Activities | Nurture

July and August 2019 magazine

stjohnstmarkchurchburyFriday, June 28, 2019

Attached is our Benefice of Walmersley Road July and August 2019 magazine. It’s a bumper edition so grab a brew and find a comfortable chair…

Alongside all the normal news, views and ‘what’s on’, you’ll find an article on Spring Harvest with Archbishop Sentamu’s challenge for 2020. In addition, you’ll see articles on #MorethanSunday and easyfundraising, which are featured elsewhere on this website.

We’re also asking any budding artists to come up with cover images for our magazine next year as well as a new logo for our Benefice. This is to mark our 10th year together in 2020.

If you want to pick up a hard-copy version of our July and August 2019 magazine then we would love to see you in church! In the meantime, here’s the ‘letter’ from Barbara, our intrepid zip-wiring Reader Emeritus:

Looking down on creation

Do you remember that song by the Carpenters “I’m on the top of the world looking down on creation”? It came into my head as I stood at 1581 feet above sea level, about to  launch myself off over the edge of a Welsh Slate mine on a zip wire. This was one of the most desolate scenes I have ever observed. It was almost barren, just the odd tuft of vegetation and below me sharp shards of slate in man-made holes, almost apocalyptical. It was like no other mountain top I’ve ever been on. I was surrounded by the destruction of the landscape by humankind.

What have we done to creation? Could the whole earth look like this if we’re not careful? Nigel and I are in the midst of watching the latest series by Professor Brian Cox on ‘The Planets’ and it’s brought it home to us that it doesn’t take much for a planet to become unviable. Is that where we’re heading?

Here in Manchester Diocese everything we do as a church (and individ-uals) should be measured against the ‘Five Marks of Mission’, the last of which is ‘To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth’.

Mammoth

It sounds like a mammoth task and ask doesn’t it! But if we break it down into small bits it might just become something that’s do-able for each one of us never mind our age!

I truly believe that God and therefore Jesus had his hand on the creation of our planet and therefore it is my duty as a Christian to do my bit in preserving this planet. Don’t stop reading this now!! I’m not going to go on about how, etc; I’ll leave that to Sir David Attenborough or Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall.

Not only is the planet a creation of God, but each one of us too. One of my other vivid recollections in song was standing on a lush Austrian mountainside, with a large group of Christians, on a holiday and was singing the song ‘I am a new creation, no more in condemnation, here in the grace of God I stand’. I hope you know the one – if not look it up on YouTube if you can.

New creation

Each one of us becomes a new creation when we give our lives back to God and it’s by the power of the Holy Spirit that we can! It’s by God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice that we have inherited the earth and all the bounteousness that it provides for us. So what shall we do? As the song says ‘tell of all that he has done’. Show the world how much we care for each other, the planet, and ourselves. There is an old adage that says actions speak louder than words; so live lightly and kindly and be ready to tell folks why we do. 

Blessings in Jesus name, Barbara

[For the September 2019 magazine, please press here. Please follow this link for more about St John and St Mark, Bury]