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April Prayer Calendar
April Prayer Calendar
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Prayer Week: 19-26 January 2025

It’s Prayer Week from 19th - 26th January 2025 - let’s get praying and fasting!

You are invited to join the Woodlands Church Family for a dedicated week of prayer and fasting for our church, city, nation and the world. Let's remember the words of Jesus as we pray. Matthew 6 v 33: 'Seek First His Kingdom'.

As we start 2025, it feels wholly appropriate to gather together in one spirit to fast and pray and cry out to God for his kingdom to come here, as it is in heaven. It is a brilliant way to start the New Year, surrendering ourselves to God's goodness and power and his will for ourselves, our church and our world, which so desperately needs it.

There are a few key ways you can get involved throughout Prayer Week and we’d love everyone to take part.

A Week of Prayer & Fasting

There are lots of ways to join in at home and in person. We’d love it if everyone in our church community got involved…

  1. Book a slot in the 24/7 Prayer Room
    You can sign up to pray in hour long slots in our creative Prayer Room space in Woodlands Central. The Prayer Room opens on Sunday 19th January at 7pm.

  2. Come to our Evening of Prayer & Worship
    J    oin people from all eight sites of the Woodlands Church Family on Tuesday 21st January from 7.45pm - 9.30pm in the Main Hall at Woodlands Central for an evening of prayer and worship. Our focus is to pray for all areas of the city to be transformed with the love and power of God and to pray for Unity for us and churches across the City.

  3. Join in with Morning Prayer Watch from 7.15am - 8.15am
    Join us at Central from Monday to Friday, the 20th - 24th January for daily sessions hosted and led by different members of our staff team and church community as we pray for ourselves, our Church, our City and the World each morning.

  4. Fast during Prayer Week
    The Bible teaches the value of fasting in order to focus on prayer and seek God’s will. We would like for our church family to think about fasting and make a plan for how this could fit into your routine during Prayer Week. It could be that you decide to fast a single meal, or fast for a day or even longer. To learn about fasting, watch this preach from Tim Dobson on Spiritual Disciplines: Fasting & Feasting. If you can only fast one meal or one day, why not fast with others on Tuesday 21st January ahead of the Evening of Prayer & Worship gathering.

  5. Pray the Lord’s Prayer at Noon
    Set an alarm and say the Lord’s Prayer each day at 12pm along with hundreds of others in our church family.

  6. Download our Prayer Guide
    Use our handy guide to help you focus and pray throughout the week.

Praying for Our Churches

To help us pray across the Woodlands Church Family during Prayer Week, we asked the leaders of each church to share their prayer requests so that we can pray specifically for each of their needs. We’ll be posting these on Facebook once a day from Monday through Saturday. Please take some time this week to be praying for:

Immanuel Series: Life Giver | Tim Dobson | 15th December 2024 at 11am

Immanuel Series

God with us

People often go home for Christmas. No matter how many messages, virtual meetings, or posted cards and gifts - there is nothing like someone’s actual physical presence in the room. When someone you love comes home, tears often flow. Human beings are wired for this — we are reassured and filled with joy by touching, hearing and seeing someone in our time and space. When Jesus entered into human history he entered our reality, our circumstances, our families, our work lives, our most secret and public lives. And it changed everything.

This series aims to explore the mystery of Jesus entering our world.

Immanuel: Peace Bringer | Dave Mitchell | 8th December 2024 at 7pm

Immanuel Series

God with us

People often go home for Christmas. No matter how many messages, virtual meetings, or posted cards and gifts - there is nothing like someone’s actual physical presence in the room. When someone you love comes home, tears often flow. Human beings are wired for this — we are reassured and filled with joy by touching, hearing and seeing someone in our time and space. When Jesus entered into human history he entered our reality, our circumstances, our families, our work lives, our most secret and public lives. And it changed everything.

This series aims to explore the mystery of Jesus entering our world.

Immanuel Series: Peace Bringer | Dave Mitchell | 8th December 2024 at 11am

Immanuel Series

God with us

People often go home for Christmas. No matter how many messages, virtual meetings, or posted cards and gifts - there is nothing like someone’s actual physical presence in the room. When someone you love comes home, tears often flow. Human beings are wired for this — we are reassured and filled with joy by touching, hearing and seeing someone in our time and space. When Jesus entered into human history he entered our reality, our circumstances, our families, our work lives, our most secret and public lives. And it changed everything.

