A great celebration took place at St Marks Scarisbrick’s Café Church Sunday Service on 25th January when we were joined by Archdeacon Pete Spiers and Sam Stanford from the Diocesan Vocations Team to commission John Forshaw as a Local Missional Leader.
John has been part of St Marks family for many years leading, preaching and teaching. He has a real heart for the community of Scarisbrick, where he is born and bred, especially for children, families and new people seeking Jesus.
John’s love of Jesus, the scriptures and prayer shine out of him; his enthusiasm and creativity for sharing the gospel with others attracts many to seek to know more of God.
His vision is to teach the good news to the next generations and has taken on training to help in this He also leads the café church service each month and the congregation love the relaxed atmosphere, the teaching and the bacon butties; it has all helped them to get to know each other better.
On a Monday he is joined by Rev Eileen Heaney at St Marks School where they lead weekly worship and talk with the pupils in the Chatter Box, which is so popular there is always a list of children wanting to talk!
The Chatter Box is a safe place for pupils to share everyday life but also any deep issues that they may be facing, the chats always ends with prayer and what is lovely is that the children take it very seriously building trust in God.
From this he together with others who have a heart and vision for youngsters has set up monthly school church meeting in our Parish Hall, called Café G’s and the children and parents who come along are known as the God Squad.
St Marks and the Diocese of Liverpool wish John every blessing in his new role and are deeply grateful to have him.
