Rochdale’s twin town in Germany, Bielefeld celebrating 800 years of being a town

Pastors from Rochdale and Bielefeld and Bielefeld’s council representative

Rochdale’s twin town in Germany, Bielefeld, is celebrating 800 years of being a town.

On the 29-30 June they held a music festival; Bielefeld invited and paid for a music band or group to join them from each of their twin towns.

When some pastors in Bielefeld found out that Rochdale’s Friends of Bielefeld were unable to send a group they invited pastors from Rochdale to go over that weekend and to preach in various churches.

During conversations it was agreed that Rochdale churches would send a worship band to represent Rochdale during the music festival.

Leading Lights included Prem Joseph, James Hardwicke, James Oldham, Ian Crich and David Percy from Champness Hall Fellowship, Moorhouse Methodist Church, New Life Fellowship (Milnrow) and Newbold Baptist Church.

Leading Lights played on the Saturday afternoon and Sunday lunch time and were a well received and enjoyed musical addition.

During the music festival various twin towns had tents to celebrate the uniqueness. The German group who are the Friends of Rochdale who live in Bielefeld manned a tent with some information about Rochdale and sold English tea and scones jam and cream.
Rev Margaret Smith the town centre chaplain, Rev Alan Reeves from Branches Christian Fellowship and Pastor David Cork from Hebron AOG Church preached at various services on the Sunday.

There was a wonderful prayer meeting on the Friday morning when pastors from both towns met together to pray and share our concerns for our two towns.

The Rochdale pastors were then taken out for lunch followed by a guided tour of Bielefeld. On the Sunday evening the Mayor of Bielefeld held a reception which Leading Lights and Rev Margaret Smith attended.

On the Monday all met up for a BBQ at the home of the head of Bielefeld’s Evangelical Alliance Group and ended with a joyful celebration of prayer and worship, fortunately in English as the German hosts were better at English.