St Jude’s Church is self supporting. Many people think the Church of England must be funded in some way by the state, but this is not the case. Almost half of the funds we raise locally go into a Common Fund run by the Diocese of Exeter who pay for our clergy and their housing. (The following is a short 5 minute video explaining the funding of Exeter Diocese)
The other half is fully used each year as we pay for a full time Youth & Children’s Minister to oversee the very full young people’s programmes of the church (up to 170 under 18′s use the site each week!), our Administrator and a full time OFSTED approved Pre-School. The direct costs of the Pre-School are met by fees, but the building it occupies and our other hall, Youth & Children’s Minister house and not forgetting the Grade II listed church and grounds all need to be heated and maintained.
And all the funds for this come from the congregation.
But St Jude’s tries hard not to suggest that is only interested in money. For instance, we no longer take a collection at our Sunday morning service as it can make guests and visitors uncomfortable – we’re really pleased they have come to spend some time with us and we certainly don’t want them to have to pay for the opportunity! But to allow this to happen, to enable our share of the common costs of the Diocese to be met, to maintain these buildings and fund all the fantastic ministries we support we do ask those who attend regularly to think about their giving as part of being a disciple of Jesus Christ.
If you want to know more about this apect of life at St Judes, please click here to download our Guide to Giving.
This is what the Lord says, “make this valley full of ditches”
2 Kings 3:16
St Jude’s has big plans for changes to their site.
In December 2011 we got Planning Permission from Plymouth City Council for Phase 1 – the Church Building. Church of England permissions will now be applied for over Spring 2012. This step gets us ready for Phase 2 – the final re-organisation of the site.
The changes are needed to enable this church to do all it can to help its community. Without them the church and its people will eventually fail. With them we believe both we and our area will be blessed.
And therefore this year is important and will be difficult as we will be challenged in fundraising followed by a clear out of the buildings and maybe a move out of a building to allow the works to begin.
Therefore, 2012 is St Jude’s year to “dig ditches”. To understand the principle behind our verse for this year, read the story of God’s promised blessing to the people of Israel and Judah in 2 Kings 3 and see why verse 3:16 is our chosen text to keep us focussed.
For many years St Jude’s has raised disciples who have heard a call from God to move to foreign lands to help spread His Kingdom. The Colyer family now live in Belgium, working for the Christian organisation YWAM.
Youth With A Mission (YWAM) is an international, interdenominational missionary organisation. Internationally there are 17,000 full time staff members working in 1,100 centres in more than 150 countries. YWAM Brussels is a part of the wider YWAM body world wide and a branches of the organisation Jeunnesse en Mission ASBL (the official title in Belgium).
YWAM Belgium has now been established for more than 20 years and is well known in the country for it’s Christian workers and the varied work they have done over the years.
YWAM is an organisation that aims to capture the energy of youth (of all ages!) and mobilise as many as possible into short term mission, long term mission, effective service in churches and effective witness in every sphere of society. Primarily we group our work in three broad categories:
We have two types of courses available. The first for you to grow can be found on our “Tuesdays In The Kitchen” page.
The second set are for those who want to go further, and because we have a Church Membership with the Willow Creek Association, our church members can be individually registered to gain access to their online member only courses.
(A selection of the courses are shown on this page. Click on the picture to access the web page related to each.) The variety available is constantly changing too – these are just a selection.
That means you can work on your Leadership or Preaching skills at any time of the day or evening – whenever its convenient for you.
If you want to access any of these you need to be a regular member of St Jude’s.
If you would like to be registered to access the courses you will need to drop Tim an e-mail.
Most marriages in Church of England Churches require “Banns” to be called. That process entails, over three consecutive Sunday services, a leader of a church standing in front of a congregation and saying something like: ”
I publish the banns of marriage between John Smith of St Ethelburts Parish and Mary Jones of St Simon’s Parish, both with a qualifying connection to St Jude’s Parish. If anyone knows any reason in law why they may not marry, you are required to declare it now.”
Banns need to be called in the church where you will marry AND in any parish you may each live in. Thererfore it is quite important to discover which parish you do live in. We would recommend following this link to a Church of England Parish finder web site.
