St. Peter's, Stockton

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MAY 2013

VICAR’S LETTER

Dear Friends,

 The great festival of PENTECOST (the other name used is WHITSUN) occurs on Sunday 19^th May. We will be holding an “in house” Songs of

  Praise that night at St Peter’s to celebrate. Do come along at 6.00pm to sing favourite hymns.

 Pentecost celebrates the gift and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost,  the first disciples were so inspired that they were transformed from being a group hiding away, to a determined missionary movement,  boldly speaking publicly about Jesus. We read about this in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.

 In church we use the colour red, recalling the tongues of fire that alighted on the  apostles (Acts 2.3).  We also use red as a colour in church when remembering martyrs such as St Peter.   If you saw picture of the recent Conclave that elected Pope Francis, you will have seen the cardinals dressed in red. Cardinals in the Roman Catholic Church wear red robes to remind them that they must be prepared to die for Christianity. They will have prayed to be guided by the Holy Spirit in that election.  We pray for Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin of Canterbury and all church leaders, that they may be guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit.

 The Holy Spirit is the presence of God active in our lives and the world. The Holy Spirit inspires and at times challenges us (well certainly challenges me),  to respond as Jesus would, to express the Love of Jesus in the world today.  The Holy Spirit encourages us to live lives of generosity and thanksgiving, of love and peace.

 St Paul many centuries ago, described the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5.22-23).  The theologian Stanley Hauerwas wrote  If Christians are to survive (or deserve to survive)  in a world that has no capacity to acknowledge our created status, they will do so only because our communities are still capable of producing and locating there among us those whose lives are “living prayers”. 

 I am sure  it is the “living prayers” we will have encountered, whose lives radiate the fruit of the Spirit, that have encouraged us in our Christian journey and community. They may not be famous or well known, but their lives speak more eloquently than any words of mine,  about the gift and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

APRIL 2013                                      VICAR’S LETTER

Dear Friends,

 As you may know,  earlier this year I was on a TRAIDCRAFT Meet the People tour of Sri Lanka.  One great surprise on this tour was when we visited the  Anglican Church at Nuwara Eliya.  I was amazed to discover that the organ in that church was from the old Unitarian Chapel in Wellington Street.  The plaque on the organ declared:

 A gem of an organ that served Stockton-on-Tees Unitarian Church, England from 1895 to 2005. May the music bring joy to Holy Trinity Church.

 In addition to seeing ancient ruined cities and elephants, we also visited the areas rebuilt  after the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami devastated parts of the coastland. It was a very sobering experience to be standing on the walls of the old fort in Galle: if you had been on the walls  you would have been safe, while the cricket ground and bus station just outside the walls were destroyed by the force of the water that day.

 One of the main purposes of the visit was to visit some of the Fair Trade producers who supply TRAIDCRAFT (a company based in Gateshead).   We saw the effect that Fair Trade had had on a tea planation, where the workers chose to use the fair  trade premium to support a school on the estate.  Another supplier was also building a new secondary school because of the fair trade support.

 The final company we visited was Gospel House. As the name suggests, this was founded - 20 years ago -  by one of the Christians on the island. (Christians are about 7% of the population of Sri Lanka). He was concerned about unemployment among those with few if any qualifications. They make toys for export to TRAIDCRAFT and other companies such as TEARFUND.  We have acquired some of those toys for the Toddler Praise (Mondays at 9.30am at St Peter’s), and a second set for the Baby and Toddler Group (1.30pm on Fridays at All Saints’).

 The founder’s son, now runs GOSPEL HOUSE and he said – If you have no qualifications, that is your qualification to come here.  The whole trip gave me a lot to ponder. It struck me that his phrase summed up the Gospel message - we are accepted by God without Qualification.   God  accepts us as we are.

 Easter challenges us with a new beginning, a new start. It is a time of hope because God accepts us as we are.

MARCH 2013

VICAR’S LETTER

Dear Friends,

 GENEROUS GOD is not a form of words we use in our prayers in Church. We are much more likely to use the phrase Almighty God.  Words are important.  Maybe the phrase we use in our prayers, says a lot about how we imagine and describe God. Is God an Almighty Lord (King of Kings, Lord of Lords),  or do we also consider that God could be pictured as Generous or as Vulnerable?  

There is something extraordinary to ponder about  the generosity of God:

who has created this world,

who accepts us who are failures and sinners,

and who comes to us in humility and vulnerability,

in the person of Jesus.

 Over Holy Week we are confronted with that absolute commitment of God for us.  In the words of the famous hymn Praise to the Holiest:

                                  O Generous Love, That he who smote

                                 In man for man the foe

                               The Double agony in Man

                               For man should undergo.

