20~ April ~ 10
Prayer for the Month
Sovereign Lord,
who offer your people reconciliation and forgiveness through the death of your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ,
and a new quality of life in time and into eternity through his return to life;
increase our confidence in you, enable us to live out our experience of your acceptance and our hope for a secure future in our living day by day.
Through Jesus Christ, Amen
*
Northenden Rectory, Ford Lane,
Manchester, M 22 4 NQ
0161 – 998-2615
gsf @ stwilfridsnorthenden . org . uk
Dear Friends,
Once Easter is over, or even before, I expect that an election campaign to be in full swing. As I commented last month, I hope people will vote, and will think through how they vote conscientiously. I will not say how I think people should vote, but later in Concord I will raise an issue which the Church has shown great concern about ~ our treatment of asylum ~ or should it be sanctuary ~ seekers. Of course, Easter itself will get some attention, and there is news of concerts, events, voting systems and other ideas around Northenden.
Details of Easter services are of course included, and we should like to invite you to one or all of them as we celebrate our Lord’s victory over wrong and death. So happy Easter!
So now read on.
Yours faithfully, Greg Forster
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Northenden Farmers’ Markets ~New energy..
The market on 3rd April should be a special do, with extra stalls promised and better publicity, 10am to 4pm. Tell your friends and families, in Northenden and the neighbouring districts. Meat, cheese, fish, vegetables, pies, sweets, coffee and cake, and possibly cards and crafts too … roll up!
Food that is good for you and good for the village.
The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
South Manchester Meeting
There is a meeting for worship
at the Friends’ Meeting House, Wythenshawe Rd.,
at 10.30am every Sunday.
Children welcome. *Details from Roger Hensman, 980-5158.
The main hall and smaller rooms are available for hire;
~ contact Peter Todhunter (Meeting House Warden) 834-5797,
Northenden Players. For details or booking, ring 445-6868
The Players’ next production is from 16th – 22nd May,
Round and Round the Garden, by Alan Ayckbourn
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Easter ! A time for surprises! G. S. F
On the face of it the Christian story is founded on a huge contradiction. Someone is victorious by dying, and as a dead man breaks out into fuller life. Add the conviction that this someone can in fact be described as Son of God, or God on earth, and the surprise is greater and the contradiction more intense; can God die?
If we find this surprising (once we have realised that our familiarity with the story can make it seem normal) then we are not alone. The ancient world was no more credulous than we are. They had their myths of dying and rising gods, but did not tell their stories as history, within living memory. Even as convinced a believer as St.Paul could concede that he could be mistaken, and if so was both to be pitied, and also guilty of misrepresenting God. (see I Corinthians ch. 15 v 15-19) He remained convinced, however. Those verses are followed by a very firm assertion; “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead,” and are preceded by a list of the eye witness evidence to Christ’s resurrection, cited at a time when most of the witnesses were still around to be put in the witness box.
A couple of generations later another Christian teacher, called Tertullian, put the argument this way; “I believe because it is unbelievable.” In other words, no one would have invented a new religion based on such claims if those claims were not backed up by solid evidence. Don’t let anyone dismiss your faith on the grounds that it’s a story put about by people who believed half a dozen impossible things before breakfast. Their heads were screwed on as tightly as anyone’s today, but they accepted the evidence of their own eyes ~ or of the apostles ~ that Christ had indeed come through death, victorious.
But this is not just a set of historical facts. It is a history which is there to affect the way we live our lives. Firstly there is the sad and hard side. Again, don’t try to gloss over the sombre experience of Christ’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem ~ a city which was bent on its own ruin, and which dragged him down into the dust of death in the course of that. He faced that head on, and understood that through his death he could draw the poison from that ruin, at least for people who identified themselves with him. And if that applied for tragedy then, it continues to do so. Far from it being impossible for a prophet to suffer (as Muslims believed, when they edited the story of the crucifixion to see Christ whisked away from it.) or for God himself to share in suffering. On the contrary, God knows and understands suffering from within, and took the rap for a world which involves suffering and heartache.
But in doing this, we believe, he sapped the strength of death and evil and disaster. “Christ shared our human nature,” the writer to the Hebrews tells us, “so that through death he might destroy the power of death and release those in lifelong bondage to the fear of death.” Death is strong and fearful ~ but God in Christ is stronger.
