Welcome to our mid-week celebration of all the great things happening in Leesfield Parish and beyond.
Our Sunday service details will be here at the weekend, but there's so much more we would love to share with you in the meantime.
There is no Worship for all Generations at St Agnes' Church this week, but you can find a recorded reflection from 6.30 pm tomorrow on our facebook page by clicking here - Leesfield Parish
This week's musical item comes from a BBC Breakfast programme a couple of days ago. Like me, you may have missed it because it was on VERY early. It features a retired teacher with Azheimers, Paul Harvey, playing his own composition "Four Notes" alongside the BBC Philharmonic - remotely of course!
As we approach November, it's time for another inspiring calendar from Action for Happiness. This time the title is "New Ways November" - hope you enjoy taking part in all the activities!
This Sunday we celebrate All Saints Day, and our friend Rev'd Paul Monk has kindly agreed that we may share this item from St Barnabas' Parish magazine:-
The saints we celebrate on All Saints’ Day (1 November) live with three crowns.
The crown of the Kingdom
The idea of God as King occurs everywhere in the Holy Scriptures. It means we obey God in everything just like a citizen living under a powerful earthly king. And because God the King of Heaven is a good king, following Him means we do good and are good each time we obey. Anyone wanting to please God therefore chooses to live as a citizen of the Kingdom of God: they make every decision with reference to God the King. And it’s why Jesus tells us to build the Kingdom of God here on earth (Matthew 6:10).
The crown of martyrdom
The word ‘martyr’ has two meanings:
• A martyr is a witness, so their lives show God through their acts of love, obedience and service. Living their faith makes them look different, and they do so publicly. God lives through them and an infinite God is hard to hide.
• Martyrdom means dying for the Christian faith. In practice it could means physical death (which is very rare in the western world but much more common elsewhere). But Jesus encourages Christians to give their lives to him in order that he can live in them. Jesus describes this living for him saying, ‘Greater love has no one than that they lay down their lives for their friends’ (John 15:13).
The crown of life
The ‘crown of life’ is a way of describing heaven, the reward of lives lived in faith. We’re familiar with one way of picturing it, the halo of the saints in stained-glass windows. In pictures it often looks like the helmet enclosing an astronaut’s head. It is meant to indicate the way a godly person almost glows with the love of God.
And we’re all called to be saints, so these crowns are also ours
St Thomas' Church welcomes you to our Parish Eucharist for Bible Sunday at 10 am. Our visiting Priest today is Rev'd Paul Monk, Vicar of our near neighbours St Barnabas Clarksfield and Holy Trinity Waterhead.
We follow all of the guidelines to ensure the safety of everyone worshipping here, and we have ample seating to welcome families whilst maintaining safe distancing.
Immediately following today's service we will be holding our Annual Parochial Church Meeting, so if you're attending the service but not the meeting please do not be surprised when many of the congregation remain in their seats instead of leaving at the end of the service.
If, for whatever reason, you are unable to join us in church today, you'll find everything you need to worship from home here on this page.
Our first hymn this morning is "We Have A Gospel To Proclaim"
Today's Gospel
Reflection
The Gospel passages from the last few weeks have all taken place in the period leading up to Holy Week. Indeed, this encounter takes place on the Tuesday of Holy Week just days before the Last Supper.
Jesus has been engaged in many lengthy debates with the Jewish religious leaders throughout the lead up this event and the leaders have repeatedly tried to test him and catch him out.
On this occasion the Pharisees challenge Jesus to state which of the commandments is the greatest. Jesus doesn’t hesitate and replies that, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
Jesus is referring to a daily prayer said by all faithful Jews which comes from Deuteronomy 6. At this point the leaders assume he has answered the question and are about to leave, but Jesus continues and tells them that, “the second greatest commandment is similar - ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’”
In so doing, Jesus brings together the importance of putting our love for God into our daily lives. To coin a phrase often used in management books, it’s about ‘walking the walk as well as ‘talking the talk’.
We cannot truly believe in God without it having an impact on the way we live our lives each and every day. The way we love God and go about our daily tasks are inextricably linked facets of our true faith. They cannot be distinct from each other.
