Thackley Methodist Church and Community Centre

Thank you to everyone who supported our October Table Top sale.  We raised £163.79 for church funds from our bric-a-brac and book stalls and the sale of refreshments raised. Our next Table Top Sale will be on 17 November 2012 - all tables are booked, but we hope to see you there.

In the words of one of our members "It was a cracker of a service today!". It was another of our "Own Arrangement" services where members of the church family took responsibility for leading worship.  As it was our Table Top sale yesterday, we decided to leave the tables in church and to have cafe style church where we started the service with coffee and biscuits. The service provided another opportunity for us to look at some of the hymns in the new hymn book, Singing the Faith  and it was great that three of our young folk and one not so young brought their guitars to accompany two of the new songs - Light of the World and In Christ alone .  More awesome was that our very young picked up the tambourines and did a great job at keeping time.   Johnny and Katherine led our prayers of adoration and confession and Chloe led our prayers for others. Margaret read Matthew 25 31:46 and John read Luke 16 v 10-11 and 13 Rachel, one of our members, works for Christi

Table top sale Saturday 27 October 2012 10.00 am to 12.00 noon Refreshments available including bacon butties. Our table top sales are one way of us supporting the local community.  Tables are offered free of charge to those in the local area and so far we've had a wide variety of talents on display with jewellery, crafts, crystals, bric-a-brac, baking etc. We hold the sales in church as the community hall is often being used by our groups.  Many have commented about the calm and friendly environment that this provides; it also provides a first look inside for those who have passed by on the outside many times.  We have been particularly delighted that our open doors have drawn in couples who were married or worshipped here many years ago.

When we first mooted the idea of having a Scarecrow Festival it seemed months away – it was!  But the months passed so swiftly it was upon us before we realised.  Thank goodness for the Internet as September saw a flurry of emails from which materialised volunteer signup sheets, posters, flyers, leaflets and a most amazing weekend! A few of us went to church on Friday afternoon not sure who would turn up, whether there’d be any scarecrows and with no specific plans; they did, there were and gradually it all started to come together.  Having seen the work that our groups had put into making their scarecrows, we left praying that people would turn up on the Saturday to see them. We needn’t have worried as there was a steady stream of people both morning and afternoon and we were thrilled by the length of time our visitors stayed with us.  They offered prayers on sheaves of wheat, and the children’s table was a constant hive of activity as young and not so young made paper plate