St Barnabas’ Vision and Priorities
At St Barnabas, our vision has grown from a process of listening – to God, to one another, and to our local community. Guided by prayer and the Holy Spirit, we seek to follow God’s timing as we work towards six key priorities that will shape our life and ministry.
Our desire is to be a healthy, generous, welcoming church where Jesus is at the centre of all we do, and where His love is shared with our community through worship, fellowship, service, and outreach.
Our vision also fits into the missional aims of Derby Diocese: transformed lives, growing church and building community.
Rev'd Canon Alan Griggs
Vicar
Lisa Lawrence
Churchwarden
Peter Lunn
Churchwarden
Rev Bill Day
Local Ordained Minister
Rev Ray Samme
Clergy Team
Cynthia Shumba
Jen Allen
Louise Latham
In Luke 4 Jesus said “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” As Christians and followers of Jesus, we are called to do the same and we are commanded to ‘love our neighbour as ourselves’ and to be generous to those in need.
We support our local and overseas mission partners financially and prayerfully, so that through their various ministries, they bring Good News to the marginalised and those in need in their communities. As led by the Holy Spirit, they love and serve Jesus by loving and serving those in desperate need to hear God’s love and salvation for them and to receive healing and transformation.
FEE is a nonprofit organisation driven by community activists, including refugees, dedicated to supporting disadvantaged local groups in Derby. FEE offers administration and translation services, food and clothing banks, learning workshops and community events.
Betel is a Christian charity dedicated to helping men, women and families facing social exclusion, including homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, and long-term unemployment.
Their mission is to transform lives through faith, community and hard work, providing a safe and structured family-like environment, offering peer support to help individuals overcome the challenges they face.
Kagando Hospital nestles in the foothills of the Rwenzori mountains on the Equator in Western Uganda. It has simple basic wards and an open-plan, shaded corridor. It is a beautiful, scenic area but life is tough for the community; many of whom survive on their crops, often cultivated on steep mountain slopes where drought and intense sunshine can kill the plants or heavy thunderstorms during the rainy season can wash them away. The people are very dependent on the climate being suitable for their crops and climate change is making this less and less reliable.
The hospital always struggles financially because the patients have to pay for treatment and around 30% are unable to do so. Friends of Kagando is helping the hospital by generating some income through a newly developing farm and saving expenditure with the solar power project to produce their own electricity.
St Barnabas has been supporting this charity for many years (as a church and many individual church members also give regularly) by providing funding towards nurses’ pay – their wages are approximately £7 per day,- helping to subsidise the cost of children’s fees to allow the parents to bring children for treatment, and also contributing towards the electricity project. Two of our church members are trustees of Friends of Kagando and visit the hospital every year. Please pray for the valuable work done in the hospital and for the management, staff and chaplaincy team who run this amazing ministry in God’s name and for His glory.
St Barnabas has been partnered with All Saints Church for many years. It is an Anglican (Church of Uganda) church in a village about three miles from Kagando hospital and has a congregation of about 200. Our support includes enabling the church to build a small Sunday school complex which they also use as a nursery during the week. We have a strong relationship with the Lay Reader and staff as members of our congregation regularly visit the church and the hospital.
St Barnabas has supported YWAM Arusha for many years and developed good relationships with the staff on the base. Tragically, their base leader, John Mukolwe was killed alongside 10 other missionaries in a road accident in February 2024 but we continue to support his family and the ministries that continue and develop.
One area that we are committed to is the sponsorship of Tumaini children who may be orphaned, or their family is struggling to provide for them. Our individual support helps to fund the children’s personal and educational needs and it is wonderful to see them grow and flourish.
Other vital ministries include providing food baskets over the Christmas period to widows, many of whom have faced unimaginable hardships, but this initiative brings them hope and joy during the festive season. By sharing these food baskets, God’s love is extended and reminds the widows that they are not forgotten. Houses are also built for widows and their children which provide more than shelter for them; they also restore dignity, security and a fresh start.
