Happy New Year to you! 2010 and 2011 have been Jam-packed and encouraging years for us... we hope you had a good 2011 too. We had retreats / games nights / Bible Discussions / Prayer Nights / Classs / Bible Studies / Worship Times /outreach / poor projects / Snow Sledging / Parties etc. concluding with a church trip to England and then gathering in the snow at Helen's Bay to welcome and celebrate our new sister Jing Jing being baptised into Christ in the very cold sea! We would love you to come join us and some stage in 2011. You can contact us through the site for a latest update of our events and meetings. All New and Updated... Things look a little different around here... We have just updated our website to make the info available as clear as possible and easy to find. If you have any further thoughts or suggestions on things that are useful (or things you don't like as well!) then let us know. March Update Blue skys are starting to take over from the clouds and snow. Over the past few months we have been running bible discussions on thursday nights. These have been both thought provoking and encouraging for all involved. Why not come along some time? Sunday 7th March we had a joint service with the Dublin Church...very encouraging. Danny did a great job with a lesson. "There's Snow Stopping Us" We have just encountered to coldest winter for the past 30 years. Over the Christmas Holidays, after one of our church meetings, quite a few of us (adults and children!) got to spend the afternoon playing in the snow. Fortunately there were no injuries... although a few bruises and cold toes! Sometimes the Idea of being a Christian is perceived to be something that's no fun. Hopefully from checking out our galleries below you may see that this is far from true. We'd love you to join us for some fun, as well as growing in your relationship with God.    Busy summer - Thats it for Another Year! - The Past 2-3 Months have flown past and its back to School time already for lots of the kids. Lots of people at this time of year sign up to new courses to further their education. How is your Bible Knowledge? Why not advance your bible knowledge and arrange a Bible Study - these can be as regular and as detailed as you want - depending on what you know and where you are. Contact Danny (danny@belfastchurch.com) if you would like some more information. 7 Mile Walk - May 23rd - ' Help the Aged / Age Concern ' - On saturday may 23rd - We had a sponsored walk to raise money for the charities "Help the aged" and "Age concern". As a church - we wanted to do something to help out and meet some local needs. The Elderly get a rough time with failing pension schemes / rising costs from food bills to electricity and the recently highlighted problem of fuel poverty. We organised a sponsored walk which was something most of us could be involved in and something we could involve the children in. So on saturday morning we set off from Belfast to walk the seven miles down the Comber greenway, via Dundonald right to Comber. The Weather stayed dry and warm and after a few hours we arrived in comber Highstreet. Thanks to everyone who kindly donated towards our total of about 680 pounds! (some money still to come in). Pics from the Walk can be found in our scrapbook. Spring Retreat 09 - ' Weekend at O'harabrook ' - The weekend of 24th to 26th of April we were joined by Andy & Tammy Fleming for a weekend at the Beautiful O'harabrook cottages near Ballymoney. Right from Friday night through to sunday lunch we were taught and encouraged through Andy & Tammy's vast knowledge of the scriptures and thier experiances of stepping out in faith with God in the various mission fields around the globe. (Thanks guys so much for making time for us in your busy schedule - we really appreciate it!) The times of fellowship, singing and un-distracted prayers in areas of amazing beauty have left us as a family very much encouraged. Pics from the weekend can be found in our scrapbook. Start 09 - ' Change of Hosting Provider ' - Just a quick note - We recently changed out hosting provider for our website, so the site was down for a short while - If you had or are having any problems with the site or have not been able to contact us - please email james by clicking here or give us a call on one of the numbers on the Contact page. Thank you. June to July - ' Strange Weather & Car Boot Sales ' - Just as per last year - the summer seems to have gone before the summer holidays and there has been lots of Rain! We have had the odd sunny day where we got to go spend some time at the beach which the kids love. Last saturday (5th June) as part of one of our local Projects for the Hope Worldwide Charity we gathered up alot of our "Stuff" and had a car boot