Worthing Churches

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

2011-12-27T11:47:00.001Z

Change is at the heart of our Christian faith. Saint Paul said that anyone who is in Christ is a new creation, and we are called to live as children in the light.
The theme for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2012 comes to us from the churches in Poland, who have reflected upon their own experience as a nation, and in particular how, as a nation, they have been changed and transformed by the many upheavals of their history, and sustained by their faith.
Change is also at the heart of the ecumenical movement. When we pray for the unity of the church we are praying that the churches that we know and which are so familiar to us will change as they conform more closely to Christ. This is an exciting vision, but also a challenging one. Furthermore, when we pray for this transforming unity we are also praying for change in the world.

Heart of Christmas Magazine

2011-12-19T09:26:00.001Z

The promised Heart of Christmas magazine has been issued and can be purchased from WAITROSE and certain independent newsagents.

New Foundation Church on Worthing Churches

2011-12-19T09:18:00.001Z

Worthing Churches welcomes New Foundation Church on its website.

Worthing Churches Advent & Christmas Services

2011-11-28T22:20:00.001Z

A list of selected services over the Advent & Christmas period is included under "Events". These will be added to as details become available (Ed.)

Heart of Sussex

2011-11-24T09:52:00.001Z

The first issue of HEART OF SUSSEX is now out: November/December 2011

Chapel Gifts and Books

2011-07-06T11:57:00.001+01:00

Worthing Churches is delighted to feature Chapel Gifts and Books

Verite Christian Resources

2011-06-24T08:39:00.001+01:00

Worthing Churches is delighted to feature Verite Christian Resources

Find us on Facebook

2011-02-23T18:04:00.001Z

You can find worthingchurches.org.uk on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/worthingchurches/113464455352395?ref=ts.

That way you'll be able to see others in Worthing you can connect with and you'll find all the latest new and events there also.

Heart of West Sussex on Worthing Churches

2011-02-23T16:59:00.001Z

Worthing Churches is pleased to feature Heart of West Sussex, the bi-monthly newspaper issued free through local churches. Check out the page via the "Organisations" tab (above).

Worthing Churches supports Big Church Day Out

2011-02-23T09:56:00.001Z

Worthing Churches is pleased to support Big Church Day Out 2011 - May 29th and 30th. Check out the website at www.bigchurchdayout.com

Guest Blog from Tim Ross

2011-02-18T10:32:00.001Z

My name is Tim Ross, I've just had my 50th birthday.
I do art (mostly digital), some installation art and the odd commission for one or two churches. I love seeing shows - just seen Cirque du Soleil's incredible new show Totem - breathtaking!
I came to Worthing when I had to retire from Methodist ministry due to a long term illness Chronic Fatigue Syndrome).
The best thing about living in Worthing is probably the sea. Wherever we live, we have to have the ever-changing beauty and majesty of the sea close by.
The worst thing has got to be the ridiculous cost of parking, which continually drives us out of town to do our shopping where parking is free.
I go to the Methodist church because that is where God called me to.
The way I became a Christian is a loooong story, but the short version is that I used to be an ardent atheist; Christians were wasting perfectly good Sundays, as far as I was concerned. However, God's a crafty so-and-so. He planted a Christian family in a house opposite us when I was 18. They had two attractive girls, and I was quite interested in girls. They tried their hardest to convert me, whilst I tried equally hard to un-convert them. One day, in desperation I guess, they handed me a Bible. My first thought was, "Great, now I can show them how ridiculous it all is." But when I touched the Bible, it was as if Jesus was standing in front of me. A presence so real I couldn't possibly deny it. All I felt was the deepest love and acceptance washing over me. I couldn't speak, or even stand for a few minutes. I think they thought I was fainting. They asked what was wrong. All I could mumble was, "It's Jesus".
Something you don't know about me - mmm. You probably don't know that I was arrested at school for burglary. A friend and I used to do for the excitement. Needless to say, I've found the adventure of following Jesus far more exciting!
I'm reading "Dissolution" by C.J.Sansom. He writes murder mysteries set in the time of Henry VIII.
Twitter has been an eye opener for me. It's been a way for me to express my service to God within the confines of my illness. I tweet Celtic-style prayers on a regular basis. I got into trouble a while back with Methodist church authorities for attempting to host a world-wide communion service on the internet using Twitter. The whole point of social networking is that it connects people, what greater connection is there than the one we share in Christ. It seems only natural to celebrate that connection through communion. I'm sure it will happen one day. If not on Twitter, then on Facebook or somewhere else.
It is hugely important that the Church not only recognises but also has a significant presence in the online community, and worthingchurches.org.uk is an essential part of that mission.
My first book The Nearest will be published a few months time. It's a fresh look at how we express our devotion to God. I tackle the taboo question of whether having a daily quiet time is the only way to have a close relationship with God. I offer and alternative approach to spirituality for Christians who find daily devotions either unfulfilling or plain impossible because of the demands of modern living.I haven't got a publishing date yet, but it should be available from about Easter.
Peace with you, Tim.