This series aims to explore the mystery of Jesus entering our world.

Immanuel Series: God with us | Dave Mitchell | 1st December 2024 at 11am

Immanuel Series

God with us

People often go home for Christmas. No matter how many messages, virtual meetings, or posted cards and gifts - there is nothing like someone’s actual physical presence in the room. When someone you love comes home, tears often flow. Human beings are wired for this — we are reassured and filled with joy by touching, hearing and seeing someone in our time and space. When Jesus entered into human history he entered our reality, our circumstances, our families, our work lives, our most secret and public lives. And it changed everything.

This series aims to explore the mystery of Jesus entering our world.

Immanuel: God with Us | Rachell Riddall | 1st December 2024 at 6.30pm

Immanuel Series

God with us

People often go home for Christmas. No matter how many messages, virtual meetings, or posted cards and gifts - there is nothing like someone’s actual physical presence in the room. When someone you love comes home, tears often flow. Human beings are wired for this — we are reassured and filled with joy by touching, hearing and seeing someone in our time and space. When Jesus entered into human history he entered our reality, our circumstances, our families, our work lives, our most secret and public lives. And it changed everything.

This series aims to explore the mystery of Jesus entering our world.

Immanuel Series

Immanuel Series

God with us

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign:
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
- Isaiah 7:14


Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name
Immanuel, which means, God with us.
- Matthew 1:23

People often go home for Christmas. No matter how many messages, virtual meetings, or posted cards and gifts - there is nothing like someone’s actual physical presence in the room. When someone you love comes home, tears often flow. Human beings are wired for this — we are reassured and filled with joy by touching, hearing and seeing someone in our time and space. When Jesus entered into human history he entered our reality, our circumstances, our families, our work lives, our most secret and public lives. And it changed everything.

Perhaps still reeling from the experience he had just been through John started his letter with these words about Jesus: We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life.
- 1 John 1:1 NLT

C. S Lewis called earth ‘the visited planet’. This Christmas amongst the busyness and festivities we are taking time to ponder again the profound mystery of Jesus entry into our world. He is “Immanuel” which means “God is with us”.

Here’s what we’re hearing about each week in our messages on Sundays:

  • 1st December: God With Us

  • 8th December: Peace Bringer

  • 15th December: Life Giver

Download our discussion notes to go deeper with the topics each week. This also includes recommended reading and a video to watch as well:

MESSAGES FROM THIS SERIES

Volunteer Opportunity: Newcomers Admin

The Woodlands Church Family (WCF) is a vibrant, growing family of churches with seven sites located across the city of Bristol and a vision to plant more.

We are recruiting for volunteers to join our Newcomers Team to support the assimilation of new people to Woodlands Central. We’d love to hear from you if you’re interesting being part of the team.

 ABOUT THIS VOLUNTEERING OPPORTUNITY

We are looking for administrative support for the Newcomers team. Ideally we would like someone who could commit to helping us 3 to 4 hours on a Monday and/or Tuesday, after our newcomers events. These happen once or twice each month on Sundays.

Key areas of work include:

  • Administer the newcomers process by submitting new contact cards, inviting people to newcomer’s events and managing the process flow.

  • Process newcomers after events, including uploading forms and photos to our database. 

Personal attributes and key skills

  • Strong administration skills with an eye for detail

  • Good written communication skills

  • Administering confidential information in line with our Data Protection Policy

  • Team player

Our volunteer roles require a commitment to be a follower of Jesus and a worshipping member of the Woodlands Church Family.

Support for this voluntary role

  • In-house training on Data Protection and use of ChurchSuite database

  • Open invitation to join in with our wider team meetings on Monday mornings where we gather together, worship, share good news stories and pray for one another.

Interested? Get in touch!
Please contact our Newcomers Team by emailing newcomers@woodlandschurch.net for an opportunity to meet and discuss the role further.

