Bradwell St Barnabas – About Us
Welcome!
At St Barnabas we feel privileged that the church and its churchyard have been part of community life in Bradwell for many generations. We treasure our connections with the community, through traditional services such as Christmas and Remembrance, as well as through activities like Community Cafés, Ladies’ Fellowship Group and the popular St B’s Baby Group.
Whether you have just moved to the area, are a visitor to the village or have lived in Bradwell all your life, we hope you will feel welcome at St Barnabas. We meet most Sundays in church for worship, and share our Vicar, Louise, with St Peter’s, Hope and St Edmund’s in Castleton.
Our worship style is fairly traditional; most services include communion. However we have introduced a Worship Together service on the first Sunday of each month, that is short, relatively informal, and encourages interaction. This service is still evolving, and we’d love your feedback. We also have one service a month, on the fourth Sunday, that is a Benefice Celtic based service, which takes place outdoors from April to September and indoors in chilly months.
We seek to extend a warm welcome to all those who visit, whether joining us for worship or simply taking time to enjoy the peace and tranquility of St Barnabas during the week. We pray that all those who visit will find something of God in our church community, in the building itself or in its surrounding grounds. The church is open every day from 10am-4pm.
We feel strongly that St Barnabas belongs to everyone, as God welcomes all. If you have suggestions about how we could improve our service and witness to the community, or could better meet your needs, we would love to hear from you.
If you would like to receive our Benefice weekly newsletter via email, which contains details of services, news and notices, please email Jane (Churchwarden) on: churchwarden.stb@gmail.com or phone 01433 621172.
You can also use the links below to find out details of our service times and all our events.
Monthly letter from our Vicar.
Louise’s Monthly message. April 2026 Welcome!
On a very wet evening in early February this year, I received a phone call from a police officer,
telling me that there was a homeless person in the porch of one of the three benefice churches,
asking me if I knew, and if I had given permission for them to be there. I replied that the person
was very welcome to sleep there, and I was glad they had been able to find some shelter from the
weather. I asked the police officer to let them know that they were welcome to sleep there and that
I was keeping them in my prayers. Later on that same evening I received a phone call from the
person concerned, thanking me.
As I thought about this homeless person, and as I prayed for them, I found myself reflecting on the
life of Jesus. I am saddened that anyone should think that my permission – or anyone else’s – is
necessary for a person to seek shelter in a space that belongs to everyone, and should be very
obviously a place where all are welcomed. I was also embarrassed that the person concerned felt
the need to thank me for ‘permitting’ them what should already be theirs anyway. And I reflected
that Jesus, the person that all our churches have been built to honour, began his earthly life as the
child of a couple far from home, seeking shelter for the night and who, before he was two years
old, was a refugee fleeing for safety to a foreign land.
We know very little about Jesus’ life between his infancy and the time when he began his three
year public ministry before his crucifixion. But we do know that those three years of public ministry
were spent as a homeless rabbi, wandering from place to place, and telling a would-be follower,
‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his
head.’ [Luke 9: 58]
Jesus also taught that our love for God is lived out through the way in which we treat those around
us, particularly in how we treat the most vulnerable and needy. In the parable of the sheep and the
goats [Matthew 25: 31-46], Jesus speaks of those who ‘inherit the Kingdom of God,’ as those who
fed him when he was hungry, clothed him when he was naked, and cared for him when he was
sick or in prison. When they asked when they had done these things, the King in the parable [God]
responded, ‘Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my
family, you did it to me.’
My prayers this month continue to be for the homeless and needy seeking shelter among us, and
for all like them. And I pray too that our communities may be places where all are always
welcomed, whoever they are.
Yours in Christ,
Louise Petheram
rev.louise.p@gmail.com 01433 621918
If you would like to sign up to receive the regular newsletters from churches and Christian groups
across Hope Valley, please go to
https://mailchi.mp/f29b1286b3df/2t1gk3uwy2
or email me and I can sign you up.
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