About Us...


Why We Are Here
We believe that God has called us to be an effective community of disciples, committed to serving the Lord Jesus Christ, and reaching out to those in our local community who don't know Jesus. Our mission is that, 'together, we will live for Christ, become like Christ and make Christ known'. We actively encourage believers to develop spiritual disciplines of prayer, bible study, and fellowship with others through small group membership. We also run regular courses to further aid people's spiritual and personal development and to encourage them to reach out to their friends with the good news of Jesus. Being a Christian is about knowing and trusting Jesus. These activities can help us to know more about Jesus but are not a substitute for knowing Him.

St James and the wider world.
As well as supporting many other churches in Lichfield diocese through its share contribution, St James also supports a number of other mission and relief agencies. We believe that as God has blessed us with so much, it is a Christian response to want to share what we have with others who need both prayer and financial support.

Our giving follows this pattern. We give internationally, nationally and locally and in each of these areas we support one agency emphasising the message of good news of Jesus and one concerned with practical aid emphasising Jesus' concern for the human condition that he shared.

Internationally we support

* Crosslinks that supports the work of churches across the world. In our case Richard and Bianca Reeve and their family at work in Mozambique.

* Scripture Union as it works amongst street children in Peru.

Nationally we support

* Oak Hill Theological Collegethat trains people for service in the church as ordinands, children and youth workers and other forms of service.

* The David Chilcott Fund that provides holidays for children in difficult situations.

Locally we support

* North Staffs Youth for Christ, working with young people through schools and churches to introduce them to Jesus.

* UCCF and Luke Cawley working in the local universties

History
Christians have met together on the site of our present church for nearly 1000 years. Naturally the church has seen huge changes over those years, and today change continues, as we seek to be faithful to God's word and make clear its relevance to contemporary culture.



Church Building

We are the temporary stewards of a fine and ancient building. The task of maintaining and restoring it is a costly and challenging one. Look out for our regular church open days where you can have a look around, chat to church members and sometimes also view the church tower (including the bell chamber and the view from the top) but the best way to see the church is to attend a Sunday service (whether we are meeting in the church builindg itself of whether we are meeting in a diffferent building as we did after the fire!

Recent projects have included a major clean-up following a fire in 2007, replacement of the run down and fire-damaged organ and a major restoration of the church tower. Current work in progress is to sort out the church heating system.

The oil fired boiler supplying our church heating had been condemned and so we have replaced it with 3 gas fired 55 Kw boilers ensuring we have sufficient heat generation for the future in an efficient and easily serviceable form.

We now need to consider the distribution side of the heating. Our existing system consist of steel pipes and radiators with a capability of about 30 Kw output. With such a high roofed building, it is necessary to move the warmer air around and so our proposal is to introduce a minimum of 8 variable speed fan assisted convector radiators running off the 80 degree C water feed providing upto 15 Kw output. Each one will be thermostatically controlled and they will be mounted on the outside walls blowing across and down the church.

This design will be compatible with our longer term plans for the church including the creation of one floor level and improving access to meet Disability Discrimination Act legal requirements, to install a toilet, a refreshment facility and improve storage.