<sup>Always seems a long time since the last entry in the blog.

It's now summer, and a thoroughly grey and miserable day, with a threat of rain. We are renewing the paths around St. Peter's chrch at the moment, and the concrete guys are complaining - apparently for the style of concrete work they are doing it needs to be a dry day for the concrete to set, and they can't see too many dry days over the next week or so.


I've just spent loads of time sorting out and updating this website. So many details!!!!! Still, hope it is okay now, but if there is anything wrong with it, please let me know.


Summer is about rest - or it should be. Jesus said "Come unto me and I will give you rest."  With all the rain we're getting all he seems to be giving us is rust!</sup>

It has been a sad couple of weeks at St. Mark's Church. We have lost long-standing great members of our church - Ann and Edna, both unexpectedly.
Ann was on the PCC and also the verger for weddings and funerals, was a lovely lady with a dazzling smile. And also a great fan of Elvis Presley, Cliff Richards and Betty Boop!
Edna was a lady of very simple faith, also a member of the PCC, and the last member of the choir.

Our thoughts and prayers are with their families.

Having said that, it is not just these two people who are missed. Over the last couple of weeks we have been delivering letters to houses between Manor Road and Matthews lane, offering to pray for those people on Sunday, and asking if there were particular things they wnted us to pray for. We had one reply - again someone asking for prayers for people in sadness and loss. Obviusly on Sunday (20th February) we will pray for such people.
Delivering leaflets also had another side effect for me - I put my fingers through a letter box and got nastily bitten by a dog. In meant a trip to casualty, injections, visits to the nurse for dressings, but now discharged, although the cut on my index finger is still pretty spectacular! But it has developed a new fellowship - the ring of people bitten by dogs delivering leaflets. I've not met FOUR clergy who have been thus bitten!!!! And spare a though for the Kebab shop staff. I met a guy (obviously retired) delivering leaflets for a local take-away - and for a couple of minutes the two of us, seperated by nationality, religion, dress, and almost everything else, were united in our scars and wounds, and now, our common hatred of dogs!!!!!!

It seems like ages since I added something to the blog. Things happen..............

We welcome to our parish as non-stipendiary minister the Rev. Harriet Tate, who has been with us a few weeks, and already her ministry in appreciated in our churches.

We are just getting ready for Christmas - I seem to be ahead of the game this year for some reason - not sure why! Sometimes it feels like preparation is 90% of ministry - preparing for the next event, or service.
There are always some highlights for me for Christmas, but perhaps the biggest is the memorial service that we do in conjunction with Charles Robb the undertaker - last year we had something like 300 people turn up to the service - fantastic! It gives people who have lost family/friends over the last year to come and remember them, mark their lives at a time of year which can be most emotional for those who are bereaved. It is a wonderful occassion.

I suppose the one thing to say is that it is like a lot of ministry/church life. People do say how much they appreciate the service, but you never know how much God does in the service in peoples' lives. People are comforted, helped to cope with Christmas. A reminder - ours to be faithful, but the work is the work of God, transforming lives is the work of the Holy Spirit.

We've just had an E.mail from someone who left Levenshulme in 1952 and emigrated to Canada, who's interested in chasing his personal history. He originally worshipped at St. Peter's. He had some suggestions to make about the webiste, and hopefully we will include them over the coming weeks. I just love the thought that our churches have had such an influence throughout the country and the world. We have had students training for ordination, many of whom are now ordained all over the UK. We have had many people who have come to this country, worshipped here, then returned to their home country hopefully enriched by St. Peter's. It is so encouraging to hear just sometimes about the difference we can make for the gospel throughout the world.
The last week has been particularly difficult for me. My mother died last Tuesday 23rd March, and her funeral is going to be tomorrow. She had suffered terribly for some months from illness, pain, dementia, and was very distressed. She was wonderfully looked after at Westleigh Residential home here in Levenshulme. I know God has called an end, and I thank him for saying - time please.

