Welcome to St. Luke's Church, Cheltenham - a living expression of the love of God in Christ.

1 Jun 2007 - News from The Link

Junior Heroes!

Come and have fun being a super hero with the Junior Heroes holiday club at Highbury Congregational Church August 30th - September 2nd 2007 10 am to 12 noon

This Holiday club is for Reception to Year 6 children and is jointly run by Highbury Congregational Church and St Luke's Church, Cheltenham.

There will be a Junior Heroes Service at Highbury Church at 10.30am on Sunday 2nd September 2007

Booking forms now available!

For further information call Wes on 01242524408 or 07812638903

Revd Robert Pestell writes

We are about to celebrate the festival of Pentecost as we remember the outpouring of God's Holy Spirit upon the Apostles of Jesus. Traditionally known as Whit Sunday it is also regarded as the birthday of the church, with the Holy Spirit giving the energy and enthusiasm to the disciples to proclaim the Gospel message loudly and widely. The Holy Spirit filled the lives of those prepared by Jesus for future ministry and gave them gifts and abilities to be used in the service of God. Above all, the Holy Spirit gave the disciples confidence and joy to proclaim the Good News of God's love revealed through Jesus and this message was received with enthusiasm as the early church grew and spread rapidly despite persecution and opposition.

God's gift of the Holy Spirit is for all believers, not just those who were part of the early church. The Holy Spirit is still there for us today, unfortunately, we seem reluctant to tap into it and very good at extinguishing it!

It is true that the concept of the Holy Spirit is something that is difficult to grasp and difficult to explain and yet we need the Spirit to be at work within our lives, for without it we cannot hope to carry out the mission that God is calling us to.

It is no co-incidence that Pentecost is closely followed by Trinity Sunday as we recognise the unity of the Godhead, with each part playing a role in the salvation of humanity through the dynamic force of love. The Trinity Season, which follows, is the longest in the Christian Year and is often referred to as 'ordinary time', in fact it is better regarded as the time for growth and this is indicated by the colour of green. After all the various festivals of the Christmas and Easter Seasons it is rather pleasant to have a period of calm and stability but let us allow the Holy Spirit to be at work amongst us and may it be a time of growth both for the church family and for us as individuals.

May I wish you a Happy Pentecost and a fruitful growing season!

Robert

Sermon Series

The Trinity Season of growth will begin with a sermon series entitled 'One another' as we seek to grow closer to God. The series was put together by Rob Merchant using various Bible references, and I am grateful to Rob for suggesting this. The topics for June are:-

10th June - Trinity 1 'Accepting one another' - Romans 15:7

17th June - Trinity 2 'Honour one another' - Romans 12:10-13

24th June - Trinity 3 'Forgiving one another' - Colossians 3:13

Artists Open House at St Luke's Church

9 - 17 June 2007

12-4pm & 7-9pm (Sundays 12-4pm)

Open View: Saturday 9 June 7.00-9.30pm, with refreshments - all welcome.

Artists: Pam Chapman, Annette Harrod, Sylvia Lauder, Jake Lever, Joanna Stuart-O'Connor

Artists Open Houses or Studios is an event where local artists open their own houses or studios to the public to exhibit their work to new audiences. Cheltenham held the first Open Houses event in 2000, with further ones in 2001, 2003 and 2005, and these were successful and well attended.

St Luke's PCC Meeting held on 14th May 2007

New Faces were warmly welcomed onto the PCC! Many thanks go to Vaughan Kerry and Howard Marshall (ex officio as Deanery Synod representative) and Michelle Porter-Babbage (co-opted). The membership of the working groups was ratified.

Finance. A small surplus of £1,200 is currently forecast for year-end, based on current forecasts of expenditure. The Youth and Children's Worker fund requires an application to be made to the Church Hall Trustees for £6,000.

Church Hall Trustees. Priest-in-Charge and churchwardens are ex-officio trustees plus two others, previously Margaret Bristol and Guy Woodcock. Margaret was re-appointed. In his capacity as Churchwarden Guy reverts to being a trustee ex-officio, and so a new trustee is required. The trustees and others would be asked for nominations for the other trustee; volunteers are welcome.

Structures review. It had been proposed previously to review the existing structure of working groups to explore enhancements and improvements to efficiency in the church's communications and operational decision-making. Several PCC members volunteered to join a group led by Guy Woodcock, which will meet once Robert's vision planning was complete, following a PCC Away day later in the Spring/Summer.

Links with St John's School. Robert Pestell, Simon Barton and Margaret Bristol are St Luke's representative foundation governors, who work with the headteacher and the governing body to ensure that St John's is distinctive as a Church of England School. It was agreed that the PCC should be aware of, and should aim to develop, St Luke's good links with the school.

Youth Worker Report. The recent national Mettle weekend at Evesham was very professional, although the organisers were disappointed with the lack of numbers (possibly due to exams). It was linked with EQ (training evangelists of 16-18 in schools). It is hoped to become a regular event. Sunday One continues to work well. Robert thanked Wes for his hard work, shared by the rest of the PCC.