Calling all Christmas Choir & Brass Player

We’re getting ready for Christmas at Woodies and are looking for people to join our choir and brass band for the Carols by Candlelight services happening on:

14th December (7pm)
15th December (5pm & 7pm)

Choir rehearsals will be on Monday nights in the Upper Hall from 7.30pm - 9pm on the following dates: 
11th November  
18th November
25th November
(No rehearsal 2nd December due to the 'Big Singalong' rehearsal) 
9th December

Would you like to get involved? Find out how below…

WANT TO JOIN THE CHRISTMAS CHOIR?
For the Christmas choir, ideally you’d have the ability to read music and some experience of singing in a choir. This is helpful, but not essential. You do have to be able to sing in tune and hold a part.
Email our Worship Pastor Jo Demcolli for more information.

ARE YOU A BRASS BRAND PLAYER?
If you are a a brass player at a grade 7 standard or higher, please get in touch with Nigel Savage for more information.

What's So Amazing About Grace? Series

What’s So Amazing About Grace? Series

What does living in God’s grace look like?

Grace is the foundation for so much of the Christian life.

In John’s gospel, we read:
’From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.’

We live in a time where ideas around grace and truth are hotly debated. This series explores how the bible’s ancient wisdom is still relevant, powerful and essential, as we navigate following Jesus in our complex world.

Here’s what we’re hearing about each week in our messages on Sundays:

  • 3rd November: My Truth Your Truth

  • 10th November: Amazing Grace

  • 17th November: The Grace Givers

  • 24th November: 21st Century Grace

Download our discussion notes to go deeper with the topics each week. This also includes recommended reading and a video to watch as well:

MESSAGES FROM THIS SERIES

Coming soon!

Tiny Treasures Toddlers

At Woodlands Church, our very popular Tiny Treasures Toddlers group meets weekly on Wednesdays, from 10am to 11.30am during term time.

Our friendly and relaxed church-run toddler group is a great place for parents / primary carers to meet one another and enjoy time with their babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers.

We are looking forward to getting to know you and your little one/s better. Our hope is that we can support and encourage you during your mornings with us.

Many of our Tiny Treasures team are volunteers from Woodlands Church and anyone on the team will always be ready to listen and pray for you if you would like that.

At Tiny Treasures toddlers we will:

  • Provide a safe and happy environment for children to play, learn and interact.

  • Be a welcoming place for all parents and carers to make friends and feel supported.

  • Show the love of God in our community.

  • Care for the whole child and parent/carer – physically, emotionally and spiritually.

What to expect

Arrival:
On arrival, you will be greeted by a member of our welcome team. If you’re new, they will ask you to fill out a registration form.

A donation of £2.50 per family with up to two children, then 50p for each additional child. If cost is prohibitive for you, please speak to a member of the team.


Buggies:
Please park your buggies on the far side in the Main Hall towards the rear.

Tea and Coffee:
Hot drinks are available throughout the morning - any time you would like! Please bring a keep cup with a lid to keep all the little ones safe, and make sure to have a chat with our friendly refreshments team!

Snack time:
Snacks will be served at 10.45am in the foyer. Please keep snacks out of the main hall and do let us know if your child has any allergies or intolerances. It would help our refreshments team if you could clear your cups and plates after snack time.

Nappies:
Nappy changing facilities can be found in the Disabled toilet at the rear of the main hall.

In case of fire:
In the event of a continuous fire alarm sounding, please leave the building by your nearest exit with your children and assemble at the assembly point across the road.

Eyes Peeled!:
Our team will always keep a watchful eye on children as they play, however children will always remain the full responsibility of their parent/carer at all times.

Tidy Up Time:
It would really help us if you could help tidy the toys when the bell sounds for tidy up time.


Singing Time:
We love singing and dancing! We finish each session with a time of singing and story telling. Once a term we will a focus this around a specific holiday or event and one of our church team will join us.

Join our Parent Team:
We would love some parent volunteers on our team. This may mean that you help with setting out the toys, bake for snack time, facilitate craft, sweep the hall or even help lead the singing. Please speak to a member of the team if you are able to help in any way.

The Last Word:
Wondering why our logo is a pearl, or why we are called Tiny Treasures Toddlers? We believe that your children are treasures, loved and valued by God.

In the Bible, in the book of Matthew, we read about a merchant looking for beautiful pearls, but he found just one single pearl of such value that he sold everything he had just to have it. We believe that there is treasure far greater than we can see here on earth. To find out more, please speak to a member of the team.

Get in touch:
If you have any questions/feedback or prayer requests, please email the toddler team at Woodlands Church.

Woodlands Church, Belgrave Road, Bristol BS8 2AA