St James & Emmanuel, Didsbury

After four years of planning, praying and giving to the project, the parish of St James and Emmanuel in Didsbury has just completed the first phase of a £1.4 million project aimed at radically improving their service to the local community and especially to the young people of Didsbury. To celebrate, they threw a party on Saturday September 15th 2007 and invited the Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Revd. Nigel McCulloch to dedicate the new facilities in a short celebration service at Emmanuel.

Emmanuel Church, on Barlow Moor Road and home to BBC Radio's Daily Service, now has a complex of meeting rooms and offices for church staff, built in the garden behind the church. In the future, it is hoped to join the new building to the Victorian church with a glazed link.

The Reverend David Hughes, the Rector of Emmanuel and St James's said: "This project has had two main aims: to remove the barriers between the church and the community and create a church with 'glass walls' - giving the community opportunities to see and hear the 'good news' of Jesus - and secondly, to invest in our children and young people by providing the best leaders and facilities that we possibly can. These new facilities will go a long way in helping us to fulfil this goal."

In encouraging his congregation through this major project, financed largely by the personal giving of church-members, Mr Hughes also quoted the words of a well known 19^th century  missionary to China, Hudson Taylor: "There are three stages in a work of God. Impossible! Difficult! Done!"

Photos from this Run the race Bishop's pilgrimage

The Bishop's visit to the parish continued over the weekend with a special service at Saint James's on Sunday morning at 10.30am  during which the bishop presented church members with the Commonwealth Games baton as a visible encouragement to continue 'Running the Race' by passing on the Christian faith to others.