1 Nov 2006 - News from <i>The Link</i>
| READY TO GO |
| On 18th October the Revd Robert Pestell was licensed and installed as Priest in Charge of the Parishes of St Luke & St John and St Michael and the Revd Rob Merchant was licensed as Associate Priest of the two parishes. This was a significant, and shared, event in the life of the two churches, with the Bishop of Tewkesbury, the Archdeacon of Cheltenham and the Rector of Cheltenham as Area Dean, and visiting clergy, including many of those who have assisted us during the interregnum. Sharing the service with the congregation of St Michael's, we welcomed the Deputy Mayor and other important visitors; and many people who had travelled from Robert's former parishes in Charfield and Kingswood. The service came as the climax to a period of preparation. Peter Ralphs had arranged a planning meeting with members of St Luke's and St Michael's in early September and there were many things to settle before the big day. As the day approached there was an amazing bustle of activity with St Luke's Church and its grounds being cleaned and tidied, polished and decorated over several days. Friends from St Michael's came to help in the "deep clean" and were fully involved in the wonderful refreshments that were laid on for the reception in St Luke's Church Hall after the service. |
| Robert extends his thanks for the welcome he has received and for all the contributions to the welcome hamper. |
| Robert has of course been sharing himself between the two churches and will lead his first 10am service at St Luke's on 26 November. On the first Sunday following his licensing, before leaving to join St Michael's for their 10am service, Robert made a few words of introduction. He told us his priorities would be in Pastoral Care and in Spiritual Growth, with the aim that we should be confident and joyful Christians. |
| Amen |
| Craft and Coffee morning |
| There will be a craft and coffee morning on Saturday November 18th from 10-12 in church. There will be lots of stalls with a variety of handmade gifts and cards for you to buy. Come and have a cup of coffee and a cake and see what's on sale. Proceeds will be going to the Toilet Fund. If you are able to help by making cakes for this event, please speak to Linda Ralphs. |
| Revd Robert Pestell writes... |
| The month of November is sometimes referred to as the month of remembrance. |
| On the 1st we give thanks for all the Saints throughout the ages who have borne faithful witness to the Christian Faith through lives of dedicated service to Jesus and the communities in which they lived and served. These are the ordinary people hose 'sainthood' is often known to God alone. |
| On the 2nd November we remember all our loved ones who have completed their earthly lives and now dwell with God in his Heavenly Kingdom. |
| Later in the month we have Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday when we remember and give thanks for the countless number of people who gave their lives in the cause of freedom, justice and peace. |
| And finally we give thanks for the past year as we begin the new 'Church Year' on the first Sunday of Advent. Looking back with remembrance and thanksgiving is important to do and we must not neglect this; but at the same time the season of Advent is about new beginnings, of looking forward with hope and expectation for the coming again of our Lord at Christmas. |
| May God bless you all as we embark on this new and exciting journey together. |
| With every blessing |
| Robert |
| NOTES FROM THE PCC |
| The PCC met on Monday the 23rd October. |
| Robert Pestell joined us for the first time and after being welcomed, he shared something of his own background. Don't worry you will get a chance to hear it for yourselves as he has agreed to do an 'interview' during one of the morning services. |
| The Gift Day total now stands at £10,961. The PCC wishes to note grateful thanks to all who contributed so generously. As a result of this we expect to be able to meet all our commitments and to be able to transfer the surplus of around £3,500 to the toilet fund. The Fabric group have been asked to get tenders to finish the Disabled Toilet and the Finance group will then look at possible sources of finance to pay for it. |
| Marjory Brightwell has been co-opted as the new Deanery Synod Rep. She has agreed to stand in until the new elections, due to be held at the AGM on 16th April next year. Put the date in your diaries folks! |
| Due to the success of the Hall an overflow group are using the Church on some Saturdays. Apologies for any inconvenience caused to the Flower Bunch etc. However the Craft and Coffee morning is still going ahead on Saturday 18th November. |
| Next meeting will be on Monday 11th December |
| ST JOHN'S CHURCH OF ENGLAND PRIMARY SCHOOL |