But the second half of the history is Easter. Christ went through death; he did not get whisked away from it. He came out on the other side more alive than ever. His story, then, is a promise of hope, which we can read on two levels. The first is the perhaps obvious one, of individual hope of a life beyond death, as real, or more real than the physical bodily life we now know and enjoy, yet as different and transformed as a flower is from the seed which grew it (Again see I Corinthians ch. 15). But the other level is a promise of God’s encouragement and support in the troubles we face in the here and now. Whether it is a personal tragedy, or social gloom, it is not the end, and it is not the last word. We can look for God’s little resurrections in the downs and ups of daily life. “Where there is despair, let me live, and bring, hope.”
Northenden Methodist Church.
Palatine Road. Minister: the Revd. David Bown,
5 Kenworthy Lane, Northenden, M 22 4 JF
0161 998 – 2158
Services.
Good Friday, April 2nd 10.30am Meditation
Apr. 4th Easter Sunday
11.00am Holy Communion, the Rev. Malcolm Purdy
6.30pm United Service at St.Wilfrid’s Church.
11th 11.00am Mr. Duncan Rutter
18th 11.00am Mrs. Olivia Tu-ihalamaka
visiting from Tonga.
25th 11.00am Mrs. Margaret Parker
May 2nd 11.00am Morning Worship
6.30pm United Service at St.Wilfrid’s Church
Saturday 3rd Apr. Coffee Morning
and decoration of the church for Easter.
Community Lunch …
… Wednesday 7th Apr., from 12.00 – 1.30pm
For this month only the lunch will be on the first Wednesday.
Fun Bingo will probably be on Sat. 24th April,
from Noon till 2.00pm ~ listen out for the details.
In Memoriam … Mrs. Ruby Davies.
We were all upset to learn of Ruby’s sudden and untimely death on Feb. 15th. She had enjoyed a happy time with her family on the previous day and was visiting her sister when she collapsed and all efforts to resuscitate her failed.
Because of her gentle and unassuming nature it is only since her death that we have fully realised just how much she did for everybody, and for the church particularly. Ruby will be remembered with affection by everybody who knew her. The number who attended her funeral on March 5th was evidence of this.
We send our sympathy to all her family who will miss her very much, as we do. J.B.
St.Wilfrid’s Church,
Ford Lane. (Off Church Rd.)
Rector: Greg Forster (998-2615)
Organist: Arthur Mellor (928-0472)
www . stwilfridsnorthenden . org . uk
Services, &c.:
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There is a “Sunday Club” for 7 – 11+ year olds meeting in the Rectory at 10.30am, for about an hour, …
… and “Scramblers”, for children from 3½ to 6+, meets in the Church Hall from 10.30 till about 11.30am …
… except (in both cases) on Family Service Sundays.
Communion on Sundays at 8.00am
and on Thursdays at 10.00am
Maundy Thursday, 1st April; 7.30pm
The Lord’s Supper ~ a bread and wine party.
Good Friday, 2nd April; 10.30am
St. John’s Passion story ~ readings & hymns.
Easter Sunday, 4th April; 10.30am
Family Communion
6.30pm United Evening Worship for Easter.
Sun. 11th 10.30am Holy Communion
6.30pm Evening Worship
18th 10.30am Holy Communion & Baptisms
6.30pm Evening Worship
25th 10.30am Holy Communion (shortened)**
6.30pm Evening Worship
May 2nd 10.30am Family Communion
6.30pm United Evening Service at St. Wilfrid’s
Drop in … 2.00pm – 5.00pm.
St.Wilfrid’s church is open each Sunday
for prayer and peace, visiting and just looking round, enquiries about baptisms, weddings, ancestor hunting, … &c.
(except Easter Sunday, 4th April.)
It’s All Happening …, for your diaries …
Note the special Easter season services
on Thurs. 1st Apr. ~ a Bread and Wine party at 7.30pm,
and Fri. 2nd ~ 9 lessons and not exactly carols at 10.30am.
NB on Sat. 3rd: No Chapters, but a special Farmers’ Market.