But it is about to be Easter, and in Easter it all makes sense. Spreading throughout the world - the gospel of Jesus Christ, giving us forgiveness, salvation, and most importantly the love of God.
The gospel, Easter, Jesus giving us confidence that my mother is now in his hands, and for her there is no better place to be.

I'm sure I will shed tears tomorrow and on Sunday I will sing with great joy "Thine be the Glory, Risen conquering Son, Endless is the victory, Thou o'er death hast won............."

Thankyou God for mum. Thankyou God for Jesus.

 

It's been a hard start to the year with quite sever weather, although to be honest I really love the snow. Having said that, we feel at last like we are heading towards spring and that has to be good. For example, at our harvest service last September at St. Peter's we planted crocuses in the church grounds. There are now crocuses from that flowering, others about to burst into bloom.

It has also been a hard start to the year because of the building work at St. Mark's, and coping with that which has been quite difficult with no heating. We keep going, and it has brought us much closer together as a congregation.

Some times we dream of quieter times, and I dreamt of them post Christmas, but somehow they haven't materialised - although there does seem to be a bit of quieter time now.


It's Lent now, perhaps it's time to give up stress, or something! Lord, take from our souls the strain and stress and let our ordered lives confess the beauty of thy peace, the beauty of thy peace..........

Christmas has come and gone!!!!
 I en joyed a lot of Christmas this year, particularly the worship. At St. Mark's it was rather cold - we have the builders in at the moment, and don't have any heating! However, it was the first year we have had a midnight mass - and the hardy folk who turned up really appreciated it. Of course, services haven't been helped by the really cold weather, and I hope those folk, particularly the elderly, who quite rightly didn't risk the weather - I hope they could still hold on to Christ as Christmas.
Having said that, the weather hasn't got any better - it is snowing outside at the moment, with 4 or 5 inches on the ground. Sometimes I think our country is nuts in its attitude to snow. I know some people don't like driving in it, and many people aren't too keen on walking in it, but I love it. I love the challenge of driving in it - despite scratching my car the other day. I love walking in it - kicking the fresh snow up. I'm not too keen on walking in it when it is frozen or melting. And I absolutely adore the beauty of it. It is absolutely stunning at the moment.
Newspapers/television: snow, disaster, beware, hazard, stay in.
God: Snow, glory, adore, take care, enjoy.

God, thankyou for the stunning, radiant, glorious beauty of snow! And yet you are invinitely more stunning, radiant, glorious, beautiful! You must really be something special.

Seems quite a while since I added something to our blog. My excuse is busy-ness!

It's now Advent - the beginning of the Adventure - the Adventure of Christmas, the Adventure for us and for God when he sent his Son to be one of us.

It's a really busy time for our parish. Today the builders start work in earnest at St. Mark's, building our community room. It looks like it will take us 4 months, but then we will have a fantastic facility. Certainly at the start it takes a lot of time and managing, but I'm really excited that at last the builders are arriving.

It's also busy at our church school, which has to apply for the Financial Management Standard this year. There is a HUGE amount of paperwork, many of it quite ridiculous. We will have to produce about 6 lever-arch files full of information. It's a lot of information!!!

And all that on top of Christmas things as well.

Also made more difficult by the burglary to the South Manchester Credit Union's office - they nicked out safe and server, but we have amazing staff, and they had us up and running again in 2 days. Fantastic.

If I don't get to blog again before Christmas, have a great Christmas.

Yesterday was Harvest Sunday in our churches. It's not one of my favourite days of the year, but people do seem to enjoy it.

