| June 2006
Dear Friends,
Confirm, O Lord, your servant with your Holy Spirit
In the early church,
baptism and the ‘laying on of hands’ were performed on adult converts
(Acts 8.17;19.6). However, the two acts became separate in the Western
Church as they began to baptise at the Easter Vigil in parishes where the
Bishop was not present.
The laying on of hands by the Bishop then had to wait until
it could be performed later in the sacrament of confirmation.
Confirmation celebrates the presence and work of the Holy
Spirit within us; it also marks full membership of the Church.
At the heart of the this sacrament, as in all sacraments, is
the giving of God’s power, His Holy Spirit.
The Bishop will stretch out his hands towards the
confirmation candidates and prays that they will be given the seven-fold gifts
of the Holy Spirit ( now there’s
some homework for you!)
At the point of Confirmation, the Bishop anoints each
candidate with the Oil of Chrism, which expresses the blessings of Christ and
the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
The Bishop addresses each candidate by name and continues
‘……….. God has called you by name and made you his own’ He then lays
his hand on each, saying, ‘Confirm O Lord, your servant with your Holy Spirit.’
The service of Confirmation this year will be hosted by St
Ann, Belfield. The service is at 7pm on Monday, 3rd July.
Almighty and ever-living God,
you
have given these your servants new birth in
baptism by water and the Spirit, and
have forgiven them all their sins.
Let your Holy Spirit rest upon them: the
Spirit of wisdom and understanding; the
Spirit of Counsel and inward strength; The
Spirit of knowledge and true godliness; and
let their delight be in the fear of the Lord.
Amen
With every Blessing,
Graham
This Month's Readings
June
4th
Pentecost
Acts
2:1-21
John 15:26-27;164b-15
June 11th
Trinity
Romans
8:12-17
John 3:1-17
June 18th 1st after
Trinity
2 Cor.
5:6-17
Mark 4:26-34
June 25th 2nd after
Trinity
2 Cor.
6:1-13
Mark 4:35-41
July 2nd
3rd after
Trinity
2 Cor.
8:7-15
Mark 5:21-43
Services
T hursday 1st
June
10.00am Holy Communion
Pentecost
9.45am Family Service
4th
June
Church service followed by procession of witness through village, commencing
at 11.30am from Railway Street.
Thursday 8th
June
10.00am Holy Communion
Trinity
Sunday
9.45am Holy Communion
11th
June
3.00pm Evensong
Thursday 15th
June 10.00am Holy
Communion
1st Sunday after
Trinity 9.45am Holy Communion and Baptism
18th
June
3.00pm Evensong
Thursday 22nd
June 10.00am Holy Communion
2nd Sunday after Trinity
9.45am Holy Communion
25th
June
3.00pm Evensong
Thursday 29th
June 10.00am Holy
Communion
3rd Sunday after
Trinity 9.45am Holy Communion
2nd
July
3.00pm Evensong
Monday 3rd
July
7pm Confirmation Service, St Ann, Belfield
Butcher Roy!
Our local village butcher, Roy Gledhill, has decided to give
up his business because, having been in the butchery trade since he left school,
he felt that he was now becoming bored with the job and wanted a change.
However after 23 years of successful trading at the bottom of
Huddersfield Road and with a great many loyal customers to serve, he wanted to
keep the shop open and selling meat so as not to let the village down.
After three years of unsuccessfully trying to sell he came up
with the novel idea of contacting the Rochdale Observer to publicise the
fact that he was prepared to give the business away..... provided someone bought
all the equipment, rented the shop and it continued trading as a butchers shop.
The power of the press!
The story was published in the paper and Bryan Lumb from
Waterfoot saw the article, he immediately got in touch, and is to start work in
the shop this week. Brian told the Observer "I am keeping everything
the same, the only thing that is going to change is the face over the
counter"
Welcome Brian!.
Roy, on behalf of the village may we wish you well in your
new career and thank you for supporting the church and school through your
advertisement in our parish magazine and also for your gifts of meat as prizes
at the Village Fair and at many of our other social events.
Fellowship Group
Sadly, Joyce Taylor has recently informed us that the
Fellowship Group have decided to disband due to a lack of new members although
they may get together for the occasional outing.