Visitors to worthingchurches.org.uk

2010-12-11T08:26:00.000Z

So you're probably wondering how many visitors we get to worthingchurches.org.uk? Well, if you're not we're going to tell you anyway!

Back in May when we first launched the new site we had about 200 visitors. That went up to 300 in June and reached it's peak in September at almost 600 unique visitors to the site for the month. Amazingly most of those visitors (ie you!) are new visitors so welcome if this is your first time here. In October and November we had around 500 visitors and we're still counting for December so we'll let you know!

Those visitors back in September were clocking up around 800 visits so 1 in 4 of you come back to us in the month - thankyou! Generally people stay on the site for between 2-3 minutes which isn't long to get your attention but is fairly typical nowadays.

The top feature by far is the front page slideshow which advertises upcoming events followed swiftly by the welcome page and the home page where everybody starts. After that visitors go looking at the churches page as you'd expect and the events page which is where we put our calendar. Organisations and news get a look in and surprisingly the English Martyrs page and the Trent Concert page (now archived) were in our top ten so well done to English Martyrs and the Trent boys!

The key words people are searching for when they come to worthingchurches.org.uk are 'church, worthing, churches, in, together'. Most of our visits come directly or through a search engine so if you're a local church or organisation and would like to link to us that would be appreciated. Most of our visits come from the UK but Germany, USA, Russia, India, Phillippines and Spain all feature.

Well that's enough interesting information on who's using worthingchurches.org.uk. Please tell us what you'd like to see more of and you can comment directly on this blog.

Guest blog from Nigel O'Dwyer

2010-12-03T06:56:00.000Z

Welcome again,

I can see that this is going to become a habit - sitting down and making a stab at 'the church in Worthing now'.

Why is that important? Surely each church simply gets on and does its own thing?

Yes and no. It is true that each church will have its own programme - meetings, one-to-ones, community work - but it is also true that many work more effectively in conjunction with others. Some of the most exciting developments have been in the centre of town where some dozen or more churches regularly relate to one another, worship together, plan events and work with their (larger) community.

And that 'larger community' isn't really interested in the differences between churches. Christians may know what those differences mean and some distinctions can be useful but, by and large, the only difference that most people want to know about is the one between following Jesus Christ and not following him. What does 'Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done' mean in practice? And does it matter?

Recently, I've been asked to join the LSP - the Local Strategic Partnership. As the local government website puts it 'Communities and local government believe more gets done if people in an area work together.'

No, not exactly the most profound new thinking. What is new is that nothing has been done in the past to try to link together all the main players in a community. First, they have had to envision a better way of living and working. Then they had to work out how it can be achieved - not some huge master-plan that governs all our lives but just an ongoing method of working together. [See more here:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/localgovernment/performanceframeworkpartnerships/localstrategicpartnerships]

The document that sets out the overview for Worthing and Adur has now been completed. Dozens of groups have contributed and thousands of individual people have also given their views. In the coming months, you'll hear more of how it's all designed to work in practice.

The key thing for the churches is to present their core belief - that Jesus is Lord - and to unpack that in a way that makes sense. What difference does knowing Jesus and knowing that He is Lord actually make? Recognising how to do that and knowing the right moments to say it is going to be a challenge, I suspect. And then keeping it simple and direct. 'Wise as serpents, innocent as doves' seems the proper text here!

The good thing is the huge amount of good practice - in terms of service to the community - that's already a feature of the church. I'll come back to that next time.

Advertising your events on the home page

2010-12-03T06:53:00.001Z

Worthingchurches.org.uk was created to show the events and news from all the churches in Worthing. On the front page we have a slideshow that highlights various special events across the town. Here's how to include your event if you'd like us to put it on the front page.

Create a poster or picture which is 460x230px and send it through to us at info[a]worthingchurches.org.uk or contact us through the contact page telling us what you'd like to advertise and we'll be in touch with you. If you don't know what px (pixels) is then just use the same ratio so that it is twice as high as it is wide and we can put it into the right size.

Doing this is a great opportunity to get the word out about your event. We have lots of visitors and all our news and events go out automatically through facebook and twitter to even more people.

If you need any help doing the poster again just get in touch and we can point you to some people who can help. You'll see a link on the home page to 3sixtycreative who designed this site and are highly recommended. The best advice is to keep in simple with the name, date and venue of the event clearly shown and perhaps just pick a good background image to go along with it.

An example of the some of the events we advertise include the Autumn 2010 launch of Alpha, Crossroads which is a regular youth event across the town and a town centre march.

We show up to four different pictures on the home page so we can't include every event that is happening but we would like to help where we can so we look forward to hearing from you!