| It may only be November but this is the busiest time of year in School. The junior pantomime rehearsals are now in full swing. This year we are performing Snow White and there were many children who jumped at the chance to audition for the various parts. The corridors are alive with the sound of Music as the Infant classes are preparing for their Christmas show and the Reception class get ready for the Nativity. |
| The Reception Class performed a little show at the end of last term with songs, action rhymes and puppets illustrating different areas of the curriculum and what we have learnt so far this year. We had many positive comments from parents, Grandparents and Nurseries who thoroughly enjoyed it. |
| All of the children and adults had a fantastic time at Osmington Bay, their residential trip before the October break. We received several comments about how well behaved the children were. |
| The children took part in a Speaking and Listening week. The Reception class experienced many different role play activities such as 'The baby clinic', playing pirates and describing experiments. Other drama activities in the School were acting out 'Where the wild things are' and learning about 'silent movies!' |
| Finally, our Christmas Fayre is on Saturday 25th November from 11am-1:30pm. Please come and support us. You will be able to watch the Country Dance club perform some of their dances and the children sing some of the songs from their Christmas Shows plus many great stalls and, of course cakes! |
| Fiona Hadden (Reception Class teacher). |
| Highbury Congregational Church is seeking a Pastoral Assistant to |
| focus on our growing family/children's work |
| contribute to all-age and family worship |
| assist in exploring fresh expressions of worship |
| The post is part time for 15 hours a week, and is expected to be for three years initially. |
| For details of the job description, and remuneration, contact Jean Gregory (01242) 526002 or email secretary@highburychurch.co.uk. |
| For more information about the post contact Richard Cleaves (01242) 522050, email minister@highburychurch.co.uk. |
| For more information about Highbury see www.highburychurch.co.uk |
| Church family Christmas Card |
| Donations to "Water Aid". |
| Instead of buying and sending individual Christmas cards to fellow members of the congregation this year, you are invited to sign a large Christmas card, which will shortly be at the back of Church, and make a donation to "Water Aid". Water Aid is a project to promote and provide clean, safe water and sanitation in the third world. Please give your support to this worthwhile project. We've thought about having one large card for several years - this year we've actually got round to doing something about it. |
| Church Survival in a Changing World. |
| With moving around the West Midlands and the South West, due to my work, I have worshipped in the Diocese of Bristol and served as a Sacristan and Altar Server in the Diocese of Lichfield where I grew up. |
| In the late seventies and early eighties when the controversial: "Faith in the City" report was published, I was aware of declining church congregations and the taking over of many churches by the Redundant Churches Trust. |
| This was at a time when my faith in God was being developed and explored and media as well as political coverage of the church was very negative to say the least. |
| I was worshipping at a rural church in North Shropshire that was luckily managing to keep its head above water and survive despite the pressure on its incumbent to take on adjacent parishes as clergy retired or sadly died. |
| The style of worship was traditional Church of England with a bias towards the High Church tradition, a style of worship that I can still relate to today. |
| As well as experiencing worship in England I have shared in church services in many parts of Europe including Eastern Europe and Russia. |
| In a Western European country where, by comparison, we are wealthy and everything is laid on for us, church numbers appear to still be dwindling. |
| Why is it when visiting countries of the former: "Warsaw Pact" do I find churches heaving to the extent that you cannot get inside because people are so desperate to want to worship God? |
| Following a recent visit to Poland I attended a Mass in Krakow. Not speaking Polish, I just sat back and prayed absorbing the fellowship, atmosphere of church music and the wonderful aroma of incense. Before I knew it I had been there two hours not understanding a word of what was being said by the Priest. I could not understand why people were coming and going throughout the service. As it happened they were leaving in time for the next people to come in and celebrate mass. |
