Priory News, March 2007

Deeping St James Parish Church Magazine

Photographs of some parish events are available in our Photograph Album elsewhere on the site

To:

• Scripture readings for Sunday
• Archive of past editions of Priory News
• Cooking with Margaret

Sonia Marshall

To see your reading in advance without having to mark your bible pages, you can copy your reference and paste it into the recently-improvedoremus Bible Browser (or type in your reference) and print out the reading. The translation used in church is the New Revised Standard Version, which is the default version on oremus.

4th March, 2nd Sunday of Lent:

• Morning: Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18; Philippians 3: 17 - 4: 1; Luke 13: 31-end
• Evening: Jeremiah 22: 1-9, 13-17; Luke 14; 27-33

11th March, 3rd Sunday of Lent:

• Morning: Isaiah 55: 1-99; 1 Corinthians 10: 1-13 (08:00 only); Luke 13: 1-9
• Evening: Genesis 28: 10-19a; John 1: 35-end

18th March, 4th Sunday of Lent:

• Morning: Joshua 5: 9-12; 2 Corinthians 5: 16-end; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-end

25th March, 5th Sunday of Lent:

• Morning: Isaiah 43: 16-21; Philippians 3: 4b-14; John 12: 1-8

Home Groups

• Bible Study: Fridays at 10 am at 91 Manor Way
• House Group: Every Wednesday, 7.30 pm at 45 Crowson Way - Everyone welcome

Priory Prayer Group

Owing to circumstances, the Priory Prayer Group has, for the time being, ceased its regular fortnightly meetings.
We must pray to our Lord that a way will be found for it to again provide the parish with a power house of prayer.
Bernard Babb

Notices

CHURCH FLOWERS

I am sure you will all agree that the Church looks wonderful when it is decorated with flowers.

The rota for 2007 is now on the notice board and there are a few vacancies. If anyone would like to commemorate a loved one's birthday or anniversary, this would be a good way to do so.

If you are not able to arrange the flowers yourself, be it for a window sill, the altar or a small pedestal, then Pauline or I would be pleased to help. We will be delighted to hear from you and you can contact Pauline or myself on 343829 and 345368 respectively.

Christine Masters

Saturday Lent Lunches

12:00 noon -1:30 pm, minimum donation £1.50, all profits to anti-hunger Christian charities

• 24th February: Roman Catholic Church, Hereward Way
• 3rd March: Open Door Church, Spalding Road
• 10th March: St Guthlac's, Market Deeping (at the Green School)
• 17th March: Methodist Church, Church Street, Deeping St James
• 24th March: Deeping St James Priory Church (at the Church Hall)

All are welcome: bring your family and friends!

Everyone welcome

The Priory Church Mission Committee is holding the following event to raise funds

EASTER CRAFT FAIR

10 MARCH 2007 - 1OAM to 4PM
in the Church Hall

This is being run by the church Mission Committee to help raise funds for their work - at present we are helping to provide food for the hungry and homeless on the streets of Peterborough.

All the tables have now been taken; there will be a good selection of crafts from across the district - wood-turning; hand-painted glass and china; childrens fancy dress costumes; handmade evening bags; jewellery; paintings; greetings cards; homemade preserves; old prints of local areas - to name just a few!

There will be no admission charge but we are holding a raffle and already some good prizes have been donated for this.

All-day refreshments will be availabe - soup, wraps, rolls (who can resist one of George`s bacon rolls?) and cakes and biscuits in addition to softs drinks and tea and coffee.

Please help to spread the word about this event (if you can display a poster please contact me) and, of course, try and come yourself. It will be an ideal opportunity to buy a special Easter or Mothers Day card or present.

SOCIAL COMMITTEE DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

• Lent Lunch Saturday 24th March
• Christian Aid Lunch. Sunday 13th May
• Musical Evening Saturday 14th July

Confirmation

The Bishop of Grantham will be visiting us on Sunday 29th April for a 6pm Deanery Confirmation service. All adults and young people who are thinking about being confirmed are asked to speak to the clergy, please, in order to arrange confirmation preparation sessions.

You may have decided this is defintely for you, or you may just be thinking very vaguely about the possibility, but if you are at all interested, please see us and we shall begin classes at a suitable time for everyone who is interested in the second week of March. Anyone who will be 10 years old or more (no upper limit!) by 29th April can be included, and you can always change your mind at any time.

The services on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Day, incidentally, are in themselves an excellent preparation for confirmation, so do try to come to as many of those as possible (but we shall not be keeping a register!).

The Kingdom of Heaven is like………………..?

A Celebration of Parish Ministry
May 12th 2007 at 10:30am
Lincoln Cathedral

A date for your diary
All are welcome to attend this celebration of Parish Ministry
Further information will follow shortly

New Electoral Roll Preparation

The Parish Church's annual meetings take place as usual this April: this year on 23rd, St George's Day. Details will be printed in the April Priory News and will be available in church.

