In the spirit of being a green Christian does anyone have any recycling tips they wish to share? I heard about a brilliant website called www.Freecycle.org where you can offer for free stuff you've finished with but don't want to end up in landfill so that other people can collect it and get further use out of it. You can also request things you want if you have a specific need. The only conditions are it needs to be legal and free to a good home. Your offers are emailed initially to the local Leigh group and then can be posted on other local groups websites if there are no takers. This helps to save the environment further by reducing the miles people have to come and collect the item. I thought it was a great idea if your local charity shop can't take any items you have. Any other good ideas?

Is anyone else finding that they have to log onto the site and then again onto the forum? Perhaps this is discouraging people from posting?

Has anyone else been watching that Secret millionaire programme on Sunday nights on More 4? For those who haven't a millionaire goes to live in a deprived area with a view to finding people/projects they can help by giving some of their own money. They obviously keep their identity/wealth a secret during the 10 days they are there and have to live on the same money as the people they are hoping to help. There have been quite a lot of Christians on the programme who have welcomed and helped the under cover millionaire to settle in and have ended up receiving help with their projects and I have found it to be a very encouraging and heart warming programme. If you've seen it have their been any stories that particularly touched you and are there any lessons we could learn as a church from it?

I agree Eric. The hot topics thingy on the opening page did sort of entice you into the forum and you could see instantly if someone had replied to your post. Please dear moderator can we make it so?

I have tried to list 2 new links in the resources section in the last few months for Tearfund and Activate but since Evan left the links have not been established. I don't think these links are particularly controversial so I assume that no one is approving them at present. Does anyone know how we get links approved now and is there someone in charge of things like this on the website now?

Things have got so bad on the website that I've had to start replying to myself. Is there anyone else there?  Surely other people have some more exciting things to say. There is no point in having a beautiful and flashy website if no one uses it.

I was reading an article in Idea (The Evangelical Alliance) magazine this week about internet evangelism day on 29/4/07 and how other churches are using their websites to reach out to the internet community. There are some suggestions at www.internetevangelismday.com and in the magazine. I think our website is excellent and looks really attractive but are there ways we could make it even better or could we use this date as an opportunity to advertise the website better both to the community in Leigh and the church community? Anybody got any good topics for discussion which could be helpful to other people to answer difficult questions or help people going through similar situations?

I wondered if it could be possible to have a couple of new sections in the website. One would be a prayer area where people could post prayer requests for people to pray for. I would commit to pray for these weekly so at least we could guarentee that these would be prayed for regularly. Another section that I thought could be useful is a campaigns section where requests from eg tearfund, oxfam or jubilee debt campaign could be posted with links so that a wider number of people could respond from the church eg by emailing their MP as part of a social action campaign. I thought these might be better in separate sections as they could get lost in the discussion and aren't really for discussion anyway. What do other people think? Are there any other sections we could have?

While I've been off with the flu I've been watching Richard and Judy. Anyone who watches the show will know they have a book club/review type thingy. Could we start a similar thing on the forum? Books could be Christian or not whatever you like as all can throw up interesting points for discussion.
I've recently read The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun a Chinese christian who was imprisoned and brutally tortured for his faith. A barrell of laughs I bet you're all thinking but despite the many horrible things that happened it spoke to me of how God can be with you and work miracles even in the most difficult of cicumstances. Also it came across how human Brother Yun was and how anyone can have a relationship with God hearing directly from Him although I'm sure many of us (me included) feel like we could do with a spiritual hearing aid. Have you read any good books lately? Have you read this one and if so what did you think?

War on Want are having an excellent valentine's campaign to help people in Africa who pick and grow the flowers for valentine's day and other special occaisions. These people often work in terrible conditions and have little or no protection against the pesticides and chemicals used on the flowers. For an ethical and thoughtful valentines gift log onto http://www.waronwant.org/valentines and give a fiver for the flower growers rather than some overpriced roses to your paramour. Any other inventive valentine's suggestions?

Not even I'm that holy  Tee Hee. I did give up TV last year which mean't I had loads of time to do really useful things but I must say it nearly killed me. It so nice to have someone else on the forum. I was beginning to think I was alone and unloved

The vicar seems to have taken you up on your most excellent idea in the rogues gallery in the porch. I've been in the church years and I still find it difficult to remember peoples names.
At a church I went to in Cambridge they had a welcome pack with info about the church for visitors which they used to give out at each service. It mean't visitors had to be quite brave and put their hand up to get one but at least everyone knew they were new and could say hello. We could even use chocolate as an incentive. I know it would work for me!
Also once a month the visitors could go to lunch after the service. This was quite good as there were lots of students but I'm sure these ideas could be adapted.

Hello Chicken and welcome although this is a little late
The forum used to be buzzing but I think people have forgotten about the website so I've asked it to be put in the church notices to remind people so our online community can return to it's former glory.

I was reading my copy of Activate magazine when I came across an article about the C of E lent campaign "Love life live Lent". It's a booklet and website that gives inspiration for simple things people can do to spread a little happiness and generosity in their community during Lent and is particularly aimed at people who wouldn't normally go to church. It looks great. On this theme what's the weirdest thing you've ever done or given up for Lent?

Don't know about you but sometimes cell worship gets a little dry and needs a bit of creativity injecting into it. Our cell has been trying a new ideas to worship God in new ways and I wondered if other cells had any ideas we could all share. Our experiments so far have included:
Looking at the stars through a telescope to remind ourselves how mighty God is. We then read a psalm and sang Praise my soul the King of Heaven- an oldie but goldie of course.
Each person brought their favourite hymn (words and a CD) and and told us all why it mean't so much to them, then we sang them. This doesn't have to restricted to just hymns it could be songs in general. We even had some God related George Harrison.
We read a psalm over some beautiful classical music.
This week we're watching a DVD of instrumental worship songs with lovely countryside pictures on it. Mmmm worship chillout.
We're going to run out of exciting ideas soon so any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.