There’s always lots happening at St Michael’s

This news page is where you’ll find all the latest announcements and information about our work in the church and the community.

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Sausages & Sound Desks
St Michael's is fortunate to have a team of people running our Audio and Visual ...
Church Graft
A Sent People - Church Graft Response Revd Vicky Wicks has responded to the call: ...
Messy Church
Messy Church ...
Thank you Julie
Many of us will be aware that Revd Canon Julie Bradley is retiring from full-time ...
Worship Team Night
CLICK HERE to sign up We are having a worship team night on Wednesday 21 ...
Gift Day May 2023
This Gift Day supports the resources and buildings for St Michael’s Church Ready to pledge? ...
Soul Survivor Investigation - Message from Revd Canon Simon Jones
Dear St Michael’s,You may be aware that an investigation into safeguarding concerns was announced a ...
Thy Kingdom Come 2023
Join the global wave of prayer calling all Christians to pray between Ascension and Pentecost ...
Ascension Day Communion Service
...
Big Coronation Picnic
On Sunday 7 May, we are having a Big Coronation Picnic and Barbecue! Come along ...
St Michael's is a Welcome Hub!
We are delighted to share that we have recently signed up with South Glos Council ...
Men's Ministry - Bushcraft weekend
Click here to book When: 10 am Saturday 8 July to 3 pm Sunday 9 ...

St Michael’s is fortunate to have a team of people running our Audio and Visual systems every Sunday for services and midweek events for outside clients. 

We all support each other via the WhatsApp Group, but most of us don’t know each other face to face.

On Friday 25 August from 6pm, we will hold a BBQ social in the Auditorium (and back car park). Once we have eaten and chatted we will sit down to talk about all things tech, Pray and reflect. 
Then we will get both Audio Desks set up (the desk from the church as well as the desk in the auditorium), proclaim, lights, etc and try out any ideas people want to try. We will work on solutions to problems people have, and maybe even run some competitions. 

Burgers and Hot Dogs will be provided. Please bring own drinks (but not by the Sound Desk!) Click here to sign-up to let us know you are coming!

A Sent People – Church Graft Response

Revd Vicky Wicks has responded to the call:

“To graft an ordained leader with a team of thirty people from St Michael’s Stoke Gifford into the life of Holy Trinity Stapleton. The focus: to seek a vision that will enable us to reach out with the good news of Jesus, to make disciples and to serve the local community.”

Vicky, together with husband Rob, will be leading a team to go from St Michael’s to build a new community and form a new vision for Holy Trinity Stapleton.


There will be a commissioning service for Vicky, Rob and the team on Sunday 3 December at 6.30pm in the auditorium.

Messy Church

The next events for Messy Church are:

Many of us will be aware that Revd Canon Julie Bradley is retiring from full-time ministry and stepping back from the Core Leadership Team.

To mark this, we are having a Thank you service followed by refreshments on Saturday 1 July at 4pm.
We would love as many people as possible to come along. Everyone is welcome as we mark this moment,  thank Julie for all she has done, and thank God for her and her ministry.

It would help us to have an idea of numbers, so if you are planning to come, please do sign-up here

The service will be live-streamed via our YouTube channel on this link.

CLICK HERE to sign up

We are having a worship team night on Wednesday 21 June at 7:30pm in the auditorium at St Michael’s Centre. The team night is for everyone on our worship teams across all of our services at St Michael’s, and for anyone who is interested in joining the team. 

If you weren’t able to make it to our last team night in November, it’s a great opportunity to meet with others on the team, worship together and pray together. The evening will start with some nibbles and an opportunity to catch up with each other and to make new friends; we will then move into a time of worship together and have a chance to pray for each other and for our worship as a church. 


As a worship team, meeting together, worshipping together and praying together is so important! We don’t just show up on a Sunday and play some music and go home, and we all need each other to make our musical worship happen. This team night is a really important time in our calendar, we want to encourage you to prioritise this if you are able to come on the 21 June.

