Hockley Pentecostal Church

On the 22nd and 23rd January we hosted these remarkable children. Everyone was delighted by their infectious smiles, bubbling happiness,  joyous dancing and obvious musical ability.  We were also touched by their moving stories as all of them are orphans.

The Choir tours the world helping to publicise and finance the work of ‘Watoto’, a charity that works with orphans in Uganda.  Watoto have developed a pattern where groups of 8 children are placed in a newly built house with their ‘mother’. Houses are grouped into clusters of 9, and several clusters make a Watoto village.  Each village has a school and medical centre.  So far nearly 1700 children have been rescued from terrible situations and become part of the Watoto family. We fully support their work and would encourage you to help them spiritually and financially. For more information see their website.

Their performances are a riot of sound and colour with a distinct African flavour. It’s hard to get a clear photo because they’re constantly dancing, but you can see some of our best pictures below.  For a better idea of what it was like take a look at the video on youtube which will be available from later today.

“Still it Flows” is a book about how Hockley Pentecostal Church began in Birmingham. For a long time you’ve been able to download a pdf version of this book from the ‘history’ page but it was a big file.  Now all the writing has been converted into a text file.  As well as being easier to download it also means you can now search the book for keywords.  You can get the download by following the instructions at the bottom of the history page.

Different churches have different names for it – Communion, The Lord’s Supper, The Lord’s Table, The Eucharist, Breaking Bread etc.  Whatever you want to call it, the symbolic act of taking bread and wine (or other suitable drink) together in church is very important. Here at Hockley Pentecostal Church, Birmingham we have spent the last three weeks looking in detail at this vital subject. Ian Brayshaw has been teaching about it and a copy of his sermon notes is available here - Breaking Bread sermon notes

If you are interested in the background of Hockley Pentecostal Church you have probably already noticed the history tab at the top of the page. Just in case you weren’t aware there is a book called “Still it flows” which charts the progress of our fellowship through the various stages of its life here in Birmingham.  This book is available as  a large pdf file. At some point I need to put it through an OCR (optical character recognition) program to turn it into text and reduce the file size.  Until then it’s only suitable to be downloaded by those with broadband.  For instructions on how to get the file look at the botom of the history page.

On Saturday 6th October some nationally recognised children’s workers will be in Birmingham at Hockley Pentecostal Church to share their wealth of experience.  The day starts at 9.30am and runs through until 4pm.  For a look at the programme click on this link training.pdf. Booking is essential and should be done by Tuesday 2nd October at the latest. Cost £15.

Here’s the latest news in our quest to take advantage of technological opportunities! Hockley Pentecostal Church has a YouTube channel as of today.  So far I’ve only uploaded two videos - the Christmas 2006 edition of HPC News and the newly edited “N:r-gize goes to Youth Camp”.  I hope to upload more material shortly. To see the videos click the YouTube icon on the links page.