Author: Laura Thomas

History Today

Posted on by Laura Thomas

St Michael’s were recently paid a visit by descendant of one Silas Phillips – buried in the church yard centuries ago.

Anita, Ian and Andrew, travelled from Manchester, Spain and Kent to visit his grave in St. Michael’s Church, and were met  Local Historian Adrian Kerton met with them and showed them Silas’s grave is one where the inscription is still mostly readable and they were able to confirm the death of him, and his wife Hannah, in 1844. They also spent some time at the Bristol records office researching the family.

The church ground was consecrated for burials  in 1718. Prior to that burials took place Winterbourne or Almondsbury.

The church yard  has been closed to burials for some years, however, we do have a memorial garden for the burial of ashes.

More information on the history of St Michael’s Church can be seen here

Church Tower

Posted on by Laura Thomas

You may have noticed scaffolding around St Michael’s Church this week.

This has gone up, as we are carrying out  remedial work on the church tower.

The work is scheduled to be completed by the middle of August

New-look website for St Michael’s

Posted on by Laura Thomas

Welcome to the new-look St Michael’s Church website

You are one of the first people to visit the new-look church website. We’ve spent over a year working on this design – which should make everything more accessible, particularly for those who use smartphones and tablets.

As with all updates – it will take us a little while to get used to the changes. We will all need to be a little patient as the new design settles in. Thank you for your understanding and care.

Menus

Hopefully everything you need can be found by clicking one of the 5 coloured menu buttons at the top of every page. Or you could try using the search button to find what you’re looking for. If you get stuck, please accept our apologies – we are continuing to make corrections and improvements all the time.

Feedback

If there’s anything you particularly like, or dislike about the new layout and navigation – we’d love to hear from you. Similarly, if anything appears to be not working, do let us know.

Please contact us with any comment using the feedback form below.

Between us we’ll work to make the website clear, accessible, welcoming and informative for as many people as possible.

Thank you.

Feedback form

Advantages of the new website design

Accessibility

The underlying principle of the update to the website is to get more of the right communications, to more people, in more ways.

In the last year we have had 14,000 visitors to our website with 60% of visitors accessing the website from a mobile phone or tablet.

Responsive layout design. A major feature of the updated website is that the design is now fully responsive and will optimise the website layout to the size of the screen you are viewing it on. Making content more readable, especially on mobile phones.

Responsive text size. The website now fully responds to browsers that have adjusted the font size setting, so if you like your font size a little larger (or smaller) the website now obliges on all pages.

Menu structure. The menus have been simplified and consolidated to the top bar of the website with 5 coloured menu buttons. You will find everything you need from one of these 5 menus. The menu structure also responds to the size of the screen you are viewing it on and optimises the experience.

It’s fast. The updated website uses the very latest website scripting standards which are claimed to be 30% faster than the predecessor. So you will benefit as a visitor with faster web page load times, which means you get to see the information you came to find quicker.

Flexibility

Maintenance. The updated website has been built with flexibility in mind, to allow the structure of menus, headers and footers to all be updated from the admin panel without having to be web scripting ninja. You will notice that some things (e.g. church services) appear on more than one menu. This is not a mistake and is intentional to help visitors find things and it just highlights the flexibility we have with the new menu structure.

Home page. The front home page has a “priority 9” grid for the most important current communications headlines and links. This is easy to change and adapt to make the home page more dynamic and more effective in communicating key messages.

ChurchSuite. All of the events for the church that are created in ChurchSuite are now automatically imported into the website, to allow the latest events to be shown dynamically in web pages. Check out the Rhythms of Grace page under the ‘When’ section, where you can see the dates for the next events. This no longer has to be manually entered and is automatically pulled through from ChurchSuite and displayed.

 Security

The site is more secure. The updated website has been built with security in mind. Using the very latest web scripting standards, which have security at the core, combined with back-end security measures to ensure that our databases and files remain safe. This has been combined with SSL/ HTTPS encryption for the entire site so your interaction with the site is secure. Check out your address bar for the padlock sign.

Backups. The updated website has a robust backup approach to ensure that should something go wrong then the site can be up and running again with minimal downtime.

Removal of personal data. No emails or personal details are stored on website, with all correspondence now managed through contact forms. Rotas have also now been removed from the website and all rotas should now be accessed via login to ChurchSuite or through email.

It was free!