Only those on the Church Electoral Roll are permitted to attend, speak at and vote at the Annual Parochial Church Meeting, and this year a completely new Roll is being prepared. The preparation takes place from Saturday 10th March until Saturday 31st March and everyone who wishes to be on the Roll must apply within that time whether or not they are on the existing Roll: no names may be carried over. A plentiful supply of forms will be available in church before and during the period of preparation, and anyone who is unable to get to church can ring and ask for a form to be brought to their home for completion.

The new Roll will be displayed in church as required by law from 4th April to allow any corrections to be made in time for the APCM but no more names can be added to it until after the meeting, so it is important to ensure that you apply in good time.

Apart from the "democratic" importance of being on the Electoral Roll, the Roll is the only membership list we have, so if you are not on it you may quite possibly miss out on things by not having your name and address listed. So please do sign up. It is not a long or difficult form to complete and will make your membership of the local church complete.

Spalding Christian Bookshop

Our aim is to stock high quality Christian products including books, cards, CDs, DVD's, computer software, church supplies, youth and children's resource material and crafts. The shop will also include a small coffee area which will serve a selection of cakes and drinks. It is hoped that we will be able to create a tranquil and welcoming environment for people to browse, buy and discover resources that will help them on their Christian journey.

This is a small town with many churches and we would welcome your support in this venture. Over the next few weeks we will be inviting you and your congregation to the open evenings we will be holding giving you the opportunity to have a look round. Refreshments will be provided on these evenings.

We are hoping to establish a link person within each church to ensure good communication as your advice and support will be invaluable to us in terms of the items, books, materials that you would like to see stocked. We would also like to discuss the possibility of your church opening or stocking your existing in-church bookstall through the bookshop. Discounts will be available to in-church bookstalls and on large purchases.

We would be grateful for the opportunity to meet with you or congregation, our bookshop manager David Sandhu will be near future to arrange mutually convenient time.

I had this little story sent to me in an anonymous email - As I work with the mentally and physically impaired it seemed to throw a new light on my job and perhaps life in general........ Dave

Chinese Philosophy??

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole, which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water, at the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house."

The old woman smiled, "Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side?" "That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house."

Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.

To all of our crackpot friends, remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path!

News from Explorers, Climbers and Scramblers

We have been looking at 'Jesus the Friend' and examined the stories of people whose lives were changed when they met Jesus and experienced his care for them. First of all we studied some of the questions which Nicodemus asked Jesus when he visited him at night. Jesus referred to the time when Moses lifted up a snake on a pole in the desert and anyone who looked at it was cured of snake bites. In the same way Jesus is lifted up so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. Explorers made pitta bread snakes to remind them of this. It was the turn of Climbers and Scramblers to be in the kitchen when they made heart shaped biscuits the Sunday before St Valentine's Day. Our story was about Jesus meeting the Samarian woman by the well, knowing all about her, and caring about her. Jesus showed his compassion when he healed a nobleman's son and this inspired the children to make 'Get Well' cards to give to anyone they knew who was poorly.

Good Friday is on the 6th April this year and we are expecting about 60 children to come to the Children's Service and then enjoy the Activities in the Church Hall (booking essential!) which our Children's Leaders are providing. If you can help us, please, by donating any of the following we would be most grateful. Just leave in the labelled box at the back of Church or bring to the Vicarage, please.

• - sequins & ribbon
• - greenery (small and not poisonous) for arrangements
• - Cadbury's Creme eggs (or equivalent - it's the size that matters!!)
• - packets of mini eggs, including foil wrapped
• - small old towels
• - Old shirts (small gents)

Many thanks. We do hope that as many of the congregation of the Good Friday Service as possible will be able to join us in the Hall afterwards for 'Seasonal Refreshments'.

Explorers (7 - 11), Climbers (5 - 7) and Scramblers (under 5) are on holiday now but will meet again on Sunday 11th September at 9.50am in the Church Hall. New members are always welcome. Please contact Andrea (Climbers and Scramblers) on 344926 or Alison (Explorers) on 345890 for more details.

News From The Tower

The ringers and their guests, a party of 20, held their annual dinner at the Rose Inn in Frognall on 26 January, where a good time was had by all present.

Our AGM was held in the ringing chamber on Friday 9th February. Some 13 persons attended this. Various and activities were discussed for the coming year.

Your prayers and thoughts are still asked for Ron Willson, who is still recovering from his illness of last year, and his wife Daphne, who has him at home and is slowly nursing him better.

We understand that young Adam, who has joined the Merchant Navy, is doing very well and has been ploughing the North Atlantic during the winter months. We look forward to him coming back on leave in the near future.

