Sermons from Sunday 14th February 2016 Now Available for Download

Sunday 14th February 2016 

11.00 am 

Series: Travelling with Jesus and the whole church towards the cross

Rev Hennie Johntson

Jesus is tempted - and us?

Luke 4: 1-13
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Sunday 14th February 2016 

11.00 am 

Series: Travelling with Jesus and the whole church towards the cross

Gill Reeve

Jesus is tempted - and us?

Luke 4: 1-13

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All sermons are available to download here http://www.stmarkssaltney.org.uk/Sermons.htm

Pioneer Curate’s Blog February 2016

February 2016

Yesterday, I did a funeral visit. As always, it was a privilege. As always, it hurt. As always I left it tired and drained. As always, it provided a wonderful moment to step into someone’s home and bring Jesus with me into this person’s life and often them care and hope.

Regularly, the phone call or email comes: Are we able to provide a funeral either at church and the crematorium, or just the crematorium. One of the clergy steps forward. We find out the name, the age, place of death, relationship of the person organising the funeral, the address, the phone number. We receive a small window into their life before we even meet them. The prayers begin, the heart prepares itself to pick up the phone: ‘Hello, this Rev Jonathan Phillips, I am ringing to talk to you about the funeral for …’ Sometimes you don’t get to the end of the sentence as they anticipate the call. Sometimes, there is a pause and a deep breath. A short conversation is had with some words of compassion but mostly of arranging the day and place to meet and discuss the funeral of their loved one.

Then there is the visit. Sometimes the place of the visit is the home of the person who has passed away and you sit surrounded by photo’s of their life. Sometimes it is tragic as you find out that the person was not loved, a life not appreciated. But often, it is a joy, as photo’s are pulled out, stories shared, tears shed. Family members come and go, make you tea and for that small moment you are a part of their lives, you are real to them and you care for them and carry them for the duration of the meeting. I offer them the wonderful ‘bereavement booklet’ which is offered by the bereavement team for follow up care which is often gratefully received. Having discussed the details of the service, written notes for the tribute, made records of hymns, names of the family, tunes, songs and poems I offer to pray. In that moment the situation changes and there is stillness in the room and nearly always tears are shed as we talk to our Father in heaven who desperately wants to embrace us and hold us in His arms and comfort us. We say, Amen. We shake hands and part ways till the service.

Then the service. They are not the same. The weight of the situation is upon their shoulders. I am robed. I am ‘priest’ in this situation where I care for them, carry them and comfort them, that for this time, they are in my hands knowing that they can trust me to care for their loved one as we say thank you and goodbye. The service is short but full. The liturgy speaks through the ages, of the God of mercy and the hope of all who know Jesus as their saviour. We say goodbye. I bow to the coffin and walk out of the crematorium. The family pause, they sit and then, gently and lovingly they are beckoned by the funeral director to begin to depart. The shake my hand, hug me, or just walk on by. I say my final goodbye and remind them that I am there for them when they need me.

As a Pioneer Minister, you are often not expected to do as many funerals as the traditional curate/vicar. But I would not be without this ministry. In many ways our funeral ministry takes up a lot of time, but it is deep in the community and a beautiful offering of care that we still provide. After this month of prayer and as we step into Lent – we are re-envisioning our ministry and call as the church of Lache, Saltney and Saltney ferry. Honestly, I did not start my calling with a vision for doing funerals. I needed to step back, to pray and allow God to re-envision me – to call me to this ministry. Never in my life would I have seen this as part of what I do … but I love it, I deeply hear God’s call to funeral ministry. 

May I encourage you at this important juncture in the life of St Mark’s to stop and listen to what God is saying to you! Be brave, be bold and step out into what you think God may be calling you to do. Perhaps it’s a time for a change, perhaps it is time to step up and move deeper into what you are already doing. Allow God to use you in His mighty hands. 

Sermons from Sunday 31st Jan 2016 and 07th Feb 2016 Now Available for Download

Sunday 31st January 2016 

10.30am 

Celebrating what God might be asking of St Mark's

Luke 10: 1-2
Luke 14: 15-24

Rev Hennie Johntson

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Sunday 31st January 2016 

6.30pm 

Celebrating what God might be asking of St Mark's (2)

Luke 10: 1-2
Luke 14: 15-24

Rev Jon Phillips

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Sunday 7th February 2016 

11.00am

Transfiguration

Luke 9: 28-36

Rev Gary Kennaugh

                             

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All sermons are available to download here http://www.stmarkssaltney.org.uk/Sermons.htm