If you both live in the parish where you are marrying, then your marriage application form given to you by that church will give them all they need and you do not need banns calling anywhere else. But, if one or both of you live elsewhere and just have another qualifying connection to the church in which you will marry, you will need Banns calling in your home parish.
The national fee for 2011 to call Banns is £22. For a certificate to prove they have been called the additional fee is £12. Therefore, if you marry in one church and both live in two other parishes you will need to pay £22 for the banns of the church where you marry and £34 to each parish you live in for the calling of the banns and for a certificate from each. You must give to the minister who will be marrying you that certificate to legally enable him to hold your wedding.
If you have checked via the link above that you do live within St Jude’s Parish Boundary and require your banns to be read in this church, then please download a form here. Once completed and signed, please post it together with your cheque for the fee, made out to St Jude’s Church, to:
St Jude’s Church, St Jude’s Vicarage, Knighton Road PLYMOUTH PL4 9BU
If you do download the form and post it to us, please do send an e-mail as well via our contact us page so that we can look out for your form and let you know we have received it. (We have had one case of a form being posted, not received and therefore not known about. The banns for that marriage were only chased the week before their wedding and had not been called. It then became urgent, different and a more expensive method then became necessary for them to marry on their chosen date.) Please do not leave it too close to your wedding date to ensure we have your application form as there must be a minimum of three Sundays available BEFORE your wedding day for banns to be valid.
A series of walks have been put together for the St Jude’s congregation and their friends. The walks offer a variety of distances and geography with the focus being more on fellowship and chat than mileage or difficulty. There are 2 distinct types of walk on offer:
AMBLES
These normally take place on the 1st Friday and 3rd Saturday of every month, with lead gentle ambles of about 2 hours around our lovely coast line and estuary banks and woods.
RAMBLES
Normally about one a month, when there is a longer walk of up to 5 hours duration, followed by rehydration in a local hostelry.
The leaders will aim to lead all the ambles and rambles shown in the programme below, irrespective of the weather or the numbers turning up. However the time of leaving St Jude’s are important to maximise the “time on the hill” – so please don’t be late ….
Date
Type of Walk
Depart Church at
Fri 4 Mar
AMBLE
2.00 PM
Sat 12 Mar
RAMBLE
9.00 AM
Sat 19 Mar
AMBLE
10.00 AM
Fri 25 Mar
RUN ASHORE
Prince of Wales @ 7.30 pm
Fri 1 Apr
AMBLE
2.00 PM
Sat 2 Apr
RAMBLE
9.00 AM
Sat 16 Apr
AMBLE
10.00 AM
Fri 6 May
AMBLE
2.00 AM
Sat 14 May
RAMBLE
9.00 AM
Sat 21 May
AMBLE
10.00 AM
Fri 3 June
AMBLE
2.00 PM
Sat 18 June
AMBLE
10.00 AM
Sat 25 June
RAMBLE
9.00 AM
Fri 1 Jul
AMBLE
2.00 PM
Sat 9 Jul
RAMBLE
9.00 AM
Sat 16 Jul
AMBLE
10.00 AM
The exact route to be taken will be determined by the leaders nearer the date to take into account likely weather patterns and conditions underfoot.
Clothing and Equipment
You should never completely trust a weather forecast, even in the summer, and so it is suggested that the following minimum amount of kit is either worn or carried:
Stout shoes or trainers or wellies
Warm jersey / sweatshirt
Hat and gloves (in wintry conditions)
Waterproof Jacket (full waterproofs for Rambles!!)
Snack / chocolate and water
Small rucksack – to put this lot in
If you are able to go on any of these walks and haven’t previously mentioned you are likely to go, then please contact us via the contact page a few days before the date in case of transport problems or other queries. Thank you.
OUR ORGAN IS NOW UNDER CONSIDERATION BY A CHURCH ELSEWHERE AND A FACULTY HAS BEEN SUBMITTED FOR THE MOVE, THEREFORE IT IS CURRENTLY NOT AVAILABLE. (MAY 2012)
St Jude’s Church in Plymouth, UK, is needing to refurbish their buildings. As part of that refurbishment (Our Next Era Project can be seen here) the generally unused Chancel area needs to be fully utilised and our Organ sits within that area. In any future design, the Chancel will always therefore be acoustically seperate from the main assembly area of the Nave and the organ is just too large for the new seperated Chancel space to be used again.
