News & Views

2019 Event – Good Friday – Great News

Since the 1980’s, CTiC has organised a Good Friday Procession and Service of Witness in the City Centre, involving hundreds of Christians from many of the Churches of Chelmsford. This year, Friday 19th April, was no exception. It was a beautiful warm and sunny day.

Do you have a story from the day? Let us know. (Click here for our Contact Form). Here’s one that has already been forwarded to us:

‘Had a opportunity to pray for a man who had just got out of prison the day before. He stayed for the service and then I walked with him to central baptist church for refreshments afterwards. Thank you Lord was just able to pray Gods love over him and told him that He has a plan for him. Awesome!’

We have also heard that during conversation after the service, at least one person, a lady made a commitment to follow Jesus. Several people also received prayer for healing.

To read more –  have opportunity to download the text of the message brought by our speaker Andy Griffiths, the Prayers by Sue Gibson, details of Chair, David Gilbey’s final remarks and not to mention some photos from the day – click here to go to our dedicated events page.

Rev Hugh Dibbens is an amazing man! 80 years old and a priest in the Church of England for 50 years… but he’s not slowing down, rather speeding up! 

Apart from still being active as Evangelism Advisor in the Diocese of Chelmsford, Hugh will be ‘prayer cycling’ a minimum of 800 miles around East London and Essex, to spread the Good News of Jesus and pray for all the Parishes he visits.

The ride will also be sponsored in favour of two Essex Charities, Fellowship Afloat – www.fact.org.uk and Tapestry Care UK (in Havering) – www.tapestry-uk.org.

If you wish, you can contribute via Eventbrite:

Fellowship Afloat: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/hugh-dibbens

Tapestry:  www.justgiving.com/fundraising/hugh-dibbens1

 

Open the above poster as a pdf file – click here

Join the global wave of prayer calling all Christians to pray between Ascension and Pentecost for more people to come to know Jesus Christ.

Go to: www.thykingdomcome.global

Christian Films at my Cinema, have advised us today that the new film, Let there Be Light, will be shown on Sat. 20th (2.50pm) and Tues. 23 April (8.20pm) at the Odeon , Chelmsford.

Let There Be Light is a family friendly film, that follows the conversion of a staunch atheist, with some inspirational scenes, this film really calls us to be the light that Jesus called us to be in this dark world and to respond as Jesus would, with love.

We are told that If the Saturday showing goes well, the cinema may retain the film for further showings the next week.

Odeon website – check at www.odeon.co.uk/cinemas/chelmsford/77/

A review of the Film and the trailer  can be found here:

www.thechristianfilmreview.com/let-there-be-light/let-there-be-light-review/

Here’s some exciting news from national organisation, Neighbourhood Prayer Network about this year’s Prayer Walks of The London Loop, coming up 21st, 22nd and 23rd June.

Would you, your prayer group or your church be interested in joining in with this significant initiative?

Read more below and also download a letter you can use as an invitation to your church to take part – click here.

London Prayer LOOP Walk – The story so far

A few years ago I had a stirring in my heart to prayer walk the Sandstone Trail in Cheshire.  As I prayed into the idea to prayer walk the Sandstone Trail I was encouraged when a prayer ministry team member at my church shared she had a picture of a sandstone as she prayed with me!  She knew nothing about what was on my heart.  I waited for someone else to want to prayer walk the Sandstone Trail with me and in August 2017 I completed this prayer assignment with a good friend.

Shortly after this, I visited London.  Whilst there I did a prayer walk and came across a marker on a post for the London LOOP.  I had a strong prompting that God was asking me to do some prayer walking in London and said to God “you are not asking me to prayer walk London, are you?  It is a big place…!”  I went onto the internet and looked up what the London LOOP was and found the Transport for London website that gave more information about it.  As I looked at the map of the London LOOP on their website I saw the opportunity to prayer walk around the whole of London.

As I prayed God led me to share the idea and over a period of months everything came together so that all 24 sections (in total 150 miles) were prayer walked over three Saturdays in June and July 2018.  It was a spying out the land exercise and the feedback from those that prayer walked has meant that we are inviting individuals, prayer groups and churches from inside and outside of London to consider prayer walking one or more of the sections of the London LOOP over the weekend of Friday 21^st June 2019, Saturday 22^nd June 2019 and Sunday 23^rd June 2019.

Last year we had a passion to pray for those impacted by gun and knife crime and for the Father’s love to be released across London as we prayer walked.  Many other prayers were said as people prayed what was on their heart.

You can sign up as an individual to the London Prayer Loop Walk here

You can sign up your Prayer Group to the London Prayer Loop Walk here

You can sign up as a Church interested in the London Prayer Loop Walk here

Lisa Hutt

Neighbourhood Prayer Network

(Article from http://www.neighbourhoodprayer.net/projects/london-prayer-loop/)

Living in Chelmsford, Roland Tann is a former Police self defence instructor and has travelled around the world sharing about God’s power to heal in the name of Jesus Christ. He has seen people healed in remarkable ways.