The Priory Project

The Community Hall Regeneration Project steering group is about to submitits application to the Community Buildings Fund of the national lottery. If successful this would deliver most of the funding needed for the ambitious project we have in hand, provided that some match funding is available from other sources, and we are working also on those. The Deeping St James United Charities trustees have generously pledged a very worthwhile sum towards the balance, and there are other national funding bodies which may be willing to make up the rest.

The Community Buildings Fund application, if it gets through to the final stage, will not be determined in time for a start before the summer of 2008, but you may be confident that building will start then if funding is approved, because a start soon after approval is a requirement of the Fund! If it is not approved, then clearly there will be further delays while the next move is considered.

Meanwhile it would help our case considerably to have letter of support from people. We are particularly interested at the moment in hearing from people who have chosen not to use the Hall but who have their meetings elsewhere: what is it about the Hall which made you decide to look for something better, and what improvements would you like to see to make it more suitable for your purposes? Many thanks.

Mark Warrick
Chairman of the Steering Group

BISHOP'S LETTER

"An evil and wicked trade"

As Lincolnshire folk have good reason to know, the Vikings have a lot to answer for. Not least, they were the first to engage in slavery.

Of course, they were not the first to capture people and deprive them of their freedom, but it was when the Vikings did this to the Slavs that the word "slavery" first came into common usage.

For a further thousand years the practice of slavery was widespread in many parts of the world, but it was John Hawkins who has the dubious privilege of being the first English slave-trader in 1562 – he was later knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his lucrative enterprise.

Almost immediately people began to challenge the morality of treating fellow human beings in this way. So in 1612 William Strachey wrote that: "we are taught to acknowledge every man that beareth the impression of God's stamp to be not only our neighbour but our brother".

Yet not until the 1780s, and the Trojan efforts of William Wilberforce, did a concerted campaign for abolition begin to capture the public imagination. It was a campaign the like of which had never been seen before. It was the first time a large number of people became outraged, and stayed outraged, over someone else's rights. Most of the campaigners were motivated by Christian conviction, but it was in fact a broad-based alliance founded upon an ever-growing sense that such inhuman cruelty and degradation could not be tolerated in a so-called civilised society.

On 25th March 1807 the King finally signed the Abolition Bill into law, and this means that we will be marking the bi-centenary on Passion Sunday. This is particularly appropriate because one of the prayers appointed for use on that day goes as follows:

Lord Jesus Christ,
You have taught us that what we do for the least of our brothers and sisters we do also for You:
give us the will to be the servant of others as You were the servant of all.

In New Testament times the words "servant" and "slave" belonged together, and it is salutary to be reminded that we who still benefit from the wealth which slavery brought to these shores are now to bind ourselves to the cause of freedom for the estimated 12 million people who still undergo various forms of slavery in our world today.

There is naught for our comfort in commemorating the slave trade, and much to make us ashamed. But the primary focus must be on a future when all are at liberty to fully reflect the image of God, Whose service is perfect freedom.

+ John Lincoln

St David

A short article about the Patron Saint of Wales and whose cathedral is situated in the smallest city in the world that has a population of approximately 1400.

St David of Wales or Dewi Sant, was a saint of the Celtic Church. He was the son of Sandde, Prince of Powys, and Non, daughter of a Chieftain of Menevia whose lands included the peninsula on which the little cathedral town of St David's now stands. St David is thought to have been born near the present town of St David's. The ruins of a small chapel dedicated to his mother, Non, may be seen near St. David's Cathedral

David became the Abbot of St David's and died on 1st March 589. A.D. An account of his life was written towards the end of the 11th century by Rhygyfarch, a monk at Llanbadarn Fawr near Aberystwyth. Many miracles were attributed to him. One miracle often recounted is that once when Dewi was preaching to a crowd at Llandewi Brefi those on the outer edges could not hear, so he spread a handkerchief on the ground, and stood on it to preach, whereupon the ground rose upbeneath him, and all could hear.

He was buried in what is today St David's Cathedral in Pembrokeshire. His holiness was such that medieval pilgrims equated two pilgrimages to St David's were worth one pilgrimage to Rome - a great saving in journeying at that time! Fifty churches in South Wales alone bear his name.

March 1st , St David's Day, is now the traditional day of the Welsh. March 1 is the date given by Rhygyfarch for the death of Dewi Sant, was celebrated as a religious festival up until the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. In the 18th century it became a national festival among the Welsh, and continues as such to this day.

The celebration usually means singing and eating. St. David's Day meetings in Wales are not the boisterous celebrations of that accompany say St Patrick's Day in Ireland, but that may be because Welsh nationalism is kept in check. The singing of traditional songs followed by a Te Bach, tea with teisen bach and bara brith. Y Ddraig Goch, the Red Dragon, is flown as a flag or worn as a pin or pendant, and leeks are worn, and sometimes eaten. St David's Day is now celebrated by Welsh people all over the world.

This is only an extract from some of our magazine. Residents of Deeping St James can subscribe to the printed version.