sale. After a very early morning start , we got in and in drizzly conditions set up. straight away we had a few sales with the Bargain Hunters who were quite litterally climbing into our cars to get a look at our things. The weather was drizzly and quickly getting wetter which meant there were considerably less people around than usuall but in the hour before we almost got blown away and had to pack up our stuff, we got to sell a few more things and raise some more money. Thanks to everyone who helped out setting up ,selling ,encouraging and to everone who donated some belongings. We now have alot of things and are looking forward to the next one! Busy April and May! - 'Lots of Visits' - The past two months has been very busy - and we have been very encouraged with lots of people coming to visit. We had Adrian and Maureen Hill stay for the weekend as well as Tommy and Kim Clohterty all from London. Lots of fellowship (delicious dinner on Sat night -thanks Jane) and sharing over the weekend was great. On Sunday Tommy give us an update about the work of Hope Worldwide in London including helping the homeless, Drug & Alcohol recovery and mentoring programmes. Tommy while he was here also ran the Belfast marathan to raise some money! (It was a very hot day - a great achievment.) Adrian Hill encouraged and challanged us with his lesson on sunday from 1 Cor 16:13-14. We also had Andy Fleming visit and give some great lessons, advice , encouragemet to us all. Andy has spent the majority of his life serving as a missionary all around the Globe from the UK to Sweeden to Ukraine, Russia and the US (including bringing up a young family through this work). Just last weekend we had Daniel and Mary Allison drop in as they back to Afghanistan, were they are working for Hope Worldwide there. We have been supporting some projects in Afghanistan for the past few years and it was great to hear how the work in some of the projects is now complete how the schools / health centres are really helping the people there. The continental market that visits Belfast every so often was here this wekend so it was great to get a walk around with Dan and Mary and spend some time chatting on the grass in front of the city hall while enjoying the Belfast sunshine.(Thanks for the helpfull advice with the children Mary!) 30th Mar 08 - 'Joint Service with Dublin Church' - On sunday - we were all off to Dundalk to hold a joint service with some of our brothers and sisters from south of the border. We spent a few hours together having a time of worship and a time of fellowship and building our relationship... lots of catching up! The Singing was excellent and very encouraging - closing the service with "Jesus is Lord". A special thanks to all who looked after lots and lots of the chilldren. - Charlie Hynes gave a very encouraging lesson from Revelation Chapter 2, talking about the importance for Christians to remember your first love. 16th Mar 08 - 'First Meeting in New Venue'! - On Sunday 16th we held our first meeting at our new venue. A few small 'teething' issues to sort out - but overall it should be a great job - and we didnt have to rush out by 1 O'Clock! Thanks to all the helpers for all the time & effort they were able to give. - Barry Lamb came to visit from East London and spent some time over dinner with some of the parents on saturday night. It was great to get some input from Barry from his own expericances as a parent as well as being a Kids ministry co-ordinator. Barry also preached a great lesson on the sunday morning, giving some insightfull help and encouragment from the interaction the Caananite women had with Jesus. Mar 08 - 'New Meeting Place is almost Ready'! - We are in the process of 'doing up' a new meeting place in Belfast City Centre - Less than 2 mins walk from Castlecourt. We will have seperate rooms that will be customised for the toddlers and kids classes. We hope to move there mid to end of march. - Early this month we had a wednesday visit from Malcolm Cox who gave an incredibly encouraging Lesson from the Book of Acts at our midweek meeting. It was great to have Malcolm visit us again, and hear some encouraging news from some of our brothers and sisters outside of our small country. Before and After: Feb 08 - 'Belfast Church Winter Retreat'! - We went to Portaferry again for our (hopefully now annual!) winter retreat. Almost all of the Congregation were able to be there and it was great to spend some un-distracted time together with each other and with God. The focus was on "Gods will and the care he has for his people". This was encouraging and challenging. We look forward to serving God this year with the encouragment we got from the weekend. (Thanks to Danny for putting so much effort into the lessons).