Listen now Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Please find a link here to our September 2026 magazine, paper copies of which will be available in Christ Church Walmersley and St John with St Mark’s Bury from this Sunday.

In this edition, we have updates from our various groups and news about forthcoming events both locally in our Benefice, as well as in the Deanery.

There is also a message from Keith Trivasse (pages 10 and 11) about a service of anointing to be held at St John with St Mark’s on September 6th, plus this letter from Ian…

A New Beginning

September has always felt like a month of fresh starts.

Schools and universities begin a new academic year. Holidays become memories, diaries begin to fill again, and many of us settle back into familiar routines. For me, this September marks the beginning of my final year at theological college before, God willing, ordination next summer.

Perhaps that’s why it was good to discover that this year the Church of England has introduced a new observance for the first Sunday in September: The Festival of Creation in Christ.

At first glance, it might sound like another opportunity to think about the environment, and it certainly encourages us to care well for God’s creation. But the title says something deeper. It reminds us that Christians don’t simply celebrate the world as it is; we celebrate the world as God is redeeming it through Christ.

Paul writes that: “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.” Those words are not only about individuals but about God’s great purpose for the whole of creation. The Bible begins in a garden and ends in a renewed heaven and earth. Between those two scenes runs the story of God’s determination never to abandon what he has made, but to restore it.

That gives September a rather different feel.

Learning to notice

New beginnings are not only for schools, students or clergy in training. They are woven into the life of faith itself. God is always at work making things new – sometimes dramatically, but more often quietly and patiently.

Theological college has taught me that discipleship is less about collecting answers than about learning to notice where God is already at work. Sometimes that happens in lectures or in reading. More often it happens through worship, conversation, shared meals, friendships and the ordinary rhythm of prayer. In many ways, it isn’t so different from tending a garden. Growth is rarely spectacular, but over time it becomes unmistakable.

Perhaps that’s how God works in all our lives.

This September, as the seasons begin to turn once more, may we have eyes to notice the quiet work of God. For the Creator who once said, “Let there be light,” is still bringing new life out of old places, and still making all things new in Christ. We may not always see the finished picture, but we can trust the One who is patiently shaping it.

And perhaps that’s the invitation of this new Festival of Creation in Christ: to look at the world, at one another, and even at ourselves, not simply as we are today, but as God, in his grace, is patiently renewing us to become.

Ian

[Many thanks to LubosHouska on Pixabay for the cover image]