Please sign up on the link below to let Rachel know you’re coming – this is just so we can bake enough cake and make sure there’s enough seating! 

CLICK HERE





This Gift Day supports the resources and buildings for St Michael’s Church

Ready to pledge? Click here

St Michael’s has a vision to be a Christian heart at the centre of our communities. And we live to make that difference through learning and growing together, sharing Jesus together, and serving together. This gift day supports our resources and our building projects.

What have we done since last year’s gift day?

At our Gift day last year we gave away 10% of all that we raised to our Mission Partners. We invested £90,000 to complete the tiered seating in the auditorium, and reduced our loans by £238,000.

At a recent prayer meeting, someone shared a little thought, saying “God is not finished with us yet”. It’s true isn’t it that we do now have a beautiful community building, but we are still called to build a community.

What will donations achieve this year?

We have 4 main aims this year:

1: To significantly reduce our loans on the church centre.   A £150,000 loan repayment will help to reduce loans to £481,000, compared to the £2 million in 2015.

2: Honour our commitment to the church refurbishment.

3: Fit solar panels to the roof of the church centre, making us more eco-friendly, and enhance the decor and audio-visual capabilities in the auditorium.

4: Give away £75,000 to our mission partners, having already given over £400,000 out of the project.

How Can We Get Involved?

Please think and pray about what you might give this year. We invite everyone at St Michael’s, to sow generously into God’s work by giving. How can we each play our part to make it happen, together?

  • Make a one-off financial gift
  • Start regular giving to St Michael’s Church Centre Ltd
  • Increase your current giving to St Michael’s Church Centre Ltd

How Do I Give?

We’re inviting everyone to complete this simple online Response form  

Gathering our responses helps us to be able to plan next steps.

Please click on the button below:

For ways to give to the Heart of the Community Project click here.

Dear St Michael’s,
You may be aware that an investigation into safeguarding concerns was announced a few weeks ago, relating to Mike Pilavachi, founder of Christian youth festival Soul Survivor and Associate Pastor of Soul Survivor church. 
A number of statements have been issued regarding the investigation on behalf of the Church of England National Safeguarding Team, St Albans Diocese, and the Soul Survivor Watford trustees.
We are conscious that some in our church at St Michael’s may have been formed by the ministry of Soul Survivor, including myself, so news of allegations may be difficult to process. 
In any investigation of this kind there is a procedure that must be followed and it is essential that all elements are conducted in a full and robust way. We recognise both the pain, and the bravery, of those who are coming forward so please be assured that any safeguarding concerns raised will be treated with the utmost sensitivity. 
If you have any safeguarding concerns related to this investigation, please contact the St Albans Diocesan Safeguarding Team at safeguarding@stalbans.anglican.org or the National Safeguarding Team at safeguarding@churchofengland.org 
If you have been affected by the news and feel like it would be helpful to speak to anyone, please do use this link to connect to the safeguarding team.

Yours,

Simon

Join the global wave of prayer calling all Christians to pray between Ascension and Pentecost for more people to come to know the love and peace of Jesus Christ.

Whether you have joined in with Thy Kingdom Come before or not, we invite you to take part from 18-28 May 2023 – along with churches from over 80 different denominations and traditions in over 170 countries around the world.

What are we planning at St Michael’s?

Ascension Day Communion – Thursday 18 May 7.30pm in Church and live-streamed via our youtube channel

Whole Church Prayer Gathering – Wednesday 24 May 7.30pm in Church

Morning Prayer on Youtube Live – Friday 19 May, Wednesday 24 May and Friday 26 May

Thy Kingdom Come Novena – Download

A novena is an ancient tradition of devotional praying in Christianity, with prayers repeated for nine successive days.

The 2023 Thy Kingdom Come Novena has daily readings from the book of 1 John, with reflections written by The Very Reverend Bob Key with a commendation from Archbishop Justin Welby and Archbishop Stephen Cottrell. The Novena covers the nine days of Thy Kingdom come, from 18-28 May 2023.

