Hi, my name is Steve Fenning and I'm a leader at Mendlesham Christian Fellowship. My role is to help give vision and direction to the life of the Church and am involved in leading the worship and teaching at our Sunday services.

What do you do during the week?

I am involved in lots of activities during the week:

As I am a leader at the church, I meet with the other leaders regularly to plan and pray. Lots of time is spent planning for different Church events ie. preparing the worship and talks for Sunday services, arranging events where the Christian faith is communicated to those who don't normally attend church.

I occasionally visit other Churches to lead worship and teach.

I am governor at the local primary school and take assemblies there and at other schools.

I'm part of a small group that meets in my home to pray, read the Bible and help each other to grow in our faith.

I help at a children's club called Life's Great Adventure.

I play the guitar and help run music rehearsals for the rest of the music group.

 

What is special about your church building?

As a church we do not have our own building but meet each week in the village school/community centre. This means we have a lot of work to do each Sunday morning, setting the hall up, but it is good to be able to meet in the centre of the village using a building that is also used for lots of other village activities. The building is less important than the people who meet in it.

Why did you become a church leader?

I began working with Mendlesham Christian Fellowship in 1992 when a group of us started the church in the village. I was 19 years old when I gave up my job in farming to work with churches. I did this for a number of reasons:

I heard a talk about the importance of serving God that really challenged me

while I was spending time praying and talking with God and other Christians, I came to believe it was something He wanted me to do.

Do you have communion?

Yes, we do because we believe the Bible teaches us to do so. We include the sharing of bread and wine in many of our Sunday services. Sometimes people come to the front to receive the bread and wine and other times it is passed from one person to another along the rows where they are sitting. It is also included in other activities during the week, such as when small groups meet or the church meets to pray. Communion is very important to us because it reminds us of Jesus' death and resurrection and His love for us.

Do you have baptism?

Baptism is a key event in the life of our church. Once someone has become a Christian we encourage them to be baptised, as it is something that the Bible teaches. Young people and adults are baptised in a small pool that is set up for that purpose. We encourage people to tell publicly their story of how they became Christians. Afterwards they are briefly lowered under the water to be baptised. Once they come up out of the water the congregation clap; everyone is pleased when someone else chooses to follow Jesus in this way. Finally someone prays for them. Sometimes we go to the seaside to baptise people (but only in the summer!).

Why do you want people to come to this church?

We want people to come to our church because we believe the message about Jesus is such good news. We want people to discover the love of God, to be able to worship him and get the support of other Christians. We believe the teaching from the Bible helps people to make wise choices and grow in their relationship with God and other people. We try to be up-to-date in our presentation, worship and teaching and so we often use videos, music, and other different art forms to express our love to God and to teach the Bible.

 

What is the most important part of the service?

Our services are made up of two parts, worship and teaching. The worship includes songs, prayers, dance, painting, videos, communion etc.. and all of these help us to express our praise and love to God. The teaching includes learning how the Bible applies to our lives. Both are as important as each other.

How would you explain what a Christian is?

A Christian is someone who not only believes in God but is friends with God and wants to live for Him. This involves two things - repentance and faith.

The word repentance means 'turning around,' turning from living life our way and choosing to live life God's way. It involves saying sorry for all the wrong things we have done, asking God to forgive us and turning our back on everything we know to be wrong.

Faith involves putting our trust in Jesus to sort out the wrong things in our lives and inviting him to come into our lives to change us and to be with us.

What is the most important thing a Christian believes?

That Jesus died and rose again.

Through Jesus' death we know that God loves us and that we can be forgiven for all the wrong things that we have done. He died on the cross to take the punishment that we deserve for all those wrong things.

Through His resurrection, we know that Jesus really is God's Son, that death is not the end and that He is with us forever.