The Link
Alsager and Congleton
United Reformed Churches
Magazine
Linked through the love of Christ
JUNE/JULY 2014
Dear Friends,
A very warm welcome to the first edition of the new joint magazine for Alsager and Congleton – as yet unnamed! We hope to have a title for the magazine for the next issue. There have been a few suggestions: ‘United Together,’ ‘The Link’ and ‘The Connection’. It is up to you to decide which of these titles you prefer and then vote for the one you would most like. See below for details.
Whatever name we decide on, I hope you will find much that is familiar and valued, and a little that is new and exciting.
One difference is that you will be able to see what is going on in each church at a glance. Please feel free to go along to any of the events or speak to the contact person if you wish to know more beforehand.
One thing you will not find is the Duty Rotas which will now be given to the people concerned and displayed on notice boards in each church.
There are of course the usual regular features such as the prayer page and the Minister’s letter, and as always I will be reliant on you to let me know what is happening and to share things that are of interest and amusement to you. It is your contributions that made the Messenger and Contact magazines what they were and will make this new Joint magazine what it will be.
The deadline for contributions for the next edition can be found on the last page together with the various ways you can submit articles, notices etc.
Please circle or underline your preferred choice of magazine title on the tear-off slip below, and hand it to Rev. Murray or one of the Elders by the end of June. The most popular title will grace the cover page of our next edition!
Would you like to be one of the first to receive each edition of the magazine, in glorious Technicolor and always know where you can lay your hands on it? If so and you have a computer you can opt to receive your magazine electronically.
Simply email your request to receive it electronically to me at and I will ensure your magazine is sent to you in this way every time. If you wish to come off the list at any time just email me again and your name and contact details will be removed.
I look forward to hearing from you with your contributions, requests and votes.
Best wishes
Karen
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My preferred Magazine title is:
Simply circle or underline your preferred title, tear off the slip and hand it to the minister or an elder by the end of June
United Together The Link The Connection
Dear friends,
Talking to a friend with teenage children recently I was reminded that for many children and young people the exam season has started. Some have been doing their S.A.T.S, GCSEs or A levels, and some are doing exams that are part of their degree courses. It can be a difficult time of year, with many young people spending their time worrying about one exam recently completed, sitting one and contemplating the next; brains are stretched to the limit, as is patience, as exam stress can spread throughout families.
It can be important at such times to have something to look forward to, and many (parents included) I suspect are already beginning to think about their summer holidays. Now most of us will have decided, booked, paid for and planned this year’s holiday. However, if you are looking for somewhere a little different, you can book your space break. One company at least is advertising space flights from as little as $250,000. For budding astronauts or those who have always dreamt of traveling in space, this could apparently soon be a reality for some of the thousands who have already paid their $25,000 deposit.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure it’s for me. Although I love looking up at the sky at night, I have never felt the urge to go into space. I don’t like flying that much and I have a feeling my vertigo could be a bit of an issue. The thought of being cooped up in a space plane, travelling at unimaginably high speeds miles into the sky, just leaves me cold.
However, there are those who are willing to pay significant amounts of money to see the curvature of the earth at first hand, see the moon at closer quarters and experience weightlessness. Yet even those who see and experience these things will only be touching the surface of the vastness of outer space.
For space is quite literally mind-bogglingly vast. For example, our nearest galactic neighbour is a place called Andromeda. The light from there takes about two million years to reach us. That is an incredibly long time and distance – and that’s our nearest neighbour! There are also large dust clouds in space. One of the world’s largest telescopes, the Hubble telescope, has measured many of them and found that some would take a light year to travel through. That is a large amount of dust! Can you imagine that? I’m not sure I can; it is so big it is almost incomprehensible to me, and a short day-trip to the edges of space will not bring any of these things closer to us – they will still be concepts almost beyond our imagination.
When we stop and think about space and the vastness of it, one thing becomes all too clear, however. That is that we are very small. One might be tempted to say that we are almost insignificant. What are we in comparison to dust clouds measuring light years across, stars light years away, galaxies so far away they appear as a grain of dust even with the most powerful telescopes? Yet, according to our faith, we are uniquely formed by our Creator God, and we are uniquely loved by our gracious God.
Sometimes, like space, our Creator may appear to be awesome and overwhelming, untouchable and unknowable. But this same God revealed himself to us in human form, in Jesus Christ, and in him we experience a God who is not distant or remote but who is near, who knows us, who doesn’t see us as insignificant but loves each one of us as we are. Psalm 8 says, ‘When I look up at the heavens, the work of your fingers, at the moon and the stars you have set in place, what is frail mortal, that you should be mindful of him, a human being that you should notice him? Yet you have made him little less than a god, crowning his head with glory and honour.’
I may not be the first person in the queue to book my ticket for a trip into space, but that won’t stop me looking up into the sky and pondering the vastness of it all, and then remembering those wonderful words of the psalmist in Psalm 8.
Happy stargazing!
Murray
A poem/prayer to ponder
This is the beginning of a new day.
God has given me this day,
To use it as I will.
I can waste it,
Or use it for good.
What I do today is important,
Because I am exchanging a day of my life for it.
When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever,
Leaving something I have traded for it.
I want it to be gain not loss,
Good not evil,
Success not failure,
In order that I shall not regret the price I paid for it.
(Anon.)
PRAYER PAGE:
I begin by reproducing an article which came from my Bible Reading Notes a while ago. Its title: HOPE FOR WORRIERS! Everyone worries occasionally, but I was once one of those people you might call a “professional worrier”. My daily preoccupation was mulling over my worries, one by one.