Vicar’s Blog - January 2016

2016 – Another New Year!  ‘Happy New Year’ is a common exhortation on New Year’s day and subsequent days after, as friends and family make contact via various modes of communication ,not having a clue whether their cheerful greeting is appropriate or not!  So at the beginning of 2016 I pray that it will be one where you are very aware of God’s presence in your daily life, whatever the situation you have found yourselves in at the breaking in of this new year, and on into the coming months.
Many of you will know that the ending of last year and beginning of this year has been horrendous for me as I so nearly lost my dearly beloved Chanty, and had to make the decision last week whether to go through with major spinal surgery or have her put down.  I give thanks to God for my wonderful vets (introduced to me when I first arrived by dear Barbara Willson) who had the courage to persuade me to go for the surgery, and at least give her a chance. Today I collected her from hospital near Cheshire Oaks, and as I write, she is fast asleep, and it is the first time I have seen her out of pain since the evening of 27th December.  I know so many of you were praying for her, and I thank you all from the deepest depths of my heart, and if Chanty could speak so would she! Not a great beginning of a new year, but definitely aware of God’s presence throughout.


As I have said in our preaching card, ‘In April 2016 I will have been Vicar at St. Mark’s for five years, and therefore  it seems right to spend the first three months of 2016 seeking God’s will and way for the future vision of St. Mark’s in the local community, city and wider world. We will do this by modelling Jesus’ way of seeking His Father’s will – that of prayer. In January at all services we will give time and space for intentional prayer as we discern ‘Where are we going’?  Do read more about the preaching series from the Preaching leaflet, and pray for what God might be asking of us.

As I visited my Spiritual Director today she encouraged me to hold on to what was so good during Advent and Christmas, and I do thank God for the wonderful services and opportunities of sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ through the Christmas story. Also I want to thank each and every one of you who had the courage to invite someone/or more to one of the Christmas services, and I pray you will know God’s blessing.  Keep praying for those you invited as well, that the seeds sown will be watered by the Holy Spirit.  I was also very much blessed by a book that I read during Advent and Christmas called ‘Journey to the Manger’ by a NT theologian called Paula Gooder. In fact to be honest I only read the last chapter yesterday on the train back from London after dental surgery, which was a reflection on Simeon and Anna  (appropriate as we thought about Anna and prayer last Sunday).

However, as we go into this New Year, hopeful  and expectant,  I want to share a reflection that Paula wrote on Joseph and Mary’s flight into Egypt following the slaughter of the children in Bethlehem. This day is remembered on the 28th December  as the ‘Holy Innocents’, which is also my birthday, and somehow being born in Baghdad has a very poignant meaning to me personally. Also following Jan’s powerful preach on Sunday evening on forgiveness reminding us that forgiveness is a response to what Jesus has done for us, and that it brings freedom from imprisonment, I feel even more strongly that this Word is for us as we move forward into a new promised land. A land of freedom, and not of fear and fetters! I do apologise for the length of this January blog but please stay with me………

Paula says, ‘One of the things about freedom is that, as human beings, we are really very bad at it. No sooner are we free than we find excuses to be slaves again. The Israelites did this in the wilderness – longing to be back in Egypt where they had been slaves, but at least had food. The Galatians too, though freed by Christ, want to submit themselves to a new slavery (Gal 5.1).
And it is with this in mind Matthew’s message becomes even more powerful when Jesus went back to Egypt as a baby, to the place where God’s people were first freed from slavery, so that the whole process could begin again. Like Moses, Jesus came to set us free. Unlike Moses, he came to set us free from everything that enslaves us – not just the Egyptians. Jesus has come to bring us freedom.  Jesus going back as a refugee to Egypt reminds us that, through him we can be free from all that imprisons us, and sometimes it is a slavery or imprisonment that we have ourselves imposed – perhaps through unforgiveness,  deep hurt, or pain that keeps us enslaved as a victim. As Paula reminds us, ‘Jesus ‘came to lead us in a never to be repeated Exodus from all slavery of all kinds. The question we face, she suggests, is whether we can follow Jesus to freedom and keep on following him, so that we do not re-enslave ourselves by what we think or do’.

My prayer for us all in our local community, and for all who worship at St. Mark’s, is that in this year of 2016 we may find freedom, freedom in Christ, to be the person/people, community, city and nation,  that God has called us to be! Made in His image, and called to ‘go and make disciples of all nations’.

‘Loving God and making His love known’

Sermon from Sunday 10th January Now Available for Download

Sunday 10th January 2016 

6.30pm

Jan Ransom

Flame International

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All sermons are available to download here http://www.stmarkssaltney.org.uk/Sermons.htm