Medical camps are an essential ministry, serving hundreds of patients with medical care and treating many individuals for jigger infestations. These camps become a powerful time of healing and hope, transforming lives, restoring dignity and health to many in need.
Please pray for the YWAM team as they seek to take the Gospel to remote villages, run Discipleship Training Courses, provide schooling and education and share the love of Jesus with those in need.
George and Anna Takan launched a school named after St Barnabas to provide an educational facility for the region’s young and youth, where previously there was none. There were many challenges, including paying the staff and feeding the children. George developed a farm growing maize, alongside chickens, pigs and a few cows, helping to feed and support the community. This farming initiative provided the opportunity to share the Gospel with the community, demonstrating and sharing the love of Jesus, and George reported that many people are being saved and released from bondages.
George and Anna felt led by the Lord recently to minister to the youth in their area, whilst still keeping in contact with the younger children at the school (the children graduated successfully due to the excellent teaching staff, care and provision given to the children and support to the families). A new recreation centre is being built and furnished. George felt called to share the Good News with the youth to offer them hope of a fruitful future. Please do pray for George and Anna as they faithfully minister to the young people in the community through this new venture.
Our support to the YWAM team in Karamoja began in response to a famine that had been raging through the NE region of Uganda and where a YWAM team felt led by God to respond by moving there and provide a feeding programme for the local hospital, financed by The Gavins Foundation. A training centre will provide training in agriculture to the local pastoral population whose culture has been rendered redundant by climate change, and also to run courses in Fronter Missions, church planting and discipleship to equip workers for this harvest-field of an unreached people group.
Pastor Sam and his wife Agnes who lead the YWAM Kaabong said that “we have seen God work in the lives of the people; more are coming to the Lord and we have seen God provide”. Please pray for them as they respond to God’s call in this great ministry.
Federico and team have begun a new project to demonstrate sustainable, space-efficient farming techniques that can be replicated by local families to improve both nutrition and income. Their project is a model farm where they cultivate a variety of crops such as onions, carrots, beans and cabbages using a drip irrigation system which is a new and innovative practice in the Soroti region. They raise seedlings in a small greenhouse before transplanting them which is also a new concept in the area. Additionally, they have planted 100 mango trees and 100 soursop trees as part of their effort to teach fruit tree cultivation and they are demonstrating how to make the most of available space by combining fruit tree orchards with poultry farming; under the trees, they raise 300 broiler chickens and 20 breeding turkeys. This mixed-use approach allows them to maximise land productivity while also reducing dependence on commercial feed, since the birds can move freely under the trees and forage naturally.
Training sessions are planned for turkey farming for the youth of the neighbouring church and the goal is to continue expanding the turkey flock so they can eventually provide birds to the church youth group and teach them how to raise and care for them.
Please pray for the farm for it to become self-sustainable and for it to bless local farmers, families and the community through its teaching and provision.
God created our world and He loves it and He calls us to cherish it and care for it. We must look after the world because it has been made by God and it is good. As Christians, we must value what God values and try to live in a way that does as little damage as possible to this earth and its inhabitants.
At St Barnabas, it is important for us to show that we love and care for God’s earth and aim to be good stewards of our resources. One way we do this is by making sure that the items we purchase for the church are ethical and fairly traded, including our tea and coffee, cleaning supplies, toilet rolls, etc, and by supporting organisations who are actively engaged in working with and supporting those in extreme poverty. We have been awarded A Rocha UK’s Silver Eco Church and we aim to reduce our carbon footprint wherever possible: we have 100 solar panels fitted onto our roof, our lighting is LED and we only use a renewable energy supplier.
'O LORD, what a variety of things you have made! In wisdom you have made them all. The earth is full of your creatures… When you give them your breath, life is created, and you renew the face of the earth. May the glory of the LORD continue forever! The LORD takes pleasure in all he has made!' (Psalm 104:24,30–31)
