Home Deanery Missioner's Newletters Deanery Newsletter - 7th December, 2011
Deanery Newsletter - 7th December, 2011 Print E-mail

Dear friends,


Last Weekend
Our first ever coffee morning in the West end at Gainford on Saturday was a lot of fun and raised £323 for the cause and from there I went to the St. Andrew's day lunch in Winston for a beautiful meal which raised a load of money for the church whilst having a really good time. Thank you to everyone in both churches (and in all our churches in our Deanery - you know who you are!) who see to it that these things take place and do all the hard work!
In church on Sunday I took the final sentence of the reading from Mark 1: 1-8 "I have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit" as the most important theological statement there and expanded on that. If you want to read what I said just click on the following link.  http://revmartinjacques.blogspot.com/2011/12/we-all-have-our-fathers-eyes.html
A new hobby?
Went with a friend back to his place where he has a small recording studio in one of his bedrooms because I said I wanted to try out playing the drums. After just ten minutes he reckoned I was a natural so he asked for a back beat and he improvised lead guitar over the top, and afterwards added a bass line and he put it onto a CD. After just half an hour I have me providing drums to an original track on CD. If I knew it was that easy I'd have taken up drumming years ago.
Next Sunday's gospel reading - John 1: 6-8, 19-28
The theme last week was the Old testament prophets and John the Baptist made his presence felt as representative of all these prophets and how he pointed towards Jesus. This week's advent theme is John the Baptist himself. In the reading from John we encounter some of the themes that I wrote about last week. As much as it might seem that John is ostensibly pointing towards Jesus, most of the piece is concerned with triple underlining
that John is NOT greater than Jesus (Note what I wrote last week concerning their probable great rivalry and the rivalry between their two sets of supporters). Not exactly a hatchet piece but John is put firmly in his place. According to this piece John is not the light, nor is he the messiah, norElijah(!) nor a prophet - so there!!
One of the major differences between what was written by Mark last week is that in John's gospel John the Baptist describes the messiah as "one you do not know" (John 1: 26). A spiritual theme of the gospels is that people are forever trying to know and understand Jesus and always missing the point. Spiritually this is a very interesting and important area for the church. We, all of us, clergy especially, presume to know and understand Jesus perfectly (me included). We see him variously as a dispenser of salvation, a revolutionary leader, spiritual guru, God, healer, and in myriad other ways but we all probably (not me of course - ha ha) only understand partially.  As we prepare for Christmas and dust off our saccharine sweet presentation of the "baby Jesus" we might recall that he made himself known in life in some very surprising and sometimes unwelcome ways. This little baby eventually challenges the religious authorities, wants to overthrow the Temple status quo, offers teaching that sometimes make little or no sense, dismisses his own family, and ends up executed as an enemy of the state. How might he make himself know today I wonder?
Coming up......
Spectacular Christmas Tree Festival at Barnard castle Parish Church. Fifty trees decorated and lit by local community groups and businesses.
Adults £3 Children £1 (includes refreshments)
Thursday 15th Dec : Preview evening (ticketed event contact 01833 637018)
Friday 16th Dec. 4pm - 7pm
Saturday 17th Dec. 10am - 6pm
Sunday 18th Dec. 12 noon - 6pm followed by a service of lessons and carols amongst the Christmas trees at 6.30pm.
But before then......
At Gainford church this Sunday evening - the 11th - at 7.30pm there will be a Carol Concert given by the Gainford Singers together with the Locomotion Boys Choir. Admission £6.00 under 16 free, available at the door on the night.
The Lighter side..
BREAKING NEWS
To save the economy, on 30th December 2011

The PM will announce that he is ordering the
Borders Agency to start deporting old people
( instead of illegals ) in order to lower Social Security
and NHS costs.

Old people are easier to catch, and most will not
remember how to get back home!

RUN, YOU OLD CODGER, RUN!!

Thought for the day I hand over to Rudyard Kipling.

IF you can keep your head when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

The Prayer for Today

 

God be in my head,

and in my understanding;

God be in my eyes and in my looking;

God be in my mouth,

and in my speaking;

God be in my heart,

and in my thinking;

God be in my end,

and at my departing.

 

Love and peace

 

Martin