Baildon Methodist Church Welcomes YOU
We welcome those who are single, or in a partnership, married or divorced, widowed, straight, gay, trans, or not quite sure. Whether you are rich or poor, happy or sad, whatever your faith or if you have none – we are glad you are interested in our church. If you have special needs to enable you to join-in our activities – please let us know.
We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, to adults who consider themselves to be “grown-ups”, and to children and teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome you if you’re having problems, are down in the dumps, or don’t much like ‘organized religion’.
We offer a welcome to those who work too hard, and those who don’t work, those who would like to get to know us better, or are just looking at this website because Granny is visiting and you want somewhere friendly to go for a cup of coffee.
In a nutshell: Our “SPECIAL” characteristics
We are a “Jesus-Shaped Church”. We strive to be “Jesus-Shaped”, so that our decisions and actions reflect the example and values of Jesus.
We are at the heart of our local community: we seek to meet local needs and to contribute to national and international issues.
We are committed to doing what we can to protect the environment and to play our part in addressing the climate emergency.
We encourage wide participation in the leadership of our worship and the practical organisation of our church.
We are open to learning from each other rather than proclaiming a dogmatic faith.
Our Church Vision
We will:
- become a growing Church, spiritually and numerically, where people discover the love of God;
- develop the work we do with children, young people, and families;
- reach out to vulnerable people of all ages, encouraging them to fulfil their potential;
- offer the unconditional love of God to our neighbours near and far;
- respect God’s World; using as little energy, and creating as little waste, as possible, to leave the World a better place;
- forge partnerships with other churches, organisations and businesses that share our values.
The Four Pillars of Methodism
We draw on the “FOUR PILLARS OF METHODISM” to learn about our Christian faith and apply it to contemporary issues and to our Christian practice:
Scripture
We seek to discover the word of God through reading the Bible.
Tradition
This is the wisdom and creativity of Christians over time and across the world. It includes inspirational material like hymns, songs, prayers, poetry, Christian art and devotional books,.
Reason
We are called to love God with our minds as well as with our hearts. To the best of our ability we need to think things through in the light of reason. This means becoming aware of different points of view, and using our own critical thinking to make sense of God’s world.
Experience
Methodism particularly stresses the importance of our own experience of God’s grace working in our lives. We gain wisdom and maturity from life experience, especially when we pray and reflect about our story with other Christians.
Church Membership
Our Church currently has 140 Members, plus 24 people who have requested to have a Pastoral Visitor and we have regular contact with over 1150 friends.
Between us we represent a wide range of Christian beliefs, drawn together by a desire to become more “Jesus-Shaped” and to learn from each other.
We are a congregation united by our mission statement:
Loving God, Loving People, Loving the World.
We are a growing Church Community and seek new Members to join us. We normally receive new Members during a Sunday morning service. Each Member is then assigned to one of our team of volunteer “Pastoral Visitors”. These links became especially important during the covid lockdown.
These are the questions to which you would be asked to respond at your reception into membership. Would you be able to answer “Yes” to these questions?
- Will you continue to commit yourself to the Christian life of worship and service, and to be open to the renewing power of God?
- Will you continue to seek the strength of God’s Spirit as you accept the cost of following Jesus Christ in your daily life?
- Will you continue to follow the commands of Jesus: to love God and to love your fellow men and women?
And the congregation will be asked:
- Members of the body of Christ, Will you so maintain the Church’s life of worship and service so that (this new member) and all of our church family may grow in grace and in the knowledge and love of God and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord?
If you would like to find out more and consider becoming a church member, contact Mervyn, Claire, Peter, our Lay Pastors.
Since 2014, we have followed programmes of study based on the Jesus-Shaped People programme – as we seek for our church to be a “Spirit-Filled Church”. We are still pursuing this adventure…and continue to learn and grow in our faith.
