Community

Called to Care One of the three main thrusts of our vision strategy is to ‘create a culture of care within the congregation’, so we all help to “take care of each other”. The Care Forum recently organised a training course which was attended by 24 members of the church.  Mark and Stella Doggett of the Centre for Life Management in Dordon presented seven evening sessions exemplifying Christian pastoral care as demonstrated by bible passages. The course also included a Day of Healing Prayer lead by a team from the Harnhill Centre for Christian Healing attended by 64 people from St. Martin’s, the Healing on the Streets Ministry Team and other Churches in Birmingham.

HOTS March 2015   Every time we go out onto Edgbaston St, before we start distributing leaflets offering prayers for passers-by, we kneel down by the chairs and pray asking for God’s presence and his power to be manifested in that area. On March 7th we experienced his presence like a tangible wave of God’s Spirit. Despite of the business and noisiness of the place there was a sense of awe and reverence in the atmosphere as if every knee had indeed bowed down to Jesus.  In this atmosphere we offered prayers for the following people:   A lady with alcohol and substance abuse problem. Her son had the same problem – After she received prayers she said she felt lighter and in a happier frame of mind. A man who attends church and wanted to be assured of God’s presence in his life. A lady with kidney problems and losing her hair. She was also hurt from an abusive neighbour who was bullying her constantly. ~As she was prayed for we could see her face expression changing and becoming relax

St Martin in the Bull Ring are pleased to be working with the very talented Photographer Verity Milligan to provide photographs for the Website and other church communication.   Verity’s work can be seen here http://www.veritymilliganphotography.com/   And her wonderful pictures of Birmingham http://www.veritymilliganphotography.com/#/birmingham/

HOTS February 2015 We were greeted with good news in 2015. I never cease to be amazed of God’s faithfulness and unfailing love. Just read these two stories sent to me by email about who God is and what he does. 1. ‘I am the ‘lady with the long-term hip and back pain’ whose leg grew out in the training that day in December 2014 at St Martin in the Bullring. Three weeks on and my grown-out leg means I am so much more comfortable which is wonderful. Not quite pain-free yet but trusting the Lord for my complete healing. I have further news to share with you. Last weekend I was ‘down South’ seeing my family and felt I should go to my ‘sending church’ on the Sunday morning. I’ve kept in touch with them but no-one knew I was coming that day. The priest/leader and the people are always very welcoming and on arrival I shared that I had a testimony I felt Jesus was asking me to share with the church. I didn’t know that it was an evangelistic Carol

SILENT VOICES 9th March to 6th April Open 10.00 to 4.30 daily St Martin in the Bull Ring, Edgbaston St, B5 5BB A thought-provoking photography exhibition showing everyday life in the village of Bil’in in the Occupied West Bank of Palestine as seen through the eyes of the children who live there.

Friday Lunctime Concert Diary 2015 Friday Lunchtime Concert Diary 12.30 – 1.00pm (some concerts may run to 1.15pm) St Martin in the Bull Ring Admission is FREE and all are welcome 13th February 2015   Ting Ting Yao    Piano Solo 13th March 2015  Ting Ting Yao & Friends Piano Solo 20th March 2015 Lucy Morton  Quartet 10th April 2015 Hannah Woollacott Classical Guitar 17th April 2015 Ruta Labutyte Unaccompanied Violin 24th April 2015 TBC  15th May 2015 Simone Damiani Piano 22nd May 2015 Alastair Wright Piano Trio 5th June 2015 Alison Loram Piano Trio 19th June 2015 Benjamin Hill Saxophone 10th July 2015 Anna Downes and Tony Bridgewater Violin Recital 17th July 2015 Clare Jones Piano   *Concert in collaboration with Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University For more information contact the Parish Office   Photo: Crazybobbles, flickr

St Martins is one of 7 churches taking part in The Birmingham Churches Winter Night Shelter, which sees each church open up its building to 12 men each night to stop them sleeping rough on the streets. This is running from 18th January until 8th March. All the guys that come are given a hot meal as well as the opportunity to talk and make friends with all those who are volunteering. We believe this is a great opportunity to show the love of Jesus to the people of Birmingham. If you would like to volunteer to help out at the night shelter please email office@bullring.org or call the parish office on 0121 600 6020. If you know someone who wishes to be referred to the night shelter, they are welcome to come along to our drop in coffee morning on Monday 10am-12pm to refer themselves or visit SIFA Fireside in the mornings during the rest of the week. Please pray that our guests will be renewed and refreshed during their time with us. Please thank God for our volunteers and for equipping us

St Martin’s Healing on the Streets –  August and September 2014 In September the team experienced God working in a way we haven’t experienced before – not in what God did but how he did it. We normally hand out leaflets inviting passers-by to come and sit on the chairs to receive prayer. Well, we hardly needed to give out leaflets – folks would come to us and ask: ‘What are you doing?’ We would tell them we were praying for people. They would say ‘I want that, please! The team did not stop praying for the two hours we were out on Edgbaston St. when it was time to pack things up we had to leave some chairs out because people were still coming for prayer. During our prayer meeting before we went out to pray we read a story from a book called ‘Outrageous Courage’ by Kris Wallotton and Jason Wallotton (ISBN 978-0-8007-9554-2) The book is a true story about Tracy Evans.  Tracy was a medical worker in South Africa. One day she was driving an ambulance from South Africa to a clinic in M

In June we did a prayer walk from St Martin’s to Centenary Square. Despite being a wet day it did not rain continuously and we managed to stop several times to pray for the area, for various events and activities happening on that day and for folks as they walked around. Our first stop was at the top of stairs leading to the Bull Ring Shopping Centre from St Martin’s. There we prayed for St Martin’s. Before we left the church we read the passage in Isaiah 2 about the mountain of the Lord. Verse 2 says: “the mountain of the Lord will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills and all nations will stream to it”. As St Martin’s stands right in the heart of Birmingham where many nations stream through it we felt appropriate to dedicate that place as the ‘Mountain of the Lord.’ Our second stop was by the Council House in Victoria Square. There we prayed for our councillors and other employees in the House. We prayed for events happening at tha