Welcome to Sunday Worship in Leesfield Parish on the Third Sunday of Easter. Our Church Services this morning are at the usual times of 9.15 at St Agnes' and 11.00 at St Thomas'. If you are unable to be with us in person, you can find resources below to worship at home.
Our first hymn this morning is "In Christ Alone"
Today's Gospel
1 John 3: 1-7Children of God
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.
Reflection
In this extract from John’s first letter, there are two powerful phrases that jumped out at me.
The first is: ‘No one who abides in him sins’. That’s pretty scary at first glance. I think we all have to admit that we are not perfect. We all have our ‘off days’ and some days are worse than others. We all recognise that we sin from time to time.
It’s perhaps easy to say that, ‘it’s in our nature; everybody tells a lie at times or cheats at something. When we do, we may try to make ourselves feel better by telling ourselves things like, ‘it was justified because….’ , or ‘Well no one got hurt because of what I did, so what’s the problem?’
But John is not saying we can never sin and he is not saying that as soon as we sin we are damned because we have let Satan take advantage of us. Rather, he is saying that our focus needs to be on being Christlike.
Of course that means truly saying sorry when we have fallen short of expectations, and it also means we should look for righteous things to do. The more good things we do, the more we abide in Christ.
Here are a couple of examples: When was the last time you were praying or in church and it crossed your mind to do something wrong or dishonest? Or, if you are reading a piece of scripture, would you ever consider jealous or vengeful thoughts or actions? Hopefully not.
The reverse is also true, if you are feeling unrighteous and make time for Jesus, then you will find yourself being guided back along the right path and wanting to express your regret for your sins.
I have to confess, a few hours before writing this I had been really angry about something. It doesn’t matter what it was, but it took quite a while to get my head back in gear, to calm down and pray and let Jesus do his stuff. It would’ve been impossible to begin to write this reflection whilst being even remotely angry. The reality is, the more we do to abide in Jesus, the more we become righteous.
Which brings me nicely to the second phrase that struck me, ‘See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God.’ That is how God see us - His beloved children. That is why He sent His son to die for the forgiveness of all our sins. The more times we do what we know is right, the more we abide in Jesus and live up to what it means to be a child of God.Paul
Our Prayers
Loving Father,
Thank you that love each and every one of us as your children.
Help us to live our lives by following the example of your Son Jesus,
So that when He is revealed, we will be like him,
and all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Amen
Today's final hymn is "I Danced in the Morning (Lord of the Dance)"
From the 25th February to the 3rd March we had a week of special services and events to celebrate and encourage thanksgiving and generosity here in Leesfield Parish. Everyone was involved, including our Worship for all Generations family and our Sunday School. Throughout the week we explored ways in which we can all help to keep our churches and schools growing, thriving and reaching out into our community. You can find out more below -
OUR PARISH VISION
“To grow as disciples of Christ and to share God’s love across the parish and beyond”
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO RUN A PARISH?
Prayer and Faith – which we have in abundance in our churches and schools.
These are the firm foundations upon which we build our service to God here in this place.
Without them, everything we do is in vain.
Money – which maybe we don’t have quite so much of.
It costs almost £1,000 per week to run our churches and everything we do in Leesfield Parish. We don’t receive any outside funding – All our income comes from donations and fundraising by our own congregation members.
The largest item of expenditure is our Parish Share, which pays towards the cost of clergy, training and all the support which we receive from the Diocese of Manchester. Below you can watch a really helpful YouTube video which explains Parish Share in detail -
Because our income is always lower than our costs, we rely heavily on unpaid Volunteers helping with administration, maintenance and fundraising.
People – of all ages, from all backgrounds, and with many different gifts.
There are lots of people engaged in keeping our churches growing and thriving. Some of them you see every week at our services, helping to make everything run smoothly. There also others who are far less visible, but who are working quietly in the background in leadership, administrative, finance, maintenance and communications roles.
Most of our volunteers have several different roles in our churches and schools, which puts them under a lot of pressure, so we are looking for additional helpers to share the workload.
WHAT NEXT?
When you're next in church, meet the people who do some of the jobs in our parish – seen and unseen, find out what they do – how much time it takes and how often they do it.
Ask them how they became involved in the first place and what training and encouragement they received.
Take a look at the response form below, and think about what you and your family might want to help with. Some of the roles don't even exist yet - they are things we would love to do here in Leesfield Parish, but haven't yet got the volunteers we need to take them further.
You can hear from some of the people already volunteering in key roles in parishes around Manchester Diocese in this inspiring video -
There is much more information and description of individual roles on the Church Officers page of the Diocesan website, just click here - Church Officers Manchester Diocese
Training and support is available from Manchester Diocese, Oldham and Ashton Deanery and our own parish.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ THIS - WE LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU SOON!
Welcome to Sunday Worship in Leesfield Parish on the Second Sunday of Easter. Our Church Services today are at the usual times of 9.15 am at St Agnes' and 11.00 am at St Thomas'. If you are unable to be with us in person, you will find resources below to worship at home.
Our first hymn this morning is "God Forgave My Sin (Freely, Freely)"
Today's Gospel
John 20: 19-31Jesus Appears to His Disciples
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
Reflection
As we begin this week’s Gospel reading we are still on Easter Day. Mary has told the disciples that that she saw Jesus alive earlier in the morning but nonetheless they are keeping their heads down, frightened of the reactions of the Jews. So they lock themselves away in a room, probably talking about the sad events of the last few days and still mourning the death of their beloved Jesus.
Then suddenly, He is with them in their midst. No one knows how he entered the locked room - but this is Jesus, so anything is possible. He greets them with the Jewish greeting ‘Shalom’, which means Peace be with you. It would be nice to think that the disciples were immediately overjoyed but that is not what is described here. Even though they have heard the miraculous news that Jesus has been seen alive, they are still doubtful, and Luke tells us that they were frightened and they thought Jesus was a ghost before He showed them his wounds. Mark goes one stage further and says that Jesus rebuked the eleven for their stubborn refusal to believe.
For this reason I have real sympathy for St. Thomas, (our patron Saint), who is also overcome with both wonder and disbelief. It is perhaps unfair, that many refer to him as ‘doubting Thomas’, because his initial doubt was no different to the other disciples. However, unlike the rest, Thomas’s reaction when he recognised Jesus is to worship and give praise to God. His faith is totally renewed, and out of his initial reservations have emerged a far stronger faith and commitment to Jesus the Lord.
What does this mean for us? As Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus calls us all to believe in Him.
We are truly blessed, even though we have not physically witnessed Jesus first-hand, we can feel His presence in our lives and believe in Him. Because we believe, we too can share the good news. Paul
Our Prayers
Most merciful Father,
We thank you that by the power of the Holy Spirit,
We can believe and trust in your Son, our risen Christ
To transform our lives into His likeness
and like St. Thomas, worship your infinite glory.
Amen
Our final hymn today is "Lift High the Cross"
Notices
We are now approaching the date of our Annual Parochial Church Meeting, which is where we review the reports from the previous year and elect our new Churchwardens and Parish Officers for the coming year. The Electoral Roll is now open for new additions, which is really important for the smooth running of the meeting. If you are not registered on the roll, you will not be able to vote at the meeting, stand for election to any posts, or nominate candidates. There is a list of members in each church, so please check whether you are registered, and complete the application form to be included.
