Welcome to the parish of St. Peter’s Halliwell
Rev Alan writes…
Harvest Appeal – Food Donations Next Sunday!
I caught up with Dave Bagley, Chief Exec of Urban Outreach, at the No More Knives launch night last Tuesday. Dave made me aware of the shortage of food donations and the challenges this gives with meeting the needs of people who rely on the Store House Pantry. I asked him to provide an update so that we can prayerfully consider how we support this cause at harvest, here’s what Dave has to say… “Urban Outreach worked with 43,338 different individuals last year on over 120,000 occasions. Last year we gave out 5,832 parcels which provided food to 12,152 people. On average we provided £15,857. 58 worth of gas and electric top ups equating to £190,290.
Read the full newsletter.
Morning Services in October
We finish our look at the life of Moses on 4th October by looking at his legacy into the New Testament and on to today.
On 11th October we celebrate Harvest across all our morning services, and on 18th October is our parish-wide Vision Service at St. Peter’s – there are no other services in the parish that day.
Through the rest of October and November our theme is “A Movement of Disciples”. In a sense the series is a ‘back to basics’ of what it means to be a disciple and we are learning from the children in Lighthouse as, week by week, we will study each of their five values: Love God and Love Others, Pray Every Day, Listen for the Holy Spirit, Read Your Bible, and Lead Others to Jesus.
As we send people out to plant a new church in Bolton town centre, we will use this opportunity to help people to grow as disciples and step into some of the gaps that are inevitably left by the people who have moved on. We will ask the question: “How is God calling us?” and invite people to make a response to grow in their commitment as a disciple of Christ.
Our morning services from St. Peter’s Church are live-streamed (slides and audio, no live images) and are available to watch later on our YouTube channel.
Evening Sermon series - 2 Timothy - Endure
On 4th October we will be celebrating our young people as they feed back on their experience at DTI -Dreaming the Impossible – the summer camp they went to in July.
11th October sees the launch of the No More Knives initiative from the Message Trust into our local schools.
There will be no evening service on 18th October as we are encouraging everyone to attend our parish Vision Service at 11am that day.
From the end of October until the end of January we will be studying Paul’s second letter to Timothy (with occasional breaks for Mission Sundays and Christmas!).
This is Paul’s final and most personal letter. He wrote it during another time in prison to his dear co-worker and protégé, Timothy. While we don’t know exactly how much time has passed since he wrote 1 Timothy, we see that Paul’s situation has changed for the worse.
Paul is imprisoned in Rome, and he is in the middle of a court trial, and it’s not going well. Paul is pretty sure that he’s not going to survive this one. Out of this dark situation, Paul appeals to Timothy, who is still on assignment in Ephesus. Paul asks Timothy to come to be with him in prison so that he can pass on his plans for a church-planting mission.
We meet every Sunday at 6.30pm in St. Peter’s Church and the opening worship, reading and talk from this service is available on our YouTube channel.
Oasis
Oasis is our midweek service – a time of fellowship and friendship at St Peter’s!
Refreshments are served in the church lounge from 10.30am and at 11.30am there is a 30 minute service in church for those who would like to attend.
Do come and join us – everyone is very welcome for part or all of our time together.
Verse of the Year 2026
Rev Alan says:
We’ve been on a journey in our sermons in our morning services as a parish since I started as Vicar just over three years ago.
• Year 1: we focused on the Kingdom of God
• Year 2: we focused on the church as Jesus’ Family on Jesus’ Mission
• Year 3: we focused on Jesus, how we should fix our eyes on him and learn from his example.
In 2026 (Year 4): I want us to focus on learning more about and loving our neighbours, which of course should flow out from giving our whole selves in our love of God and our commitment to his church as Jesus’ Family on Jesus’ Mission.
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St. Peter's Church
Barrow Bridge Mission
Smithills Fellowship
St. Andrew's Church
Parish Centre
St. Peter’s parish church is an impressive Grade II listed building at the heart of the parish. In the 1980’s an extension provided a lounge, kitchen and toilets and more recently a welcoming entrance area has been created between this and the church.
Barrow Bridge Mission is situated in an important conservation area on the edge of Bolton. The attractive community is a former model community mill village and comprises former mill owner and worker cottages.
Smithills Fellowship meets in St. Peter’s Smithills Dean CE Primary School and Smithills Hall Chapel. The Chapel forms part of Smithills Hall and is leased from the council.
St. Andrew’s meets in the Hope Centre, which serves the Johnson Fold estate. The centre has been completely refurbished in the last 15 years, to better serve the needs of the surrounding community.
St. Peter’s Parish Centre is a hive of activity most days with church groups and other bookings.
It is also home to the administrative hub of the parish. The office is open Monday to Friday from 9.30am-3pm.
St. Peter's Church
St. Peter’s parish church is an impressive Grade II listed building at the heart of the parish. In the 1980’s an extension provided a lounge, kitchen and toilets and work is currently underway to provide a welcoming entrance area.
Barrow Bridge Mission
Barrow Bridge Mission is situated in an important conservation area on the edge of Bolton. The attractive community is a former model community mill village and comprises former mill owner and worker cottages.
Smithills Fellowship
Smithills Fellowship meets in St. Peter’s Smithills Dean CE Primary School and Smithills Hall Chapel. The Chapel forms part of Smithills Hall and is leased from the council.
St. Andrew's Church
St. Andrew’s meets in the Hope Centre, which serves the Johnson Fold estate. The centre has been completely refurbished in the last 15 years, to better serve the needs of the surrounding community.
Parish Centre
St. Peter’s Parish Centre is a hive of activity most days with church groups and other bookings.
It is also home to the administrative hub of the parish. The office is open Monday to Friday from 9.30am-3pm.
Safeguarding
At St. Peter’s Halliwell we work hard to maintain a safe environment for all. We are committed to implementing the House of Bishops’ safeguarding policies and good practice guidance.
If you have any concerns or enquiries regarding safeguarding, please visit our Safer Church page here for details of who to contact.