At St. Peter's we had a first go at our new "all-age" form of worship that we are calling "Breakout Worship", which means we "break out" of normal liturgy for group type stuff through the service. I think people were quite apprehensive at first, and uncertain, but gradually they go into the swing and it went pretty well, and in the end the majority of people seemed to enjoy it. There are clearly things we will do differently in the future, but the next time we are due to try it is the first Sunday in December.
At St. Mark;'s we had a more traditional form of worship, but then they had lunch afterwards together which was really nice. I just managed to get there as they were locking up after - missed the lunch completely!!
I did some reading up on Harvest for our evening service. Apparently harvest as we know it was started in Morwenstow in North Cornwall but the Vicar Robert Stephen Hawker, who believed that if they gave thanks, then God would give good yields next time. He also believed that in every seed when it sprouted a miracle happened. I think he is right!
The most fascinating bit itself was Hawker himself, who was a complete and utter eccentric. He loved bright clothes, and the only black thing he ever wore was socks. He wore a fez most of the time. He smoked Opium. He was a significant poet. For 4 years at one time he apparently ate nothing but double cream! But he had a huge compassion, particularly for sailors, and those shipwrecked. There is a wonderful story of him on the urging the lifeboat men to go and rescue shipwrecked sailors while their wives were there telling them not to. It is not recorded whether the church or the home won! He also spent stormy nights in a small hut he dug out of the hillside, and completed with driftwood, either writing poetry, or looking out for ships in distress. Apparently the hut is now the smallest building owned by the National Trust. And that's not to mention his marriages, his friendships - wikipedia is the place to go!
Hawker was the total eccentric. But he was thankful to God, believed in miracles, and was a man of deep and profound compassion for the poor and the victims. And perhaps that is what harvest festivals are all about.  

Sometimes things surprise you!
One of the things we do in the parish is have a summer Teach-in, on a Wednesday evening, when we have a number of formal teaching sessions for anyone who wants to come along. We've covered the Old Testament before; looked at how the Christian faith came to the uk; had some sessions on prayer. This year we are looking at the church.
We had a session last week on the characteristics of a church, using the book "Models of the Church" by Avery Dulles. Next week we are going to reflect on the nature of the early church, looking particularly at the church in Corinth. The final week we are considering a vision for the church. But the one everyone seems interested in is this week and it surprised me - I thought it would be the least interesting! We are looking at the Anglican Church.
We are looking at how the Anglican church worldwide, and in this country, works. It is probably going to be more factual than other evenings. We are looking at what it can and can't do. And even the members of the free churches who come to these evenings were excited about this one.
I suppose in the end it is to be expected. Trying to understand what we are part of. All the publicity the church has in the press about apparent divisions. All gives an interest to the subject.
And perhaps it is important - the church of England does have a unique way of functioning, and because of that can't meet many people's expectations. We have the Archbishop of Canterbury, but people think he is our pope. We have Bishops, but they have little power over what people preach. We have a system which can't impose beliefs on its members. It all seems a bit vague!
It is a bit vague, but it is also a great system which treats its members like adults. It says - lets debate. Lets talk about issues. Let's try to convince each other. But in the end - you decide, you are an adult who can decide. I like to be a member of a church which says - we respect you enough to trust you, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to decide, and grasp the faith and issues for yourself.
I hope tomorrow night we can get the sense of who we are across!

I've just change my car. Before I had a Toyota Corrolla, now I have a Seat Altea. My son says our new car looks like a fish!

The Toyota was a fantastic piece of engineering. It was perfectly designed. It was fantastically engineered. It was so easy to drive. If you are looking for perfection in a car, and perfection in engineering, then it was there in the Toyota. It was a great great product. And I hated it.

I hated it because it was blandness personified. It was so perfect you couldn't get interested in it. You couldn't enjoy it. You know that if you asked it to boil an egg, it would do so for exactly three minutes 48 seconds, and it would come out perfect every time. The trouble is half the fun of eating a boiled egg is finding out it is too hard, or is the white done enough? Can you stick you soldier into the yoke? But all that "fun" is taken away. So with the car - it is so perfect, all the fun is taken away......

The Seat is different. Even the locking system had my wife swearing in apoplexy with it. I still have to FIND the spare wheel. The pocket isn't big enough for the CD's I like to carry............ it's wonderful!!!! I loved it the first time I drove it. If you could marry a car I would divorce my wife!!!!!

I sometimes think we do that with God. Of course he is perfect. We all know that. But we spend so much time talking about his perfection, we forget his personality. And it is personality which is attractive, not perfection. Jesus showed us - God is perfect, and more - he is perfect, and has personality in abundance............

