siberia. So we’re praying in English in small groups with other Christians praying in Russian! Colin has brought his team on a training and cultural exchange trip. They take in five church services, three prayer meetings, seven meetings with church leaders from five churches, a visit to All Nations Christian College, and sightseeing in Cheshire, Cambridge and London – all packed into ten days, during which Colin is translating constantly. |
SAT 21 SEPT
Family Treasure Hunt and BBQ Before returning to Command HQ at church for a barbeque, the treasure hunt’s clues take us all over Macclesfield. We find it’s a nice way to spend time together and maybe learn something we don’t know about where we live. For example: Opposite Superdrug and Fatface is a site occupied from 1358 to 1822 by what building? Answer: town gaol |
SUN 22 SEPT
Ann Moore Mission partner Ann Moore visits us. We give her a gift to mark her retirement from Kisiizi Hospital, Uganda, after 23 years teaching in the school of nursing and overseeing the care of the smallest, most vulnerable patients in the special care nursery. |
SUN 22 SEPT
Newbies Tea Three times a year we invite those recently new to HTH to tea so we can explain more about what goes on at here (quite a lot actually, see this report). This time we invite 27 people and eight come along to the coffee lounge for an hour to hear about everything from homegroups and Sunday worship to the PCC and our activities for children and young people. The event incidentally features cake. |
THUR 26 SEPT
Peaced Together Jill, Wendy and Fiona launch Peaced Together, a 10-week creative arts course that encourages women to reflect on their lives and set out on a journey from brokenness to hope. Wendy writes: ‘On the course there is an exercise to write down three things we are thankful for (one being a thing we didn't actually feel thankful for, like a difficult situation/relationship etc). After a few weeks I noticed that choosing to be thankful for that third and difficult situation had transformed the way I saw it. Jesus had changed my perspective, which made loving and accepting easier. God had freed me from a resentment I was holding purely through my choice to be thankful!' |
SUN 29 SEPT
Open Doors Trevor Green joins our 10:30 service to talk about this ministry serving persecuted Christians and churches. He brings an Iranian friend, a Christian pastor, who tells us about fleeing his country after being arrested by its Revolutionary Guard. PS. Trevor is Sylvia’s younger brother. |
SUN 29 SEPT
New Churchwarden We hold a Special Church Meeting after our 10:30 am service and appoint Richard as a Churchwarden, working with Rebecca, who has been in the same post since 2016. Richard has been part of HTH since 1996 and is a retired solicitor and notary in a small general practice. Now a golfer, he’s a former club rugby, hockey and tennis player. |
SUN 13 OCT
Harvest At our Harvest Service, we bring food to donate to the Café on the Green, ROAR (Reach Out and Recover) and Macclesfield Foodbank. Then our New Beginnings homegroup provides a bread and soup lunch for us all. This homegroup is led by Margaret and John and started after the Alpha Course in early 2019 when a number of participants wanted to carry on meeting. There are now a dozen members. Something else about Margaret: she was Curate and then Associate Minister at HTH from 1999 to 2007, after which she became the Vicar at Disley, before retiring back to Macc and HTH in 2018. |
MON 14 OCT
Rice Mountain Challenge Yesterday we’d taken up the challenge of selling 90kg of white and brown Kilombero rice in 1kg bags. This is how much rice a farmer in Malawi must sell to be able to send a child to secondary school for a year. After people at our Trinity Tots and Evergreens groups buy some today, we’ve sold 110kg. Karen continues to sell the rice on our monthly HTH Traidcraft stall. Something else about Karen: she studied German and Russian at university. |
WED 30 OCT
Midweek Service As each month, our Midweek Service today is a team effort. Brian plans and leads all the services and chooses preachers from amongst James, Sylvia, Margaret, Hellen and Phil. Ann plays the piano and Geraldine sets all the chairs out and helps in the kitchen. After the service, which usually attracts about 18 people, there’s lunch. Sylvia always makes a choice of two soups, such as curried sweet potato and parsnip, or celery and walnut. And there are homemade scones and posh biscuits. It’s an important and welcome ministry amongst people who are free during the week. Many live alone, and this gives them an opportunity to worship and eat with others. |
SUN 3 NOV
Pastoral Co-ordinator Wendy starts a new voluntary role as our Pastoral Co-ordinator. It doesn’t mean that she’s going to be doing all the caring. Rather, she’ll being a point of contact for those with, or knowing about, pastoral needs. |
FRI 8 NOV