| Without putting too an undignified point on it the Priests seemed to be doing shift work and Masses appeared to be celebrated at this Basilica production line style throughout the whole of Sunday afternoon. |
| Something that in Western Europe where everything is taken for granted the Churches would be very envious of such large congregations. |
| In your prayers please pray for the churches and their congregations of Russia and Eastern Europe. Particularly remembering their struggles during the Cold War. |
| Also pray for how we can help the people of Poland and Eastern Europe to help themselves as they take part in contributing to the European Union in the years to come. |
| AMEN. |
| Howard Marshall. |
| October 2006. |
| POST-CHRISTIAN BRITAIN |
| How has our national religion become so marginalised over the past few centuries (along with the corresponding widespread secularisation of the rest of western Europe)? |
| According to Alan D Gilbert in The Making of Post-Christian Britain (Longman 1980), curiously enough, the Reformation is to blame. He argues that once the established Church lost its monopoly and an alternative became possible, an alternative to religion itself also became possible. Subsequently with tolerance, freedom of belief soon became freedom not to believe at all. Rejection of central ecclesiastical authority led to independence of thought, the age of reason, and indirectly the industrial revolution, urbanisation, capitalism, mobility, the growth of technology, leisure, and eventually modern consumerism. With the increase in material benefits, man seems to be in control and God seems superfluous. Once hegemony was broken, religion became private, diverse, and inevitably optional. |
| Our pluralist society has in fact disguised the extent of secularisation in this country for some time. The lingering institutional legacy of the Church of England has masked the decline in real faith: "We are still living on our capital of Christian inheritance ... in our national attitudes, traditions and standards.. but the next generation will inherit less than we did in the way of Christian values" (Bishop of Wakefield in 1974). (We might ask what would be the effect of disestablishment of the Church of England?) |
| When the local church ceased to be the focus of mass leisure and festivals, its grip on society was loosened and it became increasingly at odds with popular culture. With theatre, sport and shopping available on Sundays, church is just one of a choice of leisure activities, in a competition it cannot win. To attract "membership", churches offer midweek meetings, Saturday rambles, concerts. Once forced to rely on secular functions to retain popular support the modern church is secularised by them. The cost of Christian commitment is devalued, standards relaxed, preaching on hell and damnation dropped, core belief itself affected, tailored to attract. Ultimately there is minimal difference between churchgoers and non-believers, and Christianity, now in no position to exert influence in the world, becomes irrelevant. When the Gospel is watered down to the level of an ethical system with which atheists can agree, why should anyone convert? The church has ceased to resist the world and in compromising loses the authority to dictate faith and morals to a wider society, looking on as churches close or convert to pubs and restaurants. |
| Surely if the church is not spiritual, it has nothing to say. If reduced to a noisy community centre like any other, it is no longer sacred, has lost its unique selling point. Should the church be a sanctuary, an oasis of peace where you leave the world behind, or should the world be taken into church? In an article in the Church Times "How can the church have got it so wrong?" (1 Sept 06), Juliet Hole actually suggests structural developments like kitchens and lavatories are to blame: "the church knows that the nation desperately needs to be re-evangelised ... it has got to be seen to be doing something and has gone for the soft and futile option of chasing popularity through modernisation. Yet this approach has been failing for so long, and so spectacularly that it should be obvious that more of the same is not the answer". We may not agree with that, surely the problem does not lie in our buildings. In the beginning, the church had no buildings. |
| For this is where we came in, a small sect in a pagan world, with no power, influence or status. "Indeed for the evangelical the future search for a preachable gospel would not involve a quest for an acceptable message, but rather the reverse ... any general re-conversion of post-Christian Britain would of course involve a reversal of profound movements of secularisation and modernisation - a transformation of the very essence of modern industrial society - and that is about as likely as the prospect 2,000 years ago that an insignificant Jewish cult might succeed in turning the great classical world upside down!" |
