Some of the
District team

Explore the
Website

Some useful Links

About the Circuit

The Bodmin, Padstow and Wadebridge Circuit covers 19 chapels and a mixture of rural and small town communities. It is an area with strong tourist attractions including the surfing beaches of Polzeath and Daymer Bay, the Camel Trail (a cycle track that follow the old railway line alongside the River Camel), historic Cornish communities like Bodmin and the fishing port of Padstow.

Circuit Vision

We have been working through the Methodist Church's Our Calling process to see how our worship and witness can develop to meet the challenges of contemporary culture.
The Our Calling process says that the Church exists to:

Increase awareness of God’s presence and to celebrate God’s love [Worship]
Help people to learn and grow as Christians, through mutual support and care [Learning and Caring]
Be a good neighbour to people in need and to challenge injustice [Service]
Make more followers of Jesus Christ [Evangelism]

The Bodmin, Padstow and Wadebridge Circuit has recently overwhelmingly approved a new vision for the future which grasps a new understanding of the use of our buildings and ministerial, local preaching and lay leadership roles.

We believe that as a circuit we need to work together as a whole group of Christians rather than doing our own thing, largely in isolation from one another.

We believe we need to see the circuit as the agent of the mission we do together, not just as a useful administrative tool to help us exist as separate churches.

We believe we need to express our belonging together in warmth, fellowship, celebration, and joy; doing this by worshipping together, pooling our resources, standing together and acting together. We are then stronger.

We believe fervently in the Biblical idea that the church is the people and not buildings. People's attachments to buildings, while understandable, should not get in the way of our vision of God's purposes and should not detract from our Biblical understandings of the kingdom of God.

We believe that the people of God need to be fed, encouraged, supported, and enabled, to engage in mission. Without engaging in mission, the church is not the church.

We aim to lift the burden many chapel leaders feel and work towards something completely different, by:

Resourcing mission through a network of fewer buildings and appropriate use of people and the necessary technology. This may include concentrating some elements of our work in one or more circuit centres where ministers and other circuit staff are based.

Developing centralised worship and resource centres in the circuit (Circuit Centres) as bases for evangelism and mission.

Resourcing Christians in the wider circuit communities through these centres, providing practical, theological and human support.

Focusing on our presence in communities through the continued development of Cell Church and the outreach which flows naturally from being salt and light where we live. That we see further development of cell churches as ways of being church in the local communities while cells will also meet collectively at the circuit centres for celebration meetings.

Encouraging a new culture of the ministry of the whole people of God, recognising that ministers and lay leaders are there to "equip the people of God for the work of ministry" (Ephesians 4: 12).

We recognise that in the coming years the circuit centres will host a variety of services on a Sunday with different worship styles on offer. We also plan to give opportunities to worship in different ways and at different times throughout the week.

Rev.
Peter Smith

Superintendent Minister

Rev.
Gareth Hill

Editor of the Chronicle, & Communications
Officer

Visit my weblog on www.cybervicar.
blogspot.com.

Revd.
Ronald Hockley

Supernumerary Minister

Revd.
Gwen Wills

Supernumerary Minister

Mr
Alan Priestley

lay worker

News and future events