WELCOME – whether you are a friend, a stranger, a neighbour, a person of faith, or just curious, you are very welcome to the North Staffordshire Methodist Circuit.
We have 9 active churches situated across the Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough. This area has historically had links with a number of industries but is best known for its links to coal mining and the neighbouring potteries. Many of our churches are located in former pit villages where communities have had to find new ways of identifying themselves following pit closures and the local Methodist churches have played a part in this rediscovery.
Along with our active churches we also have one building, in Baldwins Gate, where earlier this year the congregation made the decision to cease to meet. The Circuit is now exploring what new and creative ways might enable this building to be used within the community and so maintain a Methodist presence in the village.
In the current age we recognise that in order to fulfil our calling to respond to the gospel of God's love in Christ and to live out our discipleship in worship and mission many of the things we have been used to doing and the ways in which we do them will have to change. What this may look like as we journey forward is yet to be discovered but we travel on in hope and with faith and trust in God.
Can we help?
Are you looking for your nearest Methodist Church? Do you want to book a room?
Are you wanting to be married, or would you like your child baptised?
Do you wish to speak with a minister?
Useful info
Prayers for today
Lord, send us out.
Send us out from our buildings, full of history and comfort and meaning, and lead us into your world as your disciples where the story is still being written.
Send us out with our hearts full of love and concern and fear and hope, and lead us into your heart for this blessed and beautiful world where the story is still being written.
Continue to bless places for lonely people to gather; soup lunches and warm spaces; moves and renovations; missions and prayer gatherings; and all the ways we seek to move from where we are to where you want us to be.
Lord, send us out. And remind us – remind me – that the story is still being written. Amen.
Mary sings, "My soul magnifies the Lord".
But how can I make God greater?
Lord of life, in the way I live, move and inhabit my being,
mirror in me your extravagant love and expansive goodness.
Enlarge my soul: to bear witness to human destruction, riven by unspeakable violence.
Enlarge my soul: to rail against relentless consumption, upending the gentle balance of the earth.
Enlarge my soul: to speak out against power-seeking policies, indifferent to hunger and dismissive of need.
May my spirit dance to the intricately woven melody of prayer, praise and protest.
Be ever greater within me, that my soul may magnify the Lord forever. Amen.
c/o St Luke's Methodist Church, Severn Drive, Clayton, Newcastle-under-Lyme, ST5 4BH
01782 612648
Registered Charity no. 1130810