Category: Nurture

Our next Sunday@Seven service is December 29th in the hall at Christ Church Walmersley. The theme is ‘My time is in your hands’, which is taken from Psalm 31.

Sunday@Seven is an opportunity to sing and pray in a more informal setting than the usual Sunday and weekday church services. It’s led by Nigel Silvester, our Authorised Lay Minister and Cath Hilton.

What a lovely idyllic picture we have in our reading from Isaiah today. Woody Allen once said of this vision: “The wolf shall lie down with the lamb. But the lamb won’t get much sleep!”

In this bumper Christmas issue we have details of all the many services and events that we have going on. There’s a letter from Dave, about God “mucking in” with us. There are also appeals to help those who are homeless and some reflections on Advent, Christmas and Epiphany.

Here are the Bible readings for December 2019 which we’ll be using in church for this Advent and Christmas season. The scriptures this month include wolves living with lambs, lame leaping like deer, John wearing camel hair… and Mary bearing a son called Jesus.

Jesus the king wore a crown of thorns; his throne was a cross; his royal banner a scribbled sign. This is the gospel image of royalty; the king and a criminal going together into paradise. This is the king we believe in; the king we celebrate and whose values we are pledged to live by.

Our next Sunday@Seven service is November 24th in the Barritt Room in the hall at St John with St Mark’s. The theme this time is ‘Waiting for the Lord’, which is taken from Psalm 130.

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
and in his word I put my hope.

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centred; Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway.

Here our details for our Advent & Christmas activities and services this year at St John with St Mark’s, Bury and Christ Church, Walmersley. From Bible Studies to Brass Bands, Christingles to Carols…

Shortly after the destruction, the cathedral stonemason noticed that two of the charred medieval roof timbers had fallen in the shape of a cross. He set them up in the ruins, on an altar of rubble, with the moving words ‘Father Forgive’ inscribed on the Sanctuary wall…

The grace of God shows its full colours in the glory that is at work in all of God’s people who are called to be saints. That grace which is at work in you, the saints of God who are in Bury.

‘Writing the Divine’ was a workshop held at St Chad’s, Rochdale on Saturday 19th October 2019. It was led by author, poet and priest, Canon Rachel Mann.

The intention is to make this an ongoing Christian writing group with people from any and all denominations that have an interest in creating new Christian writing.

Here’s our November 2019 magazine. It’s our Remembrance edition. We have write-ups from our various groups and all the upcoming activities to tell you about. Coventry Cathedral’s work on peace and reconciliation crops up too.

Here are the Bible readings for November 2019 which we’ll be using in church.

If you want to read up in advance – or if you can’t be with us and want to follow the same readings – then here you go!

The scriptures this month include dreams, blessings, woes, hair being preserved, scattered sheep… and the forgiveness of Christ from the cross.

What is important to you? What is worth fighting for? What would make you be determined and persistent, not give up on, not be put off until you got it sorted? Is there something that you are so passionate about that you would stick with it and be prepared to struggle for as long as it takes?

Into the story comes a tiny, unnamed, Israelite slave girl. She would have been on the bottom rung of society, if she was on the ladder at all. A slave, female, foreign and young. In modern parlance we’d say she’d been trafficked.