If we are to love God with all our heart and our mind, we cannot compartmentalise this into worshipping God by just attending church and praying. We have to take that Love outside the church doors and worship him in the wider world from Monday through to the following Sunday.
In the Greek versions of the bible there are many words for love and each have subtly different meant meanings. One word ‘Eros’, is associated with passion or desire, what we might often think of in relation to someone close to us or about an affectionate relationship. But in this instance the word ‘agape’ used. This is not about raw emotion but about brotherly love. It’s about patience and generosity, it is loving-kindness and merciful action that is both generous and continuous.
Of course, loving your neighbour is not necessarily easy. We can all think of times when our patience has been tried, when tempers get strained and we find it hard not to bear a lingering grudge long after someone has upset us or wronged us. At times like this we might find it impossible to love our neighbour. The way God knows that we love him is by how we treat people. Whenever we demonstrate kindness, patience or gentleness, we see the Lord’s love at work through us, especially when the other person has been unkind and doesn’t deserve such pleasant treatment. God not only tells us to love our neighbour — God re-shapes our hearts to make it possible.
As Jesus shows us, by loving God we can get past the times when we would turn our back on our neighbour and by loving our neighbour, we show our love for God every day of the week.
This morning's prayers -
And our final hymn today is "Thou Whose Almighty Word"
Welcome to our mid-week celebration of all the great things happening in Leesfield Parish and beyond.
Our Sunday service details will be here at the weekend, but there's so much more we would love to share with you in the meantime.
This evening's Worship for all Generations was about "Lessons in Prayer". If you weren't able to get there you can watch the highlights from 6.30 pm tomorrow on our facebook page by clicking here - Leesfield Parish
The days are shortening and there a bit of a nip in the air. Autumn is well and truly here. The sight of the trees beginning to shed their leaves and wonderful array of colours – reds, yellows and browns with a few remaining green leaves for good measure. A truly resplendent example of God’s wonderful creation.
Below are a few photographs taken from around the parish in the last week.
If you fancy a lovely woodland walk why not visit Bankfield Clough and Fairbottom Bobs near Parkbridge. There are plenty of nice leisurely strolls with where you can walk amongst dense rustling leaves or near the river bank and smell the earthy woodland aromas. For the more ambitious there are also plenty of mountain bike trails.
St Thomas' Church welcomes you to our Parish Eucharist at 10 am. Our visiting Priest today is Rev'd Aaron Jackman, Curate at Holy Trinity Dobcross.
We follow all of the guidelines to ensure the safety of everyone worshipping here, and we have ample seating to welcome families whilst maintaining safe distancing.
If, for whatever reason, you are unable to join us in church today, you'll find everything you need to worship from home here on this page.
This morning's first hymn is "God Forgave My Sin (Freely, Freely)"
The Gospel for today -
Reflection -
Having tried on many occasions to outwit and trap Jesus, the Pharisees no doubt thought they were on ‘to a winner’ if they could get him to talk about money. Let’s face it, if there’s one subject that can cause an argument or bad feeling its money.
No one likes to be told what to do with their money whether it’s our children, our parents or our friends. In fact, some people can take offence if we even raise the subject or were to ask. “How much did you spend on that?”
Throw taxation into the pot as well and your sure to get some strong views, so it must have felt like the perfect way to catch Jesus out.
Many people despised paying tax to the Romans who were a foreign occupying force in Jerusalem. If Jesus was to say everyone must pay tax, he could have been seen as collaborator with the Romans and have been undermined in front of his followers. However, if he told the people that they should refuse to pay tax, he would have been reported to the authorities and arrested for treason.
But Jesus is much wiser than the Pharisees and responds from his heart, that whilst we should first and foremost be loyal to God – that doesn’t mean we should use that as an excuse to avoid our other commitments. In doing so he reminds us that we are all citizens of two dominions – the spiritual and the temporal. We have duties to each but, by and large, these loyalties are not in conflict.
To pay our dues is the responsible thing to do. We expect and demand services and rights from those in power and government. We expect there to be teachers for our children, people to empty our bins and most importantly at this time, a health system to care for us. It is right and proper that we should contribute towards all that.