Then one day I had to face an uncomfortable medical test, and I was frantic with fear. Finally I decided that during the test I would focus on the first five words of Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd.”
This exercise in meditation not only calmed me, but I gained several fresh insights. Later, as I slowly meditated through the entire Psalm, the Lord gave me more insights. Eventually I was able to share at conferences what the Lord had taught me.
If you are a worrier, there’s hope for you too! Rick Warren, author of The Purpose – Driven Life, wrote: “when you think about a problem over and over in your mind, that’s called worry. When you think about God’s Word over and over in your mind, that’s meditation. If you know how to worry, you already know how to meditate!”
The more we meditate on God’s Word, the less we need to worry.
In Psalm 23, David meditated on the Great Shepherd instead of worrying. Later, God chose him to be the shepherd of God’s people. God uses those who can honestly say, “The Lord is my shepherd.” (Joanie Yoder ODB)
The French Philosopher, Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662), wrote: “all human unhappiness comes from not knowing how to stay quietly in a room.”
So then a few tips to help you meditate instead of worrying:
FIVE MEDITATION TIPS:
1. Find a quiet place free from distraction.
2. Sit with your limbs uncrossed and with a straight back, hands in your lap.
3. Simply breathe at regular speed but breathe deeply and relax.
4. Close your eyes and think of a beautiful scene from the natural world.
5. Take a simple phrase and repeat it continuously in time with your breathing.
FIVE MEDITATION PHRASES:
1.Come and illumine my darkness.
2. Be still and know that I am God.
3. God be in my head and in my understanding.
4. Come Holy Spirit and inflame my heart.
5. Come Lord Jesus (Maranatha).
Every blessing
John
Stop! in the name of God
On Wednesday 18th June 2014
From 2.00-6.00pm at Alsager URC.
A quiet afternoon giving an opportunity to spend some time with God in Church – maybe just for a few minutes, perhaps longer. Stay for as long or as little as you like but please just be quiet on entering and leaving. Quiet reflective music will be played and a sheet with devotional thoughts will be available.
This replaces our usual monthly Meditative Prayer Group for June. (Next meeting is on July 16th from 7.30pm -8.30pm).
Further details from Jan (01270 879374) or John (01782 771288
Alsager Thursday Afternoon Fellowship
At the commencement of this report let me first of all thank Bob and Ria Harrison and Rev. Murray most sincerely for hosting the April meetings, while Lynne and I were ‘enjoying the rays’ in Tenerife.
We returned home in time to host the Fellowship’s 43rd Anniversary on May 8th when Ray Stafford MBE was our guest speaker. Ray has visited our Fellowship on several occasions and he worships at Haslington and Crewe URC. On visits to Leighton Hospital many of us have stopped in the main foyer to look and to purchase from the ‘Ray of Hope’ fundraising stalls and the amount raised from this amazing charity is in the hundreds of thousands, all for the neonatal unit. This is just one of the many initiatives which Ray has championed over the years, all running alongside his church work, council/mayoral offices, school governor and youth worker, in fact a very special voluntary worker.
Thirty five people attended the meeting and initially enjoyed hearing Kath Selbourne read a potted history of the TAF, followed by a jolly good sing during the devotional time before listening to Ray reciting a selection of new and familiar poems. Memories came flooding back of hours spent in the classroom years ago of learning poetry off by heart! Some of his choices of verse even had members saying the words along with him and occasionally laughing out loud at the humorous ones.
As usual our Anniversary offertory was for Christian Aid and as Ray waived his fee we added that to the total and were able to donate £75 to this worthy cause.
Our programme of meetings is shortly coming to a close for the summer recess but there are still interesting events to enjoy as stated below.
June 12 Revd David Spence
June 26 Coach Trip Out (TBC)
July 10 Annual Garden Party
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A simple prayer.
That can be shared with someone or said quietly in heart and mind.
Dear God,
May you meet me/…………….. at my/their point of need
In Jesus’ name. Amen
On the street where I lived… by Pat Averill
I have never actually lived on a street, but I have lived in a close, on a road and in an Avenue. The one that brings back happiest memories is a particular road in Alsager called Audley Road, which is situated on the south side of the railway station.
When I met my late husband Harry he was a grocer in a family business on Audley Road which dated back to the 1800’s and was once a Post Office. After our marriage he became owner of the shop that was particularly ‘olde worlde’ with two bay windows, separated by a door with a bell which alerted us to when someone entered. Harry also had a mobile shop and delivered to customers off the beaten track and one or two delivery boys also used the old shop bicycle with a large basket at the front. I even delivered on it myself but more often I was in the shop serving customers. I was always very shy but meeting people in the shop brought me out of my shell. The business was a thriving concern and we had a good standard of life. We had lots of lovely interesting customers and as in those days business people traded with other business people.
Ours wasn’t the only business in Audley Road, it also had a butcher’s shop, Post Office, hairdresser, fish and chip shop, a garage, a blacksmith and a public house, known then as the Railway Inn. Of course we had a regular steam train service at the station which won prizes for the Best Kept Station and also had a newsagent’s kiosk on the platform. On the other side of the station crossing there was also Bands Ironmongers so you can see that part of Alsager was served by every business you required. Audley Road was an immaculate road with well-kept houses with hedges fronting neat gardens and at the back of our shop was a huge open field. Much has changed since our time there in 1957. The field is full of houses and bungalows and Audley Road is very often looking like a car park! I wish I’d taken a photograph of our shop in that year because on one Sunday we returned home to find a car had smashed the front of the shop windows, and following the repairs it never looked the same.