The group was started by Evelyn Tomline and initially held
their popular monthly meetings in the vicarage. When Stephen retired and he, Ev
and Abigail moved to up their cottage in Cumbria, the group continued under the
leadership of Joyce Taylor. The loss of the use of the vicarage meant that
meetings then took place in church but this was not ideal in the winter months,
and so the January and February meetings were missed out. Recent meetings have
been held at Joyce’s home in Haugh Lane.
The PCC are grateful to Joyce for all her hard work in
organising the meetings, arranging speakers and for keeping the group together.
Christian Aid
June Swift, our organiser for the Christian Aid week
collection wishes to thank all those who carried out the collection and to all
those in the parish who kindly contributed.
Despite the inclement weather we managed to cover most parts
of the village - if you wished to donate and your envelope was not collected
please arrange to get it up to church as soon as possible.
We should then be able to announce the total amount collected in
the next issue of the magazine.
Forthcoming Social Events
This coming weekend we are to celebrate the Queen’s
birthday with a family games night in the school on Saturday 10th June.
The event commences at 7.30pm and it is planned that we are to have a few games
with prizes, a quiz, some music, a licensed bar - in fact something for
everyone.
The hot beef suppers have had to be booked in advance however
it may be possible to come along and pay for admission on the night but
unfortunately without refreshments - please check with Jennifer Barker
Here are a couple of events to put in your diary.
On Tuesday 4th July local historian and wildlife expert,
Alan Marshall, is to give an illustrated talk entitled the ‘Historic use of
local plants’ in the school commencing at 7.30pm.
Then we are awaiting confirmation that the Ashworth Brass
Band will be able to give a summer concert in church on Saturday 15th
July - watch out for posters around the village advertising this event or
further information will be given in the next magazine.
The Last Magazine
We must apologise to most of our advertisers for the
non-appearance of their advertisements in the May edition of the magazine. This
was unfortunately due to me mislaying the master sheets containing the adverts
and not being able to reprint them in time for the magazine to go to the
printers.
However we fared better than the Milnrow magazine who were
unable to publish the magazine at all because their printing machine broke
down!
GRB Quiz Night
On Thursday 25th May the school hall was full for the Guides, Rainbows and
Brownies Quiz Night.
What an enjoyable evening!
The various teams sat around their tables snacking on the
cheese and wine served by the leaders whilst attempting to find the
correct answers to the questions posed by the cunning quizmistress, Susan
Strand.
Church Officers
At the recent Annual Church Meeting and at the subsequent
first meeting of the newly elected Parochial Church Council the following people
were elected:
Churchwardens Mrs June Swift and Mr Edward Taylor
Church Treasurer Mr Garth Fell
PCC Secretary Mrs Jennifer Barker
PCC Chairman Reverend Graham Lindley
PCC Vice Chairman Mr John Smith
Child Protection Officer Mrs Teresa Stott
Independent Examiner Mrs Elizabeth Bagshaw
Electoral Roll Officer Mrs Gillian Smith
Prayers
Bible Sentence
God’s love has been poured into our
hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Romans 5:5
Our Prayers
Risen and ascended Jesus,
in your days on earth you
brought to the world the good news of your saving love.
Give us grace and courage to
proclaim your existence in today’s world through our Walk of Witness,
hymns and prayers this Whitsuntide.
We pray that as we bear our
Christian witness to places of the parish where knowledge of your love may
not be known, or may be ignored, or rejected.
Your Holy Spirit will go with
us.
May it show us how we can
effectively share the "Good News" that we have joyfully received,
to those who are outside the church, so that they may want to try to find
you for themselves.
And guide us Lord, not only to
witness by our words but also by our deeds and example. For the sake of
Jesus Christ our saviour. Amen.
Parish Concerns
v Grant your church strength, wisdom
and right judgement through your Holy Spirit,
v Strengthen our
relationships with Ogden Baptist Church,
v Break through the
darkness of unhappy lives with the light of your restoring love.
Wider Concerns
v Guide all who are seeking direction
for their life,
v Have mercy on all whose
belief has lapsed and help them rebuild their faith,
v Unite all who call
themselves Christians to accept and understand each others differences.
Copyright St Thomas' Church Newhey 2006©
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