No bible study in the week after Easter.
Mon. 12th April., 7.45 for 8.00pm. Women’s Group, Rectory.
See panel for details.
Weds. 14th, 21st. 28th. Bible Studies; Rectory, 8.00pm.
(we shall be starting with Isaiah, but probably moving on later)
Sat. 24th Chapters meets the Coffee Morning from 10.00am
Sun. 25th 11.30am approx. Church Annual Meeting (see article)
Thu. 29th Concert in Church ~ LЧЯА, 7.30pm ~ see advert
Tue. 4th May Archdeacon’s Visitation, Stretford, 7.30pm
Mon. 10th Women’s Group, 7.45 for 8.00pm Rectory. Details tba
CHAPTERS @ St. Wilfrid’s Hall
On Saturdays, (except 3rd Apr.) from 10am till noon we are selling second hand books in the Church Hall for St.Wilfrid’s church, so please tell your friends.
On Sat. 17th Brian and Monica Ogden will be running a “table top” sale in aid of an animal charity in Sri Lanka in parallel with the Chapters event.
(Psst! ~ there’s tea cakes too!)
FROM THE REGISTERS;
Baptised, on Sunday 21st March,
Ruby Moira Anderson.
Married in the parish church on Sat. 20th March …
Stacey Leanne Marie Worsley to Steven Paul Bradshaw
In Memoriam …
Liam Eastwood (Bradgate Close) 20,
Eileen Greatbatch (Sale Road) 87,
Mary Houghton (Wythenshawe Rd.) 89.
Women’s Group
Please note that the next two meetings will be on the second Monday of the month to avoid Bank Holidays.
On 12th Apr. Pamela Ross will be offering jewellery for sale, made from “beautiful beads”. Prices start from £3.99 for phone charms ~ up to £30 for Svarowski pearls and crystals. A percentage of what she takes will go to church funds, so come along and sort out those birthday present problems.
Christian Aid Week … Greg Forster
… runs from 9th to 16th May. I shall be contacting previous years’ collectors during April about door to door collections. If anyone else would like to help, please let me know.
Note that collectors carry identity badges; you can ask to see them, and should not give to anyone who does not have one.
This year’s publicity focuses on slum poverty in Kenya, but the collection benefits people in the underdeveloped world right round the globe.
** Annual Meeting. St. Wilfrid’s
This will take place after the morning service on Sunday April 25th (which will be shortened)
Please join us to hear reports on the church activities, finances and premises over the past year, and to vote for members of the PCC, Sidespeople, and Wardens.
I hope that we shall finish business by 12.15pm.
Electoral Roll.
In connection with this meeting the electoral roll, our membership list, is being revised. If you are not on it and wish to be, please ask the Rector or Mrs Eglen for application forms, and get them back by 11th April.
Candidates!
Nominations are invited for 7+ places on the PCC, and for the posts of Churchwarden. Nomination forms will be at the back of church from 11th April.
Magpie …
… A wife invited some people to dinner.
At the table, she turned to their six-year-old daughter and said, 'Would you like to say the blessing?'
'I wouldn't know what to say,' replied the girl, who’d been helping in the kitchen.
'Just say what you hear Mommy say,' her mother answered.
The daughter bowed her head solemnly and said, 'Oh God! why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?'
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… has a bright and shiny rival, just landing on the river bank in the Riverside park. He’s a heron, and he hasn’t got a name yet, but he flew in on 5th March, and looks splendid. He ~ or is he a she? ~ was created by sculptor Phil Bewes using scrap metal and recycled materials, and is there to keep an eye on things. Even his perch ~ a tree stump ~ was rescued from waste. If you haven’t seen him and met him yet, go and have a gander.
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… last month the idea was put forward, and voted on in Parliament, that British General Elections might be organised on a single transferable vote system. This is in fact similar to the way the Church of England already conducts its elections for General Synod. Voters put a “one” by their first choice candidate, a “two” by their next favourite, and so on. If your first choice ends up a no-hoper when the votes are counted, then your second preference is counted (I think with a discounted value) until all the places are filled with people who have some support from more than 50% of the voters. (It is a bit more complicated than that, but you’ll have to find an expert if you want the details! It works fairly, however.)