Author: leeds11

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St Oswald’s Vision

At St Oswald’s we have set ourselves a vision of being
‘Jesus Shaped People’. The JSP course has five themes – people, teaching, prayer, team building and prophetic challenge.

People

  • We aim to be a growing church attracting 5 new people every year of all ages and ethnicities
  • We expect children and young people to be part of the life of the church

Teaching

  • We seek to be a place where new believers are nurtured and discipled
  • We desire to offer nurture and discipleship  for all our members to become more Christ like

Team building

  • We aim to be a diverse community  where people get to know each other more both on Sunday and during the week
  • To invite people to share responsibilities in the life of the church.

Prayer

  • To commit to prayer outside Sunday services
  • To commit to financial giving for the needs of the world

Prophetic Challenge

  • To serve Little Horton in the name of Christ
  • To serve the wider world in the name of Christ

 

 

St Oswald’s is dedicated to serve God within its community.

We believe in worship.

We believe in serving the community, involved in local schools.

We believe in mission.

We believe in fellowship.- outings into the countryside, meals together, a summer garden party at the vicarage,as well as monthly coffee mornings.

We believe in working together with other churches. We are part of ‘Branches of the Vine’, Churches Together in BD5, and share in joint projects during Lent and Advent, united open-air services, and a pulpit exchange in January. We are part of the family of churches in the diocese of Leeds; see http://www.leeds.anglican.org.

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Visiting the Church

We are normally open Mondays 11.30-3.30, Thursdays 10-12 and 6-8pm, Saturdays 12-3 and Sunday morning, where the 10.30 service alternates between St Oswald’s and All Saints.

All Saints Horton is a fine Victorian inner-city parish church built in 1864, by local Landowner and MP Sir Francis Sharp-Powell of Horton Hall. In 1976 the church was re-ordered with a nave altar, a relocated font and parish rooms with toilets, office and kitchen.

With funding for resources provided by the Heritage Lottery Fund All Saints Church is pleased to offer schools a range of hands-on, curriculum-based activities designed to engage learners through memorable experiences through workshops for Key Stage 1, 2 and 3 children.

In the past ten years, we have:

  • developed the vestry as a meeting room, with baby toilets
  • put in new central heating throughout, with additional radiant heating in the chancel
  • renovated the nave lighting with the original brass circlets
  • replaced the lighting in the chancel
  • Created a worship space in the chancel
  • repaired the organ
  • created an open space at the rear of the nave
  • installed a disabled toilet
  • created an IT suite for the community out of the Vint chapel
  • installed cast iron gates in both the south and north porch
  • Repaired the spire and upper levels of the building
  • Raised the ground level at the main entrance to make it level access
  • Restored roof above organ – see below!
  • Restored fractured window capitals

The high quality interior, in which only the finest materials and craftsmanship were used, is of the same unified style as the exterior and contains much fine wood and stone carving. There are outstanding stained glass windows. The pulpit and font are of intricately carved alabaster and the encaustic floor tiles cover extensive areas. The Hedgland organ (rebuilt J. J. Binns) is used most Sundays.

Below is the tower of All Saints – can you work out what this is?  You are looking down the inside of the tower from high up; you can just see the fine Victorian floor tiles on the ground, in the centre of the picture.

Restoration of the metal work has started.  Look at the pulpit and see where the conservators have done paint scrapes and revealed the astonishing colours underneath the dreadful 1960s bronze paint.  The old work by Francis Skidmore shows the quality of this premier ironworker of his generation, here in All Saints. Some of his other work is in the Victoria and Albert museum in London, and in the Herbert Museum in Coventry, such is the quality.

Lloyd and Smith have restored the window stonework, where metal rods expanded and fractured the stone.  See the photo of damage. We have been blessed with grants from
* Bramall Trust £20,000
* Lord Barnby £5000
* Spooner Trust £5000
* Yorkshire Historic Churches Trust  £6000
* Gateway Grant (National Churches Trust) £8000
* Wolfson Foundation £8000
* Donation £1000
* Yorkshire Historic Churches Trust £4685
We are incredibly grateful for all these grants, especially the 2nd tranche of funding from Yorkshire Historic Churches, who gave over and above to a fund that  needed topping up by a precise amount.
A Church with an Electoral Roll of 42, in an area of high deprivation would never have been able to raise this money itself.

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The Vision

At All Saints we have set ourselves a vision to be Jesus-shaped people.   The five areas of Jesus’ ministry are the same for us today as they were for him.  they are: – People, Teaching, Team building, Prayer and Prophetic challenge

Out of these priorities…

We worship. In church there is a sense of awe, of the love of God that reaches into our hearts. We bless houses where there has been trouble of a spiritual nature. We run prayer meetings – See diary section.

We love one another.  Members of the church come from all over the world and we aim to become a family, with social events, parties and meals together that cement friendships and a sense of belonging.

We serve. In 2001 All Saints Landmark Centre was incorporated as a not-for-profit company, for groups of all ages and ethnicities.
We offer a weekly job club, IT classes, baby massage and ‘Shine’ for Special Needs young people. See http://www.allsaints-landmark.co.uk for details.

We believe in people. Our Church seeks to do what we can to reach out and show the world around us something of the love of God in practical ways, at the moment this includes opportunities to learn from the Bible, or to learn English, or to put food on the table thanks to our friends at InnChurches who support our pop-up pantry.

As well as this we partner in lots of ways with All Saints Church of England Primary School (controlled) is closely involved with the Church. See http://www.allsaints.bradford.sch.uk

We believe in justice. Refugees and asylum-seekers need our support when threatened with deportation. We accommodate the homeless for one week each year in the Church building, as part of the ‘Inn Churches‘ scheme.

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Weddings

We love to do weddings in church!

Please get in touch with the vicar at any time.  He will be pleased to guide you through the process.  You don’t have to be a Church member to get married in church, although you do make your vows in the sight of Almighty God. Continue reading “Weddings”

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Baptism

Congratulations on the gift of a child!

The service of Baptism – or christening – is a lovely occasion and brings gerat joy to the couple and congregation.  It also involves responsibilities because parents promise to follow Christ, repent of their sins, renounce evil and bring up their child in public worship.  There is no better way to start a child’s life.

Preparation

Parents, contact the vicar, who will help you to make arrangments, and fix a date to suit you.  He will try to answer your questions, and help you make the day as happy and meaningful as it should be.

Payment

No fees need to be paid to the church or the minister at any time.

Godparents

Godparents normally include two people of the same sex as the child, and one of the opposite sex, although it is all right to have more than three.

 

 

The Service

Baptism can be held within the normal sunday service, or as a stand alone service if specifically required. A normal Sunday service is about an hour, and we try to keep them as family friendly as possible – all ages are welcome in the house of God, so we believe they should be in our churches too!

Queries

Contact the vicar, Rev. Derek Jones,  by email, or come and visit us in any service and we’d love to chat with you about making it happen!