And if we talk about His personality, then perhaps more people might want to get in the car......

I thought I would try something different for assemblies at school this past week, inspired a bit by Roger McGough's poem "Noah's Ark." I saw Rik Mayall perform the poem a few years ago on a kids TV programme called "Wham Bam Strawberry Jam" and it was brilliant. I wasn't a particular fan of Rik Mayall, but that performance of the poem was top notch. Also a bit inspired by the BCC having a poetry week. On top of that, I wanted to tell some old testament stories in assemblies.
I thought I would try turning one or two of the Old Testament stories into poems - I suppose doggerel is a better term. Sadly not in the same league as Roger McGough. However, it seemed to work!
I started with David and Goliath, and am about to do crossing the Red Sea, and though Elijah's battle with the prophets of Baal was worth a go as well. And I did it on Wednesday - I was quite nervous! However, it did seem to work, and the kids seemed to have enjoyed them. Hope they took the story in as well!
I'll do the three I've written, and might do the Roger McGough one as well.
In a moment of vanity, I wondered if other people might enjoy the poems as well, so I've put them on the webpages here under "Bad Poetry". Have a read if you want, and tell me what you think (but only if it's nice things!!!!!!!!)   

Yesterday was Trinity Sunday - a rather strange Christian celebration - every other festival is remembering a particular event in the life of Jesus, or the early church, or remembers particular saints. But Trinity Sunday - named after a doctrine.

When the alternative service book started, Trinitiy Sunday was a bit demoted - that long wadge of time through Summer and autumn became "weeks after pentecost", rather than weeks after trinity, but with common worship we have returned to the idea of weeks after trinity, (or we call them propers, whatever that is!).

So is it a good thing. Well I know a lot of clergy dread preaching on Trinity Sunday - what can you say? But I like trinity Sunday - it gives us a chance to explore the nature of God and how we relate to that God. It gives us chance to delve into infinity.
Has that go immediate practical use? Maybe not, but is there a higher calling than exploring the nature of God, a greater task than delving into the infinity of the Trinity? I think not.

There seems a complete fever about the government at the moment, with expense scandals, elections, leadership challenges, people resigning........................... and yet I suspect the turmoil in our country is minor compared to some problems faced by other countries.

The other evening we had two speakers from South Africa, talking about projects they are involved in, in Zimbabwe. It is a topic where we have a particular interest - there are several asylum seekers around our church from Zimbabwe, there is one person whose family were forced into exile because of the farm clearances, as well as several people from that country here studying or working.

The speakers did talk briefly about the situation there, and talked about the financial problems, and the problems of hyper-inflation - it was fascinating to see a hundred trillion dollar note - now worth about 2p!

However, they were not here to talk about despair, but to talk about hope, as they described their two projects.

One project they talked about is a feeding programme they run, taking food into Zimbabwe, distributing it through local churches to the most needy. The second project about how they were training farmers to get better yields from their crops. Many of the "new" farmers in Zimbabwe, particularly those settled on cleared land, originally come from the city, and have little knowledge of how to produce maximum yields, and this training programme is being adoped in many areas to help people become self-sufficient, so that they are not dependent on food aid, which is really there to help people through a period of crisis until they can become self-sufficient.

What was good about it was the trust in God. That in that country, man has done his worst, and yet still God can bring new life and new hope. It was a bit like the cross - man did his worst, and God brought new life. And we have to remember that for ourselves, and through our own political turmoil. Man can do his worst, but God can always bring new life and hope......................    

I'm leading the worship for Wednesday worship tomorrow, and we use a fair amount of different material for that worship. We've used Taize resources, celtic ones and so on - I really enjoy the chance to be creative with worship. But the question is - how much time should preparing it take? There's often only 7 or 8 of us - so how much time?

I ask that because I decided to do something different following Pentecost last Sunday - and was inspired to think of the Holy Spirit as the "Wild Goose". The what? Well - the Wild Goose is a celtic symbol for the Holy Spirit, and may speak of God's Spirit as something more than "Gentle Dove". 