KidZone KidZone meets tonight at Hurdsfield School from 6:00 to 7:30 pm as it does every alternate Friday during term time. It’s for school years 3 to 5 and includes loads of games, a praise party and a talk. |
SUN 17 NOV
Remembering Service After our annual afternoon Remembering Service we receive a card with the following message: Thank you so much for inviting us to the Service of Remembering. We came to remember my Dad. It was a lovely service and brought comfort to the family. Thank you to the members of the Church who made us so welcome. God bless you. |
MON 18 NOV
New Look The PCC agrees to adopt a refreshed HTH logo, designed by Jack. |
SUN 1 DEC
Christmas Card Instead of a postcard, we take a HTH Christmas Card, designed by Jack, to every home in Hurdsfield. We print plenty so James encourages us to take others to use to invite other friends and colleagues to our Christmas services. |
SAT 7
Joy Division The Green in the Corner café is on Pennine Court in Hurdsfield and its manager is Rachel from HTH. Today, sculptor Tony Costello unveils his sculptures of the four members of Macclesfield band Joy Division, made of French Oak and each about half a metre high. They stay on permanent display in the garden. |
SUN 8 DEC
Nativity Service A galaxy of young stars is born with some extremely impressive stage debuts in our brilliant Nativity Service. A great and funny script by BBC sitcom writer James Cary (Bluestone 42, Miranda, Milton Jones), each speaker properly mic'd (and mixed, thank you youth sound team), everyone very well rehearsed and some real talent amongst the Trailblazers principals (ages 7 to 10) has us applauding until our hands are raw. But the highlight is surely the Dance of the Sheep by the Superstars (ages 4 to 7). |
SUN 8 DEC
Cakes and Crafts Before and after both our morning services our indefatigable Ladies’ Group sells cakes and gifts made with love in aid of The Christie at Macclesfield. |
SUN 15 DEC
Carol Service The first of our four Christmas services is Carols by Candlelight. The invitations have worked, and the church is packed. |
SUN 15 DEC
Christmas Hampers Fusion is our group for young people in school years 9 to 13. It meets every Sunday evening in term time. Last week they made up about a dozen Christmas hampers with donations from the church family. This week they deliver these to people connected to the church who have had a difficult year. |
MON 16 DEC
Trinity Tots Christmas Party We have party food, games and songs and a special appearance from Father Christmas, who looks like he might be related to one of our churchwardens (see September of this report). And we combine the considerable dramatic talents of our Trinity Tots and Toddler Service teams to re-enact the Nativity Story. Pictured is Melissa as one of the Three Wise People. Then all the tots take home a book about the real story of Christmas. |
FRI 20 DEC
Carols in Victoria Park More than 100 people enjoy some proper community carol singing, backed by the King Edward Musical Society’s Macclesfield Concert Band (including John V on French horn). James draws the winners in the prize draw raffle and Ann serves the refreshments. |
THUR 2 JAN
New Boy Steve starts as our new Church Administrator. At least we didn’t need to show him where the toilets are; he’s been at HTH since 2001. As well as preaching regularly here since 2003, Steve served on the PCC for ten years, including eight as vice-chair, and has worked for Cre8 and evangelist J.John. Favourite film series: Star Wars (as we all know). |
SUN 5 JAN
Bob Bob is baptised in what is believed to be HTH’s first full-immersion indoor adult baptism. |
SUN 12 JAN
Sermon Series We start a new sermon series on Mission-Shaped Grace. |
FRI 17 JAN
The Hurd Our Rockbadgers homegroup is like an amoeba. It’s multiplied and the new group, The Hurd, gets together, in Hurdsfield, for its first meeting. Not sure about the picture? It’s a herd of sheep. Geddit? Don’t geddit? Blame Jared. |
SAT 18 JAN
Big Quiz Night More than 120 people battle for 100 points, enjoy curry from The Shalimar, raise £450 for Tearfund and watch Sarah and husband Fran trounce the competition as part of the winning team for the third successive year. Sample question: What nationality is the chef in The Muppets? Answer: Swedish |
SUN 26 JAN
Building for the Future We share drawings of our proposed new building, and put tape down on the carpet of the worship space to illustrate the layout. We’ll need £383K for the project, which also includes a new member of staff for two years and improvements to our site, lobby and coffee lounge. |
TUES 28 JAN
Lead Academy James, Jared, Steve, Rebecca and Simon (pictured) start a two-day module on leadership and teams on their Lead Academy course. The course meets for two days four times over 18 months and comprises a group of churches similar in size or context so that they can help one another and share best practice and experiences. In our case this means churches seeking to increase average weekly attendance (for us, over two services) of 200 people. |