Download a copy of the Novena

TKC-Novena-2023-DIGITALDownload

Daily Prayer for Thy Kingdom Come

Daily Prayer for Thy Kingdom Come is a great way to set up regular, daily patterns of prayer to hold people in prayer

The free app for iOS and Android
Containing audio for Morning, Evening, Day and Night Prayer from the booklet for all 11 days. The Daily Prayer for Thy Kingdom Come app has been updated with the ability to set reminders for any or all the services at times that suit you. Download for Android or iOS.

Smart speaker
From Ascension Day (18 May), you can also get Alexa and Google Home to ‘Ask the Church of England for today’s Thy Kingdom Come’ to hear a short service of Prayer During the Day (before 7pm) and Night Prayer (after 7pm) throughout the 11 days.

Resources for young people: The Way for Thy Kingdom Come

The Way produce faith-based video content, made by young people and for young people.

The Way’s video series on prayer is available to watch on their social channels now and there will be a discussion guide for youth groups and schools to use with the videos during Thy Kingdom Come.

The Way will also release exclusive new videos on prayers and gifts of the spirit during Thy Kingdom Come.

Follow The Way on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

Resources for children: Cheeky Pandas for Thy Kingdom Come

Thy Kingdom Come and Cheeky Pandas are partnering for 2023 to offer a fun-filled, bible-based TV series for use in family services, assemblies, and at home, featuring songs, animated stories, prayer and interviews with special guests. Alongside this, they have activity packs, service plans, a prayer book and a children’s app. Christian cartoons for kids, action worship songs, and free resources for families, churches and schools are available from cheekypandas.com.

On Sunday 7 May, we are having a Big Coronation Picnic and Barbecue!

Come along to The Green from 12pm as we gather together to share friendship, food and fun.

Bring your own picnic or grab a FREE burger or hot dog from the BBQ*. We’ll have FREE soft drinks available, FREE crafts and FREE activities and games too.

Everyone is welcome. There is no need to sign-up just turn up on the day! See you there!

Please bring your picnic blankets or deckchairs to sit on!

If you would like to be part of the team involved in making the event happen on the day, please complete this form – we would love to have you involved!

*Free while stocks last. Available from 12pm onwards.

We are delighted to share that we have recently signed up with South Glos Council to be a Community Integration Hub for Resettling Communities (Refugees & Asylum Seekers).

So far this has led to us hosting weekly English Classes, monthly Clothes Distribution and Signposting Events, and from next month we will be starting to hold twice-weekly housing support sessions .

This is a great way of us living out our vision of ‘Living to make a Difference’ by being a Christian Heart at the Centre of our Communities and is an excellent use of our community centre.

For details of the events taking place across all the Welcome Hubs across South Gloucestershire, why not follow the Facebook page, or view the online calendar.

Click here to book

When: 10 am Saturday 8 July to 3 pm Sunday 9 July (leaving Stoke Gifford at 8.30 am) 

Where: Riverside private land just outside Bradford Upon Avon, Bath. 

Who: This is for 1 dad and 1 child (aged 9/Yr 5 and above, boys and girls)

Space is limited: There is space for 8 dads (with their 1 child) and 4 additional guys. Please sign up and pay to secure a place!

Cost: £80/head.  £160 for you and your child. (please get in touch with Tom Benyon if you would like to attend but the cost is preventing you) 

The cost includes the fee for Nathan Beard, bushcraft expert, and his assistant; all food and entertainment; bushcraft and foraging sessions and all the joy of an excellent event with your child that you haven’t planned! 

Bring: Suitable outdoor wear and a small tent (2-4 person)

(Again, if you need a tent speak to Tom Benyon) 

To find out more about Nathan Beard and his outdoor events, see here: https://nathanbeardventures.co.uk/

If you would like to find out more information about this event contact Tom Benyon

Click here to book