Wild Geese are just that - I remember walking through Etherow country park once with Lucy and the kids, when Lucy was attacked by a Canada Goose for walking too close to it's nest. We were totally chivalrous, or course - we stepped back and laughed!

Well, I'm organised now, but it seems to have taken a lot of time to prepare, searching the internet etc. Is it worth the time? Depends, I suppose, how you measure the value of time. If we were simply functional about it, then we would probably say it wasn't a great use of time, a lot of it was time wasted. But I hate that sort of functional view of time. It's not right!

I've really enjoyed searching, seeing where the idea came from, why people in  the modern camp find it helpful. There were rather too many entries for "Wild Goose Publications" - the publishing arm of the Iona Community - it made the search on google harder work than need be: can't blame them - it's how the internet works. But it is good to simply explore a theme, to try to understand it, and overall I feel "fed" by doing it.

Maybe not efficient use of time, but I do think it is effective use of time, and that is much more important..... 

Thought I would try a new look to the website - I liked the pink and black we had before, but perhaps we needed something a bit more colourful, so gone for this one! Hope you like it - let me know, if you read the blog!


What I like about the new one is the hands and globe - At St. Peter's particularly we have a very international community, something we celebrate and appreciate and enjoy. Of course, it also brings it's sadness, as people return home, or move on for work, and we have quite a high turnover. However, I wouldn't change is for anything! I just hope the new form for the website shows the international dimension to our parish which adds so muich to church life.

Really struggling to keep blogging, and keep the newsletter up to date - I'm horrified it's a year since I wrote something here.

Things have moved on - since the storm we have repaired the roof, put a new cross on top of the church, and are getting a quote to fix the organ.

St. Mark's church is looking to re-order the building - we have got the planning permission - just waiting for the final confirmation, and then will let the builders loose on the building. Hopefull by the end of the year we will have a meeting room, kitchen, toilets as well as a sound gutter!

Hope I will write something in the blogg again in the near future - keep praying for us.   

We are now past the AGM season, and moving on to other things.
We particularly welcome Charlotte who is on placement with us for the next couple of months. Charlotte is training for ordination at Westcott House and has joined us as part of her training.

I'm not sure we are a good example of the church of England - we're not very good with rules and things like that here, and not very good with traditions either. In the end I just hope the students who come on placement here see that in a parish God works, and makes a difference, and changes people's lives.

We have also welcomed a new Bishop for our area - Bishop Mark. I've only met him a couple of times, but if all Bishops have the same dynamism  and faith as he appears to, then the church of England is in good hands.
Will write again soon.

It's realy hard work keeping a blog going!

We are now in the "Annual General Meeting" season, and if nothing else it means a lot of irritating paperwork - umpteen different forms for different people in the diocese to fill out and send off. Information to collate. Nominations to seek. Reports to print off. Have no problems with an AGM - it is all the dross around it which seems so pointless.

At the same time we seem to be spending huge wadges of time dealing with builders, architects. The good news is that the roof at St. Peter's is pretty well fixed, and even better that the builders are already onsite repairing the tower at St. Mark's. However, it's only the beginning - rooms to rebuild at St. Mark's, drain problems at St. Peter's.

You can probably tell I'm a bit frustrated with it all at the moment. I know it has to be done, but unfortunately it's not the sort of thing I enjoy doing - how selfish can I get!

Added frustration was the robbery at St. Peter's on Thursday - someone grabbed the cashbox at St. Peter's and did a runner. Hits the Credit Union.

Oh for something  wonderful to happen!!!!!!

Enough moaning - will write again soon.

Last week natural forces hit St. Peter's Church. We weren't aware of it, but a minor earthquake earlier in the week may have caused a little dmaage on the roof of St. Peter's. However Friday Night/Saturday morning a bit of the roof - a giant bit of stone, came crashing down, and did a bit of damage to the roof of the church - knocking a few slates out. It's a real nuisance, but hopefully in the next week or so we should have it repaired.