TUES 4 FEB
Listening Prayer James and four of our Prayer Ministry Team start a two-day prayer course in Romiley. They are greatly encouraged to discover that they can indeed hear God. They are inspired to be daring and bold in asking the Lord about His thoughts on a subject or about a person, with a reminder at all times to be relaxed and not to worry about mistakes or apparent mistakes. They are amazed, as they listen to God for others, how often the words and pictures they receive are relevant and helpful for those they are praying for (often a stranger). And they’re encouraged as others listen to God for them and offer encouraging and insightful words and images. |
MON 10 FEB
God Amazes Us We thank God for his extraordinary provision. We hear that church members have pledged over £180K towards our Building for the Future project. This means that, with existing church funds and grant income already allocated to us, we hope to receive more than enough for our new building, site improvements and new member of staff for two years. |
TUES 11 FEB
Tuesday Trampers As an alternative to their regular more local walks, once every couple of months our intrepid Tuesday Trampers are walking the alphabet. So far they’ve had awaydays at the Anderton Boat Lift, Bakewell, Castleton and today it’s Dunham Massey. They have a few years to work out where to go when they reach Z. Suggestions please to Phil and Julia. |
SAT 15 FEB
Sewing Group This social and supportive group meets at church to stitch and chat, as it does between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm on the third Saturday of each month. Starting three years ago with six people, there are now 12 to 15, working on projects involving sewing machines, hand stitching, cross stitch, dressmaking and creating crafts with wool. Today, organisers Dorothy and her daughter Rosie are delighted to see a tall man carry his sewing machine into the coffee lounge. However, they’re not able to welcome the group’s first male stitcher because he’s only carrying it in for his girlfriend, and then leaves. |
TUES 25 FEB
Pancake Party About 200 people come to our Shrove Tuesday Pancake Party and we make pancake after pancake with a wide variety of toppings. It gets quite loud as everyone chats, eats and plays games like hook a duck (easy) and lob the ping pong ball into a jam jar (impossible). Note to Purchasing Committee for next year – buy more sweets for prizes please (we ran out, and anyone succeeding in the jam jar game deserves a whole sweet shop). |
WED 26 FEB
Lent Challenge Day One of the HTH Lent Challenge, in which 53 people who’ve signed up receive a daily text during Lent. This is an HTH initiative – we’re not copying stuff from someone else – and the texts are created by the PCC’s Pastoral Care and Discipleship Sub-Group, led by Rebecca. The texts include: Stop for five whole minutes of silence and ask God to be with you. Fast from saying anything cynical, negative or judgmental for 24 hours. Speak life instead! |
SAT 29
Board Games Drop-In Some 40 to 50 people join us over the afternoon and evening to play a big range of board games from John V and Jared’s extensive collections. Players are aged from four to very grown up, with equal numbers of female and male. Those that want to order pizza for tea. Games include Settlers of Catan, Ticket To Ride (pictured), The Logo Game and a highly competitive one called Captain Sonar that involves two teams of four running a submarine. Most competitive players? Look no further than the people who brought the games, with Erin also displaying a mean streak and taking no prisoners. |
SAT 7 MAR
HTH Football Team Jared makes his first appearance for our football team. This plays in the South Manchester and Cheshire Christian Football League and includes players from other churches and non-church players. In fact, Jared is presently the only HTH player in the squad. Jared plays upfront and then on the wing. We win 5-0 against top of the division (and unbeaten all season) Westwood Blue from Oldham. |
SAT 7 MAR
Comedy Night More than 100 people join our Comedy Night with Andy Kind. He’s extremely funny, as you might expect for someone who’s been a professional comedian since 2005. Andy’s preferred weekend routine is a Saturday night comedy gig followed by a Sunday morning preach. He did just this for us and preached at our 10:30 service the next day. |
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SUN 15 MAR
New Youth Group Sixth meeting of our new Pathfinders Sunday evening group which Jared started last month for anyone in school years 6 to 9 (that’s ages 11 to 14 in old money). Round the World Table Tennis proves popular, with longest rallies increasing from about 3 to 11 shots (still room for improvement though). The group is all about belonging and being a place for young people to learn, grow and have fun together. |
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