The rain continues but sun has made an appearance, the flowers are starting to come out and the days are getting longer, which must mean that Spring is around the corner. This changing of seasons happily coincides with a number of significant changes at Hope Vineyard, including our move to Greyfriars Catholic School this month. Our first Sunday is now in 2 days time, on 1st March when we’ll be celebrating Sunday Breakfast in our new Sunday venue! We’d love to see you there and on subsequent Sundays in March (Note: Sunday Services are a new time! Doors open at 9:45am and we’ll start promptly at 10am). This might just be the perfect time to invite someone you know to church who wouldn’t usually come along but is open to faith, so why not take the plunge and have a conversation?

See images above for an aerial photo of the school, which shows the address and where we’ll be meeting for Sunday Breakfast (in the dining hall, which says ‘restaurant’ on the sign),
See the images below for Sunday Services, as they are are in a different place within the school campus (in the ‘main hall’).

The timeline for the move within the Shopping Centre for Small Steps and our mid week children’s and families groups is still yet to be confirmed, but a meeting this week confirmed that the lease is being finalised. We’re excited to share that Kimberley, will be increasing her hours from March, so there’s activity on 4 days per week in preparation for the move, and once in our new location, we plan to have ‘community Wednesdays’, so when that’s confirmed, we’ll share more. Additionally, we are almost at the point where we can publish the advert to recruit a new ‘Small Steps Lead’, so join us in prayer for God to connect us with the right person, and for the continued growth of this beautiful expression of God’s love in Oxford. Please ask any interested people you may know to send Josh an email (josh.kay@hopeoxford.org), so he can share the recruitment pack and relevant information.

A huge amount of work has been going on and continues to go on behind the scenes to make our imminent move to Greyfriars Catholic School possible along with our move to a new unit for Small Steps. We are personally so grateful for all your support, and encouraged that so many have stepped up and given even more time and skills than usual to serve Hope Vineyard and God’s kingdom here in Oxford. Thank you.

Lastly, as we have now entered the season of Lent, we like to journey together to reflect on what this might mean for each of us. So let’s ask ourselves, How does God want me to prepare for Easter? What passages of scripture might he want me to engage with? How can I set aside time to meditate on the life and death of Jesus?

Looking back:

Four of us attended the Vineyard Regional Worship Retreat in February at Waterways Vineyard, Trowbrirdge. We were blessed to be around others in the movement hungry for God’s presence and excited to learn more about leading others in worship. There were some great talks and workshops ranging from the theology of worship to worshipping on the streets of Trowbridge and a Worship Circle (essentially a big worship jam where around 100 people played instruments and sang). If you are interested in leading people in worship, whether through music or another creative expression, we would love to hear from you as we’d love to grow the team.

Prayer: continues to be at the heart of all we are and all we do in our church. As we take risks with the move to a new venue and as we read more about the hunger some people in our nation, especially younger people, are experiencing regarding God and faith we want to be praying more than ever. If you haven’t joined us before we’d particularly love to see you at either our monthly Sunday evening or weekly Tuesday morning prayer gatherings. You can find further details about both of these gatherings at www.hopeoxford.org/whatson

We are excited that ‘worship on the streets’ is now a twice monthly fixture (on the 1st and 3rd Fridays of each month). We head out again to bring God’s presence to the people around Templars Square on Friday, 6th and 20th March at 1pm (meeting by the traffic lights next to Feel Fit Gym on Between Towns Road). No musical expertise is required, simply a heart to worship, or to pray for the area or engage passers by in conversation as you feel led.

Looking forward:

This month we continue with our new Friday Power Hour on 6th March at 11.45am in the Hope Oxford unit for those who lead ministries /areas within the life of the church. The purpose of these short monthly gatherings is to share vision, stories from the ministry areas we lead and worship and pray together.

Our first ever Women’s Retreat will be happening this month on Saturday 7th March 9.30am-1pm at Littlemore Church. You can sign up at www.hopeoxford.org/whatson/ for what promises to be a wonderful time of slowing and being together in God’s presence.

3 Planned Easter dates:

On Palm Sunday (Sunday 29th March), we’re not meeting at Greyfriars, but instead Ryan and Randi’s Life Group are taking the lead as we are going to try and use this 5th Sunday in the month to host an event at Templars Square Shopping Center, with crafts/ give aways, which has been popular when we’ve done it before.

Easter Saturday 4th April Josh and Katie’s life group will lead the team from Hope Vineyard to host the popular Easter Egg Hunt in Templars Square Shopping Centre

Easter Sunday 5th April we will have a celebration service at Greyfriars School.

Vineyard Churches (VCUKI) dates:

Vineyard Leaders Gathering (VLG): We are already looking forward to this annual gathering of the Vineyard tribe in Nottingham. We hope that some of our wider leadership team at Hope will join us for 2 days of worship, teaching and inspiration. We are planning on the majority of leaders attending ‘VLG B’, Thursday 30th April-Friday 1st May, and if that’s not possible, ‘VLG A’ is equally a great option (27th-28th April). If you lead in any area of the life of the church and would like to join us please let us know. For more information, including a peek at the programme head to www.vineyardchurches.org.uk/events/vineyard-leaders-gathering-2026

Dreaming the Impossible (DTI) ‘save the date’: The Vineyard youth festival at the Staffordshire Show Ground is happening and DTI will be between 29th July and 3rd August this year. We hope to take a group of our young people once again (youth leader numbers permitting) as they had a blast last summer. https://dreamingtheimpossible.org/summer26

Thanks once again for joining us on this journey as we look to keep in step with God’s Holy Spirit, walking with our hand in His.

Love and prayers from us both,

Katie and Josh