At the same time we are making real progress towards the building work to repair the tower at St. Mark's. We have the site meeting this coming week, and with any luck the builders should start on the 25th March. The trouble is there is all sorts of things and letter and documents that have to be produced, and I simply can't understand what they all are. Hopefully we will get through this bit, and there will be no delay on our starting date. It's also good that the architect is now talking about the internal changes we want to make, putting a community room inside the building. Hopefully we will have plans up and ready to go very soon.

It has to be done, but all this building work is very time-consuming, and there is so much that is really beyond the scope of lay people like us.

Pray for our buildings. Not that they will be wonderful, but that they will be sorted quickly, and the cause of the gospel will be sped by them being here and sorted out.

Well, it was mothering Sunday yesterday, and we were very busy at church -  at both of our churches, particularly St. Peter's where we also had a baptism.

I have to be honest - I find Mothering Sunday difficult. I know it's supposed to echo back to times when servant girls returned home to their "mother" church, but these days its all about mothers.


The hard part is to say things which are not simply sentimental, and to ensure we don't say being a mother is more wonderful than anything else.  It's about drawing people again to the love of God, and to needing the light of Christ in us. I simply can't talk about how wonderful and special mothers are - because we are all wonderful and special and equally loved by God and having a part in church life. If we have a mother's day, then we should have a children's day, and a bachelors day and........................... !!!!!!!

I hope  we did justice to Mothering Sunday and it was fantastic to see lots of people in church. But I'm glad it's another year before I have to worry about it again!!!!

I know Lent is early, but feel like we are already halfway through! Been so busy since Christmas. Lots of baptisms and weddings booked.  Trying our Wednesday lunches at St. Mark's - despite lots of publicity, we have had a pretty low response. So many different things happening.

This afternoon going to St. Mary's Reddish - they've been in interregnum for some time, but Shaun their new minister is being licensed next Sunday. As Area Dean I get to organise the service and the rehearsal. Enjoy that part of the work.

Still reeling this weekend from the controversy over Sharia law sparked by comments by Rowan Williams. Working hard to say - we may disagree with what someone says - but that is no reason to love someone and pray for someone any the less. Have to tackle it in sermons this morning. 

Today has been a good Sunday - so far - still have the evening service yet!
It was good to see several people in church who came because it was the first anniversary of the death of someone they remembered. Worship is always a balancing act between the great celebration that is the church family worship, and trying to welcome people who's feelings are quite different - sadness, mourning etc. I think it works because people are grateful that we have remembered their member of family, or whoever, and we want to pray for, and hold a hand of welcome to, those who are struggling.
We held the funeral for Frank on Friday - a Great gentle giant member of our church. It was a moving service, and it was good see people in church today remembering him as well. For Frank, the church was his family, and as a church we hopefully gave the right thankyous and fairwells to one of our own.

One of the problems I've already found with a blog is that you get so absorbed in day-to-day life that you forget to write anything in it, so thanks for the reminder to put something.

Firstly to record some sad news for our parish. A great member of our church - Frank - was found dead on new year's day. Frank was a delight - typical of the "Gentle Giant". He was kind, involved, friendly, a delight to know. He was also a great city supporter, as well as a regular at Old Trafford for the cricket. Sadly because his death was sudden we've and to wait over three week for a post mortem, but his funeral is going to be on Friday.

Also some good news - yesterday we welcomed Sarah,  a student on placement from Westcott House, training for ordination. Sarah will be with us until Palm Sunday, and it's really good to welcome her.

We're also trying something new - please pray for it. We have started Wednesday lunches at St. Mark's church, and will be having them every Wednesday (except half term) from now until Easter, as a trial run. It's an attempt to offer something to our community - where else can you get a lunch for 70p!!!! We're rather limited at St. Mark's in terms of facilities, so we are doing soup and bread roles (or should that be spelt rolls? I think it's rolls!) and chocolate biscuits.

Welcome to the Website, and the first entry in our parish blog.

At this stage I don't have anything profound to comment on, but will update news of parish life whenever I get a chance, and when something interesting happens. Come and visit regularly, and please reply when you want.