Scartho Methodist Church is situated in at the heart of the village of Scartho, a self contained suburb of Grimsby. Scartho has a number of shops, a large health centre and doctors' surgery and three primary schools. It is within walking distance of the local hospital and secondary school and is on the main bus route into the town centre.

A vast new housing development that will be home to many families is currently being built very close to the church, this will become an area for the church to reach out into.

Grimsby is a large town that has a very mixed population in terms of wealth and employment. Many residents of Grimsby are employed in industry with The Humber Bank factories providing many of the jobs in the area.

Scartho has two Anglican, Catholic and independent churches with whom we have occasional ecumenical links. These take the form of joint services and sometimes we have Bible study courses with the other churches.

CHURCH MEMBERSHIP

The church has a membership of 113, with about eighty attending morning worship. The members of the church come from a broad cross section of backgrounds with lots of people traveling to the church from all over the town. The membership of the church ranges in age from 18 upwards with a fair mix of different ages. We have a small (about 12 members) Sunday Club who meet on a Sunday morning during the main act of worship. Many of our members partake in activities such as the Lay Witness Movement.

WEEKLY ACTIVITIES

A very important aspect of life at Scartho Methodist Church is its house group system. We currently have seven house groups, each containing an average of eight people. These groups meet together weekly to read and study the Bible, pray and support each other. Our house groups regularly attract visitors and members from other churches in the area. Ladies Fellowship (about forty five members) meets weekly with similar aims to the house groups. We also have an active wives group. Our youth activities in the week are Youth Club, Toddler group and Boys' and Girls' Brigades. On a Sunday evening we have a youth fellowship. Girls' Brigade in particular is very strong with 65 members and the youth club and toddler group are both growing. Youth Fellowship and Girls' Brigade in particular have a strong spiritual aspect.

CHURCH VISION

Some years ago, church council accepted a vision statement which set out the aims of the church under the following headings.

1. Biblical

2. Worshipping

3. Caring

4. Serving

5. Sending

Progress towards these aims has been patchy and stronger in some areas than in others.

Biblical

Our housegroups are all Bible study groups and all church members are encouraged to be a part of one of these groups. Our aim in this area is to increase the numbers of our congregation who regularly attend a housegroup.

We follow the Biblical principal of tithing all of our income which we give to a variety of causes which are decided annually by the Church Council.

Worshipping

Our current pattern of worship has evolved from the Vision Statement and is described elsewhere in this document.

Caring

All of our housegroup members are cared for within their groups but for people who are not members of a housegroup, pastoral provision is rather patchy and is an area that we need to develop in the next few years.

Serving

We currently try to serve the local community through Parents and Toddlers, Luncheon Club, Saturday Coffee Mornings and youth club. However we have not yet developed a spiritual dimension to this side of our outreach despite the fact that we have held two successful Alpha Courses. We recognise that this is an area that we need to strengthen.

Sending

We currently have people involved in Open Doors, Ukraine Relief Aid, Lay Witnessing, Seed Teams and Share Jesus Missions. The church financially supports these people as appropriate. Closer to home, we have attempted, on several occasions, to reach people by house to house visitation but the fruits of this have been disappointing.

TYPES OF WORSHIP

We have a wide variety of different forms of worship within our church and are blessed with a confident and able worship band who lead the musical side of the worship at many of our services, we also have piano and organ music at our services. We have ten local preachers, a number of Lay Witnesses and an accredited worship leader all of whom take a full and active part in the worship life of the church. Our small Ministry team meet regularly and are available to anybody who needs them at any time. Once a month we have a traditional early communion service at nine o'clock, our ten thirty service is our main act of worship, the beginning part of which is sometimes led by a member of our church and is a time for family worship, our evening services alternate each week - a traditional evening service one week and a praise service which is informal and led by the worship band the next. At a praise service, a worship leader leads the worship with the worship band and the preacher gives the sermon. We regularly have a handful of visitors from churches in the area at our Praise Services. We also have regular acts of worship at a local nursing home and an annual open air service on the sea front at Cleethorpes at which the worship band and Girls' Brigade Band play.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED RECENTLY?

We have recently refurbished the chapel in order to make it a more welcoming and comfortable place for worship and to make it more honouring to God. We have just had our first church weekend away and found it to be a time when we got to know each other better and we are looking forward to our third Lay Witness weekend in March 2001 when we will be asking how we, as a church, can work harder to put God first. About thirty of the members of our church are attending Easter People and we have a smaller group who attend Spring Harvest. We consider these events to be important in the life of the church as they are both times of refreshing for us and an opportunity for us to meet with other Christians to study the word of God and to worship Him together. We always run a bus trip to the Celebration Day at Cliff College and are planning a day of fellowship and worship in Autumn of 2000.

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