Jesus has never been afraid to ‘ruffle feathers’ and talk about money. Throughout his teachings he has shown us that our use of money is part of our faith, part of a response to the love of God which has to involve every part of our lives.
To be a good citizen and to serve God are not in contradiction, since God works through all human systems and institutions to build the final community of love.
Jesus has shown us that giving is a fundamental part of our commitment to be a true Christian. He actively encourages us to give to those who are less fortunate not only with our money but with care, friendship, support and love.
Jesus reminds us that by giving to others, we can at the same time give to God our creator who gives us all we have. When we give to others, we can in our own small way show our commitment and thanks to God who gave us his only son and paid a price for us that we could not.
So, let us give with a joyful heart and give thanks our many blessings.
This morning's prayers -
Our final hymn today is "Let Us With A Gladsome Mind" -
Welcome to our mid-week celebration of all the great things happening in Leesfield Parish and beyond.
Our Sunday service details will be here at the weekend, but there's so much more we would love to share with you in the meantime.
This evening's Worshipfor all Generations had the intriguing title "Bible Bingo". If you weren't able to get there you can watch the highlights from 6.30 pm tomorrow on our facebook page by clicking here - Leesfield Parish
This week's musical item comes from the final of "Britain's Got Talent". Our new teaching assistant at St Hugh's school, Miss Brown, sings with the choir "Sign Along With Us", who performed brilliantly on Saturday to achieve second place in the competition. Well done to all of you!
You may recall that we ran a little competition of our own a few weeks ago. Instead of our usual Sponsored Parish BoundaryWalk, Paul and I set off from Grotton in one direction, and Kingsley in the opposite direction, and the competition was to mark where we met on the map, and say what time it was. Kingsley's mum won with an extremely close guess (no she didn't have any insider information) and Vera came a very close second. The map is shown below.
Here are a few pictures too - the first one of us setting off, the second where we met, and the third one is Kingsley by our car at the end - looking out for us coming back to the car park. We don't think he waited long, which is just as well because after we'd got the serious part over and done with we had a VERY leisurely picnic at Park Bridge.
Now here's some important information about our APCM. This was postponed from May, but now has to legally take place before the 31st October. Please see the picture to find out why it's so important that everyone plays their part in the future of our churches.
Last Saturday was World Mental Health Day, so now seems like a good time to share a valuable resource produced by the Church of England. You can download a series of reflections and practical tips by clicking on the following link - Church of England Mental Health Reflections
And finally, this week's nature feature shows lots of visitors to a play area when the children aren't around. Enjoy!
St Thomas' Church welcomes you to our Parish Eucharist at 10 am. Presiding and preaching today is our own Associate Priest, Rev'd David Halford.
We follow all of the guidelines to ensure the safety of everyone worshipping here, and we have ample seating to welcome families whilst maintaining safe distancing.
If, for whatever reason, you are unable to join us in church today, you'll find everything you need to worship from home here on this page.
This morning's first hymn is "Now The Green Blade Riseth"
The Gospel for Today -
The first verses of today’s Gospel tell of an invitation to a feast – refused, with the servant messengers ignored or ill-treated. This is clearly a reference to God’s invitation in Jesus.
The following verses seem rather different – the feast is full, but someone without a wedding garment is thrown out. This could be a problem – how is someone off the street expected to get one? Some suggest they were given out by host. Thus, the refusal to wear it becomes a deliberate insult. Others say clean clothes were expected, as a compliment, and a third group point out that clothes in scripture often symbolise character.
The detail is obscure, but the point is clear: the invitation is free – your great good luck is to get one you might never have expected. But you do have to do something; first of all, go! Even when you get in and are enjoying yourself, respect the host.
Is there anything here for us? I don’t think we’d have much difficulty understanding how unwelcome is a wedding guest who gets drunk while telling stories against the bride; or who arrives in dirty overalls smelling awful! Part of this story is about the consequences of our actions.
In terms of our faith, how do our actions affect our relationship to God, and to other people? You can’t earn a place in heaven, but you can lose it by failing to take the invitation, and following-up appropriately.
If you hope for heaven, then start behaving like it! Not sometime when you get round to it, or if you feel like it. More and more our twenty first century culture wants to tell God how to run the universe. We believe in heaven, not in hell. We believe in being forgiven, but not in forgiving. We believe that someone else ought to deal with young people, the financial crisis, illness and death – so that we are free to do what we want.