 How do we respond to that costly generosity?   What follows comes from a pamphlet issued the Diocese of Oxford, but is worth reflecting on and praying.

 We have an abundantly generous God. Jesus’s death on the cross was the ultimate demonstration of that generosity. How do we as Christians respond? Giving is an outworking of our faith. It’s all about living generously, something that’s at the heart of our ‘Living Faith’ vision. Generosity is part of our disciple­ship; it’s how we make a difference in the world, and it’s an indication of the vibrancy of our Christian communities.

 Generous God

you give us so much.

Every breath is a gift,

every sight, sound, taste and touch;

every friend and loved one.

Teach us now to respond to such abundance

with love and imagination

and to share your generosity with a needy world

through a servant Church.

May ours be a ‘living faith’

that makes a difference in the lives of others

through the extravagant love

of Jesus Christ our Lord.    Amen

SHEPHERDS DENE –PARISH WEEKEND 14 – 16 SEPTEMBER 2012

Eleven members of our Congregation journeyed to Shepherds Dene for our Parish Weekend.  We were very fortunate to have Revd. Canon Stephen Cherry, a Residentiary Cannon of Durham Cathedral, to lead us.  The theme of the weekend was ‘TIME’.  During our time together we tried to answer the question ‘what is time?’ whilst reflecting on the modern disease of ‘Busyness’.

During one of the workshops one of the Groups produced a modern day version of the Bible passage ‘A time for everything’ (Ecclesiastes 3.1-8) which is reproduced below.

An enjoyable time was had by everyone at the weekend spent in beautiful surroundings. Why not consider going next time?

 Elizabeth Stout

 TIME

                 A time to do nothing and a time to be organised;

                a time to talk and a time to be silent;

                a time to look forward and a time to remember;

                a time for oneself and a time to party;

                a time to travel and a time to stay at home;

                a time for giving and a time for taking

                a time to be taught and a time to teach;

                a time for anger and a time for patience;

                a time to eat and a time for fast;

                a time to reflect and a time to experience;

                a time for tact and a time for assertion;

                a time to scold and a time to hold back;

                a time to speed up and a time to slow down;

                a time to change the things we can and a time accept

                the things we can't               

                and have the wisdom to know the difference;

                a time to dream and a time to achieve dreams;

                a time to start and a time to finish;

                a time to be first and a time to be last.

SEPTEMBER 2012

Vicar’s Letter

Dear Friends,

Over the past few months, we have heard of more and more problems in the British Banking sector - from problems with processing payments, through to stories that a small minority of bankers fixed interest rates for their bank’s financial advantage.   This has undermined confidence in banks.

As you may know, there is to be a Parliamentary Commission into Banking Standards, and the Bishop of Durham is to be a member of that commission. The Bishop’s experience of working in finance in the oil industry before ordination, and his writing and teaching on business ethics will be used in this enquiry.  In a recent newspaper interview, the Bishop described how (before ordination) he was challenged to think what it  meant to be  an ethical oil company executive. Please remember the Bishop  in your prayers, as he contributes to this Parliamentary Commission.

What does it mean for us to be ethical in our behaviour? How does money influence us?

A recently published book by Michael Sandel   entitled What Money can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of the Market considers this. The example that struck me was of a Nursery which responded to a problem with parents turning up late to collect their children, by introducing fines.  The result?  Late pick-ups of children increased not decreased.  More and more parents turned up late and paid the fine,  because the parents regarded the fine as an acceptable  fee for extra child care.

The author argues that a fear of disapproval, of doing the wrong thing was stronger than mere cash.  The nursery tried to return to the old system and got rid of the fine but it was too late:  a new way of thinking about collecting your children “on time” had taken over.

Of course there are  references to money – including negative comments about the love of money – in the New Testament e.g Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have (Hebrews 13.5) Yet do we ensure that is the case?  A retired cleric has commented that over his lifetime of ministry, he’d gone regularly to a spiritual advisor. However not once had any conversation been about how the cleric was using his money, what his priorities were in spending money, where he was investing his money.

The Church of England published this prayer which may help us begin in our reflections about our use of money:

Almighty and everlasting God,
creator of heaven and earth,
who sees into the secret places of our hearts:
make us aware that we stand in your presence when we think and act;
let us not tire of confessing our hidden sins and our tediously repeated failures.
Keep the light of conscience alive in us,
that we might see and love what is good,
prize integrity above success,
and do what we know to be right,
though no-one see us, but you;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.