http://www.levenshulmechurches.com en-gb levenshulmechurches.com 2011-8-16T00:00:00Z levenshulmechurches.com http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#100562 Always seems a long time since the last entry in the blog.Its now summer and a thoroughly grey and miserable day with a threat of rain. We are renewing the paths around St. Peters 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 cant see too many dry days over the next week or so.Ive 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 were getting all he seems to be giving us is rust 2011-8-16 09:44:39 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#87127 It has been a sad couple of weeks at St. Marks Church. We have lost longstanding 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 nasti... 2011-2-17 07:59:21 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#81644 It seems like ages since I added something to the blog. Things happen..............We welcome to our parish as nonstipendiary 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 familyfriends 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 ministrychurch life. People do say how m... 2010-11-30 09:00:00 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#61796 Weve just had an E.mail from someone who left Levenshulme in 1952 and emigrated to Canada whos interested in chasing his personal history. He originally worshipped at St. Peters. 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. Peters. 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 ... 2010-3-30 20:29:34 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#59519 Its 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. Peters 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. Marks 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 havent materialised although there does seem to be a bit of quieter time now. Its Lent now perhaps its 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.......... 2010-3-1 20:53:56 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#55494 Christmas has come and gone I en joyed a lot of Christmas this year particularly the worship. At St. Marks it was rather cold we have the builders in at the moment and dont 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 havent been helped by the really cold weather and I hope those folk particularly the elderly who quite rightly didnt risk the weather I hope they could still hold on to Christ as Christmas.Having said that the weather hasnt 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 dont like driving in it and many people arent 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. Im not too keen on walking in it when it is frozen or melting. And... 2010-1-5 08:31:08 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#53653 Seems quite a while since I added something to our blog. My excuse is busynessIts 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. Its a really busy time for our parish. Today the builders start work in earnest at St. Marks 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 Im really excited that at last the builders are arriving.Its 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 leverarch files full of information. Its a lot of informationAnd all that on top of Christmas things as well.Also made more difficult by the burglary to the South Manchester Credit Unions office they nicked out safe and server but we have amazing sta... 2009-11-30 07:42:57 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#50032 Yesterday was Harvest Sunday in our churches. Its not one of my favourite days of the year but people do seem to enjoy it.At St. Peters we had a first go at our new allage 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. Marks 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 Haw... 2009-10-5 11:42:06 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#46737 Sometimes things surprise youOne of the things we do in the parish is have a summer Teachin on a Wednesday evening when we have a number of formal teaching sessions for anyone who wants to come along. Weve 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 cant do. And even the m... 2009-8-11 08:55:55 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#43750 Ive 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 fishThe 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 couldnt get interested in it. You couldnt 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 ... 2009-6-23 15:08:33 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#43252 I thought I would try something different for assemblies at school this past week inspired a bit by Roger McGoughs poem Noahs 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 wasnt 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 workI started with David and Goliath and am about to do crossing the Red Sea and though Elijahs 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 wellIll do the three Ive written and might... 2009-6-14 08:07:54 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#42991 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. 2009-6-8 19:21:52 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#42852 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 hyperinflation it was fascinating to see a hundred trillion dollar note now worth about 2pHowever they were not here to talk about despair but to talk about hope as they described their two projects.One project they talked about i... 2009-6-6 09:09:54 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#42615 Im leading the worship for Wednesday worship tomorrow and we use a fair amount of different material for that worship. Weve 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 Theres often only 7 or 8 of us so how much timeI 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 Gods 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 its nest. We were totally chivalrous or course we stepped back and laughedWell Im 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 suppos... 2009-6-2 10:07:47 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#42287 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 blogWhat I like about the new one is the hands and globe At St. Peters particularly we have a very international community something we celebrate and appreciate and enjoy. Of course it also brings its sadness as people return home or move on for work and we have quite a high turnover. However I wouldnt 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. 2009-5-26 17:05:54 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#42284 Really struggling to keep blogging and keep the newsletter up to date Im horrified its 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. Marks church is looking to reorder 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 gutterHope I will write something in the blogg again in the near future keep praying for us. 2009-5-26 16:59:07 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#24077 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.Im not sure we are a good example of the church of England were 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 peoples lives. We have also welcomed a new Bishop for our area Bishop Mark. Ive 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. 2008-5-10 19:22:01 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#23033 Its realy hard work keeping a blog goingWe 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. Peters is pretty well fixed and even better that the builders are already onsite repairing the tower at St. Marks. However its only the beginning rooms to rebuild at St. Marks drain problems at St. Peters. You can probably tell Im a bit frustrated with it all at the moment. I know it has to be done but unfortunately its not the sort of thing I enjoy doing how selfish can I getAdded frustration was the robbery at St. Peters on Thursday someone grabbed the cashbox at St. Peter... 2008-4-19 14:27:24 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#21013 Last week natural forces hit St. Peters Church. We werent aware of it but a minor earthquake earlier in the week may have caused a little dmaage on the roof of St. Peters. However Friday NightSaturday 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. Its 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. Marks. 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 cant understand what they all are. Hopefully we will get through this bit and there will be no delay on our starting date. Its also good that the architect is now talking about the internal changes we want to make putting a community room inside the bui... 2008-3-8 09:18:00 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#20776 Well it was mothering Sunday yesterday and we were very busy at church at both of our churches particularly St. Peters where we also had a baptism.I have to be honest I find Mothering Sunday difficult. I know its 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 dont say being a mother is more wonderful than anything else. Its about drawing people again to the love of God and to needing the light of Christ in us. I simply cant 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 mothers day then we should have a childrens 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 Im glad its another year before I have to worry... 2008-3-3 07:54:59 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#19764 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. Marks despite lots of publicity we have had a pretty low response. So many different things happening.This afternoon going to St. Marys Reddish theyve 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. 2008-2-10 09:36:50 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#19222 Today has been a good Sunday so far still have the evening service yetIt 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 whos 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. 2008-1-27 17:28:16 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#18918 One of the problems Ive already found with a blog is that you get so absorbed in daytoday 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 years 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 weve 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 its really good to welcome her.Were also trying something new please pray for it. We have started Wednesday lunches at St. Marks church and will be having them every Wednesday except half term from now until Easter as a trial... 2008-1-21 08:15:52 http://www.levenshulmechurches.com/page13.htm#18004 Welcome to the Website and the first entry in our parish blog. At this stage I dont 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. 2008-1-1 15:34:18