Church Administrator. Robert tabled a proposal on the appointment of a part-time administrator to support the clergy's work at St Luke's and St Michael's. It was agreed that before it was possible to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed appointment, a working group should draft a detailed job description. The PCC thus agreed in principle to the appointment of an administrator and that its feasibility and possible responsibilities should be investigated further.

Guy Woodcock

Cheltenham London City Mission Week

June 10th - 17th

During this week, 6 missionaries will be speaking at meetings all over the Cheltenham area. They come from a variety of spheres of work, ranging from Christian Centres in Dagenham and Forest Gate, to the London Ambulance Service and Metropolitan Police. One is in charge of the Webber Street centre for the homeless, and one ministers to the thousands of tourists who visit London from all parts of the world. Their work is extremely varied and they have amazing stories to tell of God's dealings with individual people. If you would like to hear more about this exciting outreach in our capital city, come to one of the meetings at which they are speaking. Andrew Hawkins, the chaplain to the Metropolitan Police, is speaking at our morning service on June 17th. He is equipped to go with police teams when they are called out to incidents and has many opportunities to minister to people in traumatic situations.

On the LCM board you will find information about the missionaries and when and where they are speaking. Please pray for them as they prepare for the different groups they will be talking with, that they will widen their understanding of the ways that God is working in London and inspire us to support their work in whatever way we can.

June Cox

Opening the electronic gateway to the Church of England

Details of the extensive collection of archives and manuscripts cared for by Lambeth Palace Library and the Church of England Record Centre are now available online through a searchable catalogue.

The move means that readers worldwide can search the joint catalogue of these archives of the Church's National Institutions via the Lambeth Palace Library website, www.lambethpalacelibrary.org.

The development will enable users to retrieve information from almost 130,000 records across the two sites.

How many divisions has the Pope?

Christianity in the EU

Should a new constitutional treaty for the expanding EU include a reference to the Christian sources of European civilisation? Does it matter if we airbrush out 1500 years of history from our collective memory?

It is a paradox that European intellectuals and political leaders deem any reference to the Christian origins of Europe's commitment to human rights and democracy to be a profound threat to its human rights and democracy.

Democracy did not spring readyformed from nowhere, it is a fruit of centuries of ideas and institutions. Our concepts of freedom and the rule of law began in the middle ages and developed through the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Belief in a transcendental order of justice implies the existence of a Supreme Judge over your government and people in political power. Christendom introduced individual redemption, a sort of Christian humanism because "God was made flesh". History is not "just one damn thing after another" but was dignified by God stepping into it. Christianity does not contradict reason; we must love God with all our mind as well as heart. The great people who made Europe were motivated by their Christian conviction: Adenauer, Aquinas, Bach, Bonhoeffer, Calvin, Cromwell, Dante, Elizabeth I and II, Erasmus, St. Francis, Galileo, Gutenberg, Luther, Milton, Palestrina, Walesa, Wilberforce...

The horrors of the twentieth century occurred when nations forgot God. Reunification of Europe at the end of that era occurred by non-violent revolution when, amongst other things, the Christianity of Polish Solidarity, Romanian Baptists and German Lutherans ended communism. But the debate is not about the past; a denial that Christianity formed European civilisation also affects our future. A new totalitarianism is appearing, which is a form of Christophobia. In 2004 an Italian Professor of Philosophy, Rocco Buttiglione, chosen to be Minister of Justice for the European Commission, was excluded from the post because of his orthodox Christian views.

An urgent issue now highlights Europe's crisis of conscience: western Europe is committing demographic suicide. The falling birthrate leaves a vacuum into which Islamic immigration is flowing. Since 1970 20 million Islamic immigrants have settled here (the equivalent of Ireland, Belgium and Denmark put together). In a few years the majority of teenagers in the Netherlands will be Moslem. Old Europeans are getting older and their faith weaker while Moslem colonies within cities get larger and more overt in their religious observance. With accession, Turkey could have the largest say in EU affairs. What then of pluralism and tolerance? It is theoretically possible that Europe can be made to work as drafters of the Constitution imagine - a secular space built on neutrality towards world views and a resolute resistance to religiously formed moral argument, but this neutrality is in fact hostility (witness M. Buttiglione - and the current hostility to the successful faith-based schools in Britain is another example).

Surveys tell us most people still believe in God, but no-one who has spent a Sunday morning in London, Paris, Madrid or Rome recently will imagine that Christian conviction plays a significant role in the way most western Europeans conduct their lives - whatever they may tell pollsters about their private musings. Sunday morning in Cracow is different however. There is still fierce faith in the recently expanded community. But will Christianity from behind the iron curtain go the same way as the west, as prosperity and consumerism spread? What DOES Europe stand for? The triumph of bureaucratic regulation?

Why is an entire continent, healthier and wealthier than ever before, not inspired to create the next generation? Is it because without Christianity there is a loss of civilisational morale, a loss of belief in the future? You consume and then you die, is that it? Is it too simple that Europe has stopped reproducing as it has stopped going to church? God's first command was to be fruitful and multiply.

One hope is for the re-evangelisation of the EU. The 19th century saw thousands of missionaries to Africa, Asia and Latin America. Could we reap what we have sown by our former colonies returning to bring us Christianity again?

Heather Barton - with refs. Niall Ferguson, Norman Davies, George Weigel