Come and learn how to minister healing at a breakfast meeting arranged by the Chelmsford Full Gospel Businessmen (FGB) group.

Both men and women very welcome.

Saturday 11th May 2019
9am for breakfast, or teaching from 10am
Toby Carvery, Dukes Lane, Chelmsford, CM2 6AD

Further details see below.

A reminder – come and Pray for our City this Thursday – full details: click here

In 2012, Chelmsford, once a sleepy market town, suddenly found itself a City! We are England’s newest City, and were granted this most rare honour by Queen Elizabeth II, in the year of her Diamond Jubilee.

The Bible speaks much about Cities. They are important places both not only in the natural realm but spiritually too. The New Testament speaks  of the early Church being in Cities – ‘The Church in…’ – not individual churches, but one body consisting of all Believers – men and women to be reckoned with, full of the Holy Spirit, spreading the ‘leaven’ of The Gospel all around their communities and advancing The Kingdom of God right where they lived and worked.

Imagine being part of the early church in the City of Jerusalem, as described in Acts, Chapter 2, entitled in the NIV translation, The fellowship of the believers:

⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³ Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

It is of course no surprise to God we have become a City, but has the Church in Chelmsford truly woken up to the fact?  What if The Lord has a really amazing plan lined up, for the Church here to become just like that in the book of Acts?… and The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved – wouldn’t that be wonderful!

City Vision

It’s too long a story to relate right now, but CTiC has recently been introduced to a ministry called City Vision and have started a journey of exploration, a conversation with them to see what Kingdom Transformation might really look like here in Chelmsford.

Sound Interesting? We will release more soon.

Meanwhile, check out their video and take a look at the website https://cityvision.life

We are pleased to circulate this Call to Prayer, just received via Churches Together in Essex and East London.

In particular, you will see an opportunity to gather and pray at Chelmsford Cathedral on 9am 30 March:

As we approach the date when the United Kingdom may potentially leave the European Union there is a collective ‘Call to Prayer’ from churches between the 27th-31st March 2019.

Regardless of your denomination or political views we are united around this national prayer initiative, to offer opportunities for people to talk and pray together. We are encouraging local churches and groups to gather in homes, at work and in church buildings (whether the United Kingdom leaves the European Union at the end of March or there is an extension) to pray with each other during these dates.

Our presidents of Churches Together in England are praying together in London on the morning of the 30th March.

The Church Leaders in Essex & East London (CTEEL) are praying together on the morning of the 28th March in Grays.

Bishop Stephen Cottrell is hosting prayers at 9am on the 30th March at Chelmsford Cathedral which all are welcome to join –details here.

May we unite our communities and willingly join together in this important national time of prayer.

These are downloadable resource and links that may be useful.

Churches Together in England news feed:
www.cte.org.uk/Articles/542972/Home/News/Latest_news/Call_to_Prayer.aspx

Church of England resources and some suggested conversation starters, as well as locally printable publicity materials and graphics that can be shared on social media churchofengland.org/together

Call for National Day of Prayer on 28th March inspired by Christians working in government nationalcall2prayer.com

God bless

Jacqui

Jacqui King
County Ecumenical Officer
Churches Together in Essex & East London (CTEEL)

In the Bible, after Jesus ascended to Heaven and The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost the early Church is very much spoken of as, The Church in… a particular City, not the churches of…

Why then have we ended up with so many denominations, each with different traditions and doctrines!? A very good question… and one there will be no attempt to answer here!

Increasingly, across the UK you can see individual churches, inter-denominational para-church organisations working together, and Chelmsford is no exception. But is there something more?

What if the whole Christian community in our City, together ‘as one’, putting some of their own stuff aside, made a real focus on seeing The Kingdom of God come here, making Chelmsford so full of the expression of God’s love, joy and peace, that it would ripple from our City and out to our County and even to the Nation.

It’s happening in Teesside!

www.transformingteessidetogether.com

The website of Transforming Teesside Together  proclaims:

One church for Teesside
Transforming Teesside Together is a relational network of churches and christian organisations based here in Teesside. We are ONE Church, we have the same King, the same mission and we are placed here in the same land.

A recently announced project is called Serve Teesside, a partnership of local churches to bless their community:

It’s an opportunity for the church to be the church through practical acts of kindness and a massive display of unity. We are aiming to mobilise the Church of Teesside into completing 1000’s of hours of community action projects over June and July 2019!

​Jesus loves Teesside and we want to show that love through a massive visible act of united serving.

Check out these promotional videos – imagine this is Chelmsford?