| Heather Barton |
| Extract from |
| 'What God did to win your heart- HE CHOSE THE NAILS' |
| by Max Lucado |
| His Birth |
| The words of King Herod when told of the birth of Jesus. "Kill him. There is room for only one king in this corner of the world." |
| The type of people who believed a messiah had been born. Some stargazers, night-shift shepherds and a couple of newlyweds. |
| The reward given to Joseph and Mary for bringing God into the world. Two years in exile, learning Egyptian |
| This was the beginning of the Christian Movement? |
| His Ministry |
| The word on the streets when he claimed to be sent from God. Weird family. Have you seen his cousin? |
| The number of disciples Jesus recruited. Seventy. |
| The number of disciples who defended him to the authorities. Zero. |
| The number of lepers and blind and lame people Jesus healed. Too many to count. |
| The number of those healed who defended Jesus on the day of his death. Zero. |
| His Execution |
| The popular opinion of Jesus early in his ministry. See if he'll run for office. |
| The popular opinion after he cleansed the Temple. Let's see how fast he can run. |
| The number of times Jesus prophesied that he would come back to life three days after his death. Three. |
| The number of apostles who heard the prophecy. All of them. |
| The number of his followers who waited at the tomb to see if he would do what he said. Zero. |
| The Movement continues. |
| Voltaire said " The Bible and Christianity would pass in 100 years" He died in 1778. The movement continues. |
| A Communist dictionary said of the Bible. " It is a collection of fantastic legends without any scientific support. Communism is diminishing; the movement continues. |
| The discovery made by everyone who has tried to bury the faith. The same as those who tried to bury it's Founder: he won't stay in the tomb. |
| The facts. The movement has never been stronger. Over one billion Catholics and nearly as many Protestants. |
| The question. How do we explain it? Jesus was a backwater peasant. He never wrote a book, never held an office. He never journeyed more than 200 miles from his hometown. Friends left him. One betrayed him. Those he helped forgot him. Prior to his death they abandoned him. But after his death they couldn't resist him. What made the difference? |
| The answer. His death and resurrection. |
| For when he died, so did your sin. And when he rose, so did your hope. |
| The verdict after two millenniums. Herod was right: there is room for only one King. |
| (Submitted by Linda Ralphs) |
| DUO BRING ANCIENT MUSIC INTO 21ST CENTURY |
| -The Virtuoso Violin Tour- |
| An enigmatic new violin duo is set to embark on an unusual UK tour which sees them bringing an ancient musical tradition to the forefront of the contemporary music scene. Edinburgh Fringe Festival favourites, the charming young duo will be reviving some of the most difficult violin works ever written, in an attempt to bring the pop music of the 19th Century to the masses of today, in an accessible and exuberant style. |
| The violin duo's Simon Hewitt Jones and David Worswick effortlessly demonstrate the innovative and challenging techniques of the master violin virtuoso Nicolo Paganini. Considered to be one of the greatest violinists in history, Paganini performed with jaw-dropping force, velocity, passion and agility leading to many believing he had been possessed by the devil! |
| Graduating from the Royal Academy of Music in 2005, Simon Hewitt Jones and David Worswick have toured individually for many years steadily developing their virtuosic style. Between them they have worked with leading composers and musicians including Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, The Amadeus Quartet, Yan Pascal Tortelier and even Massive Attack. Simon is a soloist for the Live Music Now scheme founded by the late, great Yehudi Menuhin, and has been instrumental in bringing classical music into the digital era with his interactive violin website: www.violinmp3.com. |
| Simon Hewitt Jones says: |
| The best music is timeless and it's irrelevant when it was written, but it's so important to make sure it's presented in a way that a contemporary audience will understand. |
| The Virtuoso Violin Tour kicks off on the 5th December at St Luke's Church, Cheltenham |
| followed by concerts in Cardiff, Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol, Harrogate, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Manchester, Ipswich, Norwich, York, Swansea, Liverpool and London. |
| Members of St Luke's Church congregation can obtain special tickets at £5 via www.violinmp3.com/boxoffice (or contact Simon Barton on 515890). |