One of the best things about the updated site is that it has not cost the church anything! It has been developed entirely in-house by an enthusiastic bunch of volunteers who have a heart for communicating the good news of God’s work at St Michael’s to everyone who visits this site.

Thank you for reading and don’t forget to send us any feedback using the form above.

St Michael’s Web Team

Living to Make a Difference – Gift Day 2017

Posted on by Laura Thomas

At St Michael’s, we are privileged to be part of a vibrant, growing church. It’s encouraging to see the continued growth of our ministry and mission, both locally and overseas.  Thank you to everyone who has given their time, money and prayer support in 2017.  Looking ahead to 2018, there’s a sense that God is drawing more people in.  This will bring both challenges and opportunities for us all. Our November “Gift Day” is a chance for us to celebrate God’s goodness and faithfulness and to renew our commitment to living generously.  How will you give in 2018 to help deliver the vision of St Michael’s?   With your support we will achieve our church’s vision and lay stronger foundations for the future.  Thank you for your generosity.

Simon Jones

Our Vision

St Michael’s, Stoke Gifford is a lively, growing Anglican Church.  We share a vision of “living to make a difference” by being a “Christian heart at the centre of the community”.

Our Strategy

Discipleship: through Life Groups, Youth & Children’s groups, helping each of us grow in our friendship with Jesus.

Outreach: to creatively share the Good News of Jesus with others.

Serving the community: in a variety of ways that generate goodwill and community regeneration.

Our Investment in Ministry & Mission in 2017

Thank you to all our amazing staff and volunteers we have reached and blessed many more people in 2017: Children’s Ministry at Sunday Club, Beehive, Saplings, Messy Church and St. Michael’s School; Youth & Student Ministry through Youth Club, Uganda Mission Trip, Youth Retreat, Abbeywood & Bradley Stoke Schools and UWE; Alpha, Baptism Preparation, Marriage and Parenting Courses, Divorce Recovery Workshop; Over 65s Ministry lunches, teas and Osbourne Court; Pastoral presence offering a ‘listening ear’; Prayer Opportunities and 24/7 prayer weeks and a new “Sacred Space”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Future

We have a vision for growth of our congregations and our community outreach.  We require faith, boldness and generosity in our giving according to our circumstances.  By God’s grace and our commitment we will have the resources to lay hold of these opportunities.

In 2018, we’d like to see more young people come to know God through our Children’s, Youth & Student Ministries.  We are excited about our outreach Youth Club, Soul Survivor camp and Hope Bristol.  We’d like to start “Make Lunch” to provide lunch for children, who might otherwise not eat a hot meal, in the school holidays.  We’d like to provide better ongoing support for those who’ve experienced Alpha.  We’d like to offer parenting courses to parents of children of all ages.  We’d like to expand our Over 65s ministry to provide wider opportunities for engagement. We’d like to strengthen our pastoral ministry through “Listening” training.  We’d like to develop an ‘us-together’ culture of ‘Welcome and Hospitality’.

Our Financial Target for 2018

To maintain and develop our ministry in line with our Vision, we need to raise additional income of £60,000 in 2018.  This is an extra £5000, £4000 + 25% Gift Aid of £1000 per month in regular giving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Giving

We receive no financial support from local or national government or the Church of England including the Bristol Diocese.  Our parish relies on the generous financial support from those who attend St. Michael’s. Giving and gratitude go together and we give out of gratitude for what we receive from God.

‘Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.’ 2 Cor 9:7

 

Our Challenge

Many of us faithfully and sacrificially give, even in difficult financial circumstances, to support the work of God and this Parish. 

If you live in a household which is not yet contributing financially to God’s work at St. Michael’s, please prayerfully consider how you can change that.

‘Each one of us should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.’ 1Peter 4:10 

Our Response

  • If you are not yet a regular giver to the Church, please pray about starting regular, planned giving.
  • If you are an existing regular giver, please prayerfully consider increasing your gift.
  • If you receive a windfall gift, for example, a bonus or inheritance, please consider making a lump sum gift to St. Michael’s.
  • If you are a tax payer, please take advantage of Gift Aid by signing a declaration form. This will mean an extra 25p on every £1.00 you give.
  • Click here to download a  Response form 

Our Prayer

Loving Father, you have made us your people, richly provided us with good gifts and called us to live for you. May gratitude be in our hearts, may generosity be in our hands, may justice and righteousness guide our feet and may the life of your kingdom and the joy of heaven be found among us.

‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God’. Philippians 4.6