The Organ is a large, spectacular and very early example of Hele & Co of Plymouth’s grand organ design. It is approximately 4m by 4m in plan and about 6.5m in height before any access space is required. There is not another space within our church complex it would fit! (Click here for a dimensioned sketch)
Therefore, we want to help find it a good home where its wonderful range and character can be used. So our Church organ is for sale – but where it goes and who can hear it is far more important than the price.
Among organs, this has an interesting pedigree. Its modest historicity arises from its build date. We understand that in their early years, Hele & Co of Plymouth assembled organs. Then, in 1875, they came up with their first grand design. Our organ was built in 1878 with seemingly the fullest specification they could offer.
It was originally a two manual instrument of 20 speaking stops that we understand are mechanical action. Then in 1920 a third manual was added, again by Hele’s, with their unique patented pneumatic system taking the speaking stops to 24 in total. (All of the stops and controls are listed as they appear below with photos)
The organ is built of very good materials and works beautifully – and moving it would mean it would be fully restored. It would need to be dismantled by an organ builder ready to ship and be rebuilt by them, replacing any smaller components that may need refurbishment. Once in its new situation it could be a fully restored perfectly operating organ with another 130 years ahead of it.
The Church Faculty process is now beginning with our detailed site design work initially, prior to submission around May 2012. ( A faculty is a type of Church of England Planning Application.) We were pleased to be given initial permission to find a home for the organ worldwide subject to important conditions – more information can be found here.
We would also be very pleased to work with anyone on grants to help. If you are an end user reading this, we believe you would need to engage an organ builder to dismantle, pack and rebuild it in its new location. If you are an organ builder looking at this page it is also being advertised on the Institute of British Organ Building website where some information is available and there are a few extra photographs lower on this page.
We would love to talk to anyone who thinks they can give it a good home where it will be able to be played and heard.
YOU CAN ON THE ALPHA COURSE. OUR NEXT PLANNED COURSE BEGINS ON TUESDAY THE 15TH JANUARY 2013.
We want to give you an opportunity to explore what is probably the most important thing – life. You can’t easily do it with friends in the pub, or with collegues at work or family at home. They often think your questions aren’t serious.
But we offer The Alpha Course to help you do that, where no question is too simple or wierd. And we’re using a newer, shorter, punchier version from Alpha UK that’s been squeezed into 9 evenings. (It also avoids the need for a day away for the traditional course which was 13 weeks plus the extra day away) The talks are now just about 30 minutes. This picture is a still from the new DVD talks though we sometimes use live speakers.
Each time we meet we have some refreshments together – maybe a cake and a drink – have the talk to give us something to refect on, then chat. You can chat about anything and explore with everyone else. Its a cool time when no area is out of bounds because we all want to find what’s important – meaning.
If you want to get a feel for the material or really can’t make a course, have a look here.
If you want to come drop us a note here, we’ll get back to you with details.
We promise not to chase you, if you want to come along and try and don’t like it, that’s fine. We also promise to keep it relaxed and that we’ll give you space to explore the meaning of life for yourself.
For many years St Jude’s has raised disciples who have heard a call from God to move to foreign lands to help spread His Kingdom. The ministries and missions we support are because of personal links.
We have families from church working with these organisations:
Last year we as a Church generously donated money to the OMF Earthquake Relief Fund. Some of the money was used by the OMF Iwate Relief Project; click on the following link to view short video to see how the money has been used http://vimeo.com/35412981.
Each moth of the year here at St Judes we have a different mission focus from one of the linked overseas ministers or linked city ministries we support. To view the Monthly Mission Focaus Click Here
Each moth of the year here at St Judes we have a different mission focus from one of the linked overseas ministers or linked city ministries we support. To view the Monthly Mission Focaus Click Here
This is what the Lord says, “make this valley full of ditches”
