All Saints' Church, Preston-on-Tees

Parish_church
name=Preston-on Tees Parish Church


caption=All Saints' main building
dedication=All Saints
denomination=Church of England
tradition=Evangelical
parish=Preston-on-Tees
deanery=Stockton
archdeaconry=Auckland
diocese=Durham
province=York
vicar=Rev Alan Farish
curate=Rev John Lambert (Associate Minister)
curate1=Rev Ben Green
Rev Susannah Green
website= [http://www.allsaints-church.co.uk/ www.allsaints-church.co.uk]

All Saints' Church is a Church of England church based in the parish of Preston-on-Tees, Eaglescliffe.

Background

All Saints' is a charismatic Evangelical Anglican Church, a member of the New Wine Network of Churches. It is varied in its liturgical approach.

Sunday meetings are more traditional at 9am, aimed at families at 10.30am and Charismatic and youth-friendly at 6.30pm.

There is Morning Prayer every weekday at 9am, and Holy Communion on a Wednesday at 9:30am.

Mission statement

This church exists to:

*Worship God

*Make disciples

*Share the Good news of Jesus

*Care for those in need

Church Buildings

The church consists of three buildings. These are the main church building, the Church centre and church house. The main building is connected to the Church centre, with Church house on the other side of the car park.

Main Church building

This was built in three stages. The Nave and Lady chapel and Choir Vestry were built in the early 1900s. In the 1950s the chancel was added, and in the later part of the 20th century the Narthex, office, and library were added.

The Narthex and Lady Chapel originally had a basement, but at some point during the late 20th Century these were filled in due to subsidence.

Church Centre

The Church Centre was constructed in the final quarter of 2004 to replace the old Youth Centre. The cost was 750,000GBP raised by the church members. It is overseen by Geoff Snowdon snr. the centre manager. It features a large main hall, two meeting rooms with a removable partition wall between them, a kitchen, and substantial storage rooms.

The main hall of the centre had very bad acoustics caused by the bare walls, floor, and ceiling mean there was a bad echo in the room. Work to correct this has been completed with the use of a suspended acoustic ceiling. There however been some issues with tiles being both broken and knocked out with balls, and other sporting equipment.

Church House

Church House is the rear section of a large house that is adjacent to the church car park. The upstairs of the house was converted into a two bedroom flat which is currently leased as office space to Tees Valley Youth For Christ, and the downstairs area now consists of a youth room and office space (refurbished in 2005 and 2008), and a small leased bed sit currently occupied by Youth Worker, Tim Wye.

Children's work

Jan Peters is employed as the Church's part-time children & families outreach worker. She works in schools, runs 3 toddler groups weekly, organises holiday family events / big ted monthly events, and is involved in the existing church children's work,seeking to spread God's love to families around the area.

Julia Taylor Powell oversees the team who provide children's work every Sunday and the team of young people.

Youth work

Debbie Hird was the youth worker up until the early 2000s. In 2003 Adam and Amy Burns were employed full-time as the Church's youth workers. Adam Burns resigned in late 2003 due to ill health, but Amy continued until December 31st 2006. She provided weekly meetings for every age of youth (School years 7 to 11) and did outreach work in the local schools through lessons, assemblies and supporting students in any way she could.

Two new youth workers were appointed after Easter 2007 to continue the work of Amy, but until then, the youth work was being overseen by Hannah Jackson, and lead by a team of volunteers including Richard Wakefield (Rock Solid) and Tim Wye (WIRED).

Tim Wye started as an employed youth worker in mid-April 2007. Lindsay joined in September 2007. In July 2008 she announced she would be returning to Northern Ireland to continue here Masters in Theology. She finishes her job at the end of August, one year after she started.

Young Adults

In March 2003, Kris Rives founded a young adults group. Kris returned to Texas in August 2003 and left the running of the group to the 'founding members', however in October 2003 Dave Hammond, a trainee vicar from Durham began his placement with All Saints' and it was agreed that the leading of the 18-30 group would count towards his placement. In 2005 the 18-30 group split into two groups, one called PULSE, and one called the MC. Both groups ceased by the end of 2006. [http://www.geoffsnowdon.me.uk/1830/]

Home groups

There are over 150 people in home groups which meet fortnightly in homes (as the name suggests) around the area. They vary in size and type and are where the essence of Christian community is found.

Home Groups are also called Cell groups or House Groups.

Gap Year

In 2005 the church set up a gap year called 'Project'. This was co-ordinated by Hannah Jackson for 2005/06, 2006/07 and 2007/08. The 2006/07 gap year was rebranded as 'Launch'. The project was funded by the Diocesan Mission Fund.

The project failed to get funding from the Diocesan Mission Fund for 2008 so from September 2008, Launch will be an internship programme run from the staff team.

Football Team

. Until the end of the 2007/08, both teams were in Division 2. [ [http://www.football.mitoo.co.uk/LeagueTab.cfm?TblName=Matches&DivisionID=770&LeagueCode=NECFL2006 football.mitoo ] ] , but for the 2008/09 season, All Saints' Preston on Tees FC have been promoted to Division 1 after winning Division 2. All Saints' Eagles FC remain in Division 2.

External links

* [http://www.allsaints-church.co.uk/ All Saints' Church Website]

References

Some information sourced from PCC minutes.