And God says, “Once there was a king who prepared a wedding feast . .” Listen to the story. Think it through and take is seriously.
There’s good news – a free invitation.
There’s reality – you need to do something about it, and in time.
There’s a warning – what you do will have consequences.
This morning's prayers -
And our final hymn for today is "All Creatures Of Our God And King"
Welcome to our mid-week celebration of all the great things happening in Leesfield Parish and beyond.
Our Sunday service details will be here at the weekend, but there's so much more we would love to share with you in the meantime.
Not surprisingly, this week it's all been about Harvest. Yesterday evening's "Worship for all Generations" at St Agnes' Church was a special Harvest celebration, and if you weren't able to be there you can catch a recording of the service on our facebook page from 6.30 this evening.
We also celebrated Harvest last Sunday morning at St Thomas' Church. Although we weren't able to do things quite as we usually do, with a Harvest Brunch and all our favourite Harvest hymns, we did still manage to make it quite a special occasion.
Our congregation members came along with gifts of non-perishable food items, which will be taken to Impact Community Church Hollinwood to be shared with those who really need our help.
It was lovely to welcome Harvest Queen Annie to our service, and here she is with some of the food donations. Behind Annie you'll see a board, where some of the Sunday School children have displayed poems and pictures about Harvest for all to see.
If you're not able to pop in for a look, you'll find a selection below -
Usually at this time of the year we would be crowning a new Harvest Queen, but as we're unable to do that this year Karen has kindly looked back through all the photos of previous Harvest Queens to find some to share with us.
And finally, at the end of the service on Sunday we played a special Harvest Samba. Everybody really enjoyed it - so here it is again for you -
St Thomas' Church welcomes you to our Parish Harvest Eucharist at 10 am. Presiding and preaching today is our own Associate Priest, Rev'd David Halford. Donations of non-perishable food items for Impact Community Church, Hollinwood will be gratefully accepted.
We follow all of the guidelines to ensure the safety of everyone worshipping here, and we have ample seating to welcome families whilst maintaining safe distancing.
If, for whatever reason, you are unable to join us in church today, you'll find everything you need to worship from home here on this page.
This morning's first hymn is "Come, Ye Thankful People, Come"
Today's Gospel Reading -
Reflection -
In this week’s Gospel, Matthew follows on from where Jesus was challenged by the elders and Pharisees as to what authority he had for his ministry.
Jesus is in the temple in Jerusalem at the heart of the what should be religious focus for the Jews. He can clearly see what many others have missed. The religion that was supposed to help people find union with God had become something else. In the hands of the some, it had become focused on who had influence, on power and control for the ones in power and on guilt and punishment for those who were not.
Jesus shows them through his parable that they have fallen short of their duty and place. Instead of taking the opportunity to be a positive force and lead the people spiritually and faithfully so they bear fruit, they are more focused on their own status and needs. They are the tenants Jesus is referring to.
By speaking through the prophets, God has repeatedly given his people the opportunity to bear fruit and to follow his teachings, to enlighten us to his wisdom and love him as he loves us. But time and again we have failed.
There is only one thing for it, God sent his son, surely “They will respect my son” – listen carefully to and cherish him and his ways”. But that too failed. They contrived to reject him, throw him out, torture and kill him. They rejected the very stone that would become the cornerstone of our faith.
But Jesus knew his destiny and the suffering it would involve. He took no revenge. Instead he excused his persecutors and through his unconditional love reconciled everyone with God.
We are also tenants of God’s kingdom on earth. We are provided by God with what we need to make our lives and vineyard prosper and so he allows us to make our own choices.
It is up to us to run our lives as we choose and to take decisions in our own interest. What does God ask in return?
That we make space for him in our lives and that we remember that the good things in our lives come from the grace of God. That we love one another and help his people bear the fruit of the spirit.
God is not an absent Landlord; he is with us always and loves everyone of us. All he asks is that we love him back, is the price of the rent too much to pay?
Today's Prayers -
And our final hymn for this morning is "We Plough The Fields And Scatter"
