The North Shields Baby Bank, based at St John’s Church Percy Main, in North Tyneside, has helped more than 60 families since its launch in the summer with items including nappies, wipes, clothing and baby formula.Revd Lee Cleminson (see photo) Vicar of St John’s, said: “We’ve all heard of food banks and know what a valuable lifeline they are for people struggling."However, as a result of parents discreetly contacting the vicarage, asking for help, there was a clear need for a similar scheme which supplied basic baby items.“One mother who came to the church for help explained that she was having to choose between charging her electric meter and buying nappies for her beautiful newborn baby boy."She was desperate and said she never, ever thought she’d see herself in this position.”He added that the service was supported by ‘really generous’ donations from the local community. “It is going to be a long hard winter for a lot of people with the rising costs of energy, and new parents are going to be struggling,” he said.One Baby Bank user said: “I was caught out when my baby girl arrived early and as I was discharged from hospital, a local community worker contacted the Baby Bank at St John’s on my behalf as I had nothing. “The volunteers provided me with the most beautiful baby bundle. I was so overwhelmed with what had been done, not only for me but for my innocent baby girl. If it wasn’t for the help of the Baby Bank, I don’t know what I would have done or where I would have turned.” The project secured £4,935 towards the cost of setting up and the initial running costs from a local housing association, Karbon Homes.
The Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell and his wife Rebecca have invited children from the Archbishop of York Junior School, team members from Brunswick Organic Nursery, Jo Ropner, HM Lord-Lieutenant of North Yorkshire and Carole Green, a community champion, to plant trees in the grounds of Bishopthorpe Palace. The tree planting is part of the Queen’s Green Canopy, a UK-wide tree planting initiative created to mark Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee. A digital record of Jubilee planting projects is available online The 12 trees planted in the grounds of Bishopthorpe are ‘Sorbus Sargentiana’. This is a medium sized tree providing year-round interest. Starting with white flowers in late spring and early summer, these are followed by clusters of red fruit, enjoyed by birds, and it finishes with a spectacular show of orange and red foliage in the autumn. Garry O Reagan, Head gardener at Bishopthorpe Palace said: “As custodians of the gardens at Bishopthorpe Palace, we take great pride in their development. Managing the trees in the grounds plays a major part of what we do, not only visually for future generations to enjoy, but also on the enormous impact that this can have on the environment. To celebrate Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee, we have today planted together an avenue of twelve trees, which have been sourced from a local nursery, keeping our carbon footprint down”.Lauren Webb, Director at Brunswick Organic Nursery, Bishopthorpe, a registered charity working with people with learning difficulties, said: “We are thrilled to join in with the Archbishop and others in planting trees to mark the Queen’s Jubilee at Bishopthorpe Palace. Lee has attended Brunswick for many years and he is also employed at the palace and works in the gardens. Whether you’re an individual planting a sapling in your garden, a scout or guiding group planting in the community, or planting an avenue of trees like we have done here today, this initiative is a great way in which to learn more about planting and protecting trees in your local setting.”This Autumn term, Archbishop of York CE Junior School held a poetry competition based on the theme of trees in response to the Archbishop's visit to school where he shared one of his own poems. Acting Headteacher, Sally Sutton said; “There was such a high standard of writing for the poetry submissions which we sent to the Archbishop and he reported that it was really difficult to select winning entries. However, three winners were chosen: Elsa, Oscar and Kamso and they are delighted to be representing our school and planting a tree for future generations to enjoy.”
There’s been much talk of rebuilding of late – building back better, to coin a phrase. Whether it’s the need to rebuild our whole global economy along greener lines, off the back of the COP-26 resolutions passed yesterday; or the need to rebuild our public finances with a levelling-up agenda in mind, following the dual challenges of Covid and Brexit; or the need to rebuild confidence and mental wellbeing in the lives of so many, as we emerge from the worst of the pandemic; or the need to rebuild our church communities after the toughest twenty months of ministry that many of us have ever experienced; rebuilding is the name of the game. Of course there’s another strand of Biblical imagery which speaks of tearing down the walls that divide us – and that could form the basis of a rather different sermon. But for nowlet’s stick with Nehemiah and the imagery of walls as shielding and protective. ‘Come, let us rebuild the wall’. Rebuilding requires both realism and hope: the realism to recognise that something is broken and needs fixing; the hope to believe that fixing it is possible. Rebuilding calls on both the heart and the head: the deep passion which releases fresh energy and enthusiasm for the task; the clear thinking which turns that passion into positive strategies, so getting the job done. Naming the elephants in the room is key to any rebuilding process, because until the elephants are named, complacency will always win out. But simply naming the elephants without offering any solutions or fresh perspectives will equally fail to inspire, leading to the kind of fatalism which – like complacency – results in inaction. Complacency says, ‘Why change? Things are fine as they are’. Fatalism says: ‘Why change? It won’t make any difference’. Common to both is the question, ‘Why change?’So back to our text: ‘Come, let us rebuild the wall’.Nehemiah, the wine-taster to the mighty Artaxerxes, King of Persia, recognised the need for change. He had heard about the terrible state of his Jewish compatriots who had been allowed to return to Jerusalem but found it unprotected and a heap of ruins. The news had shattered him: ‘When I heard these words’, he wrote, ‘I sat down and wept, and mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of Heaven’. There’s no question that from that moment, his heart was fully engaged. But during that vital period of mourning, fasting and praying – a part of the vision process which we omit at our peril – Nehemiah began to recognise the part he could play in answering his own prayers, given his close proximity to the king. For those of us who remember the story of Esther, as I’m quite sure the vicar of this parish does extremely well (!)this was Nehemiah’s Esther moment. His unique position at the king’s side had been granted to him ‘for such a time as this’. Having got the permission of the king to visit Jerusalem, then, we read of his night-time investigation of the state of the wall around it. What was the extent of the brokenness? What needed fixing? How could Nehemiah shake the residents of Jerusalem out of their complacency or fatalism – probably more fatalism than complacency – so that they might build back, even build back better?Later in the book we learn that that was a spiritual question as much as anything: but at this point, Nehemiah needed a direct, practical approach to his fellow Jews. First, he named the elephant in the room: ‘You see the trouble we’re in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burnt’. And then he offered a solution: ‘Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so that we may no longer suffer disgrace’. It was a straight-forward challenge, and it worked: what had seemed a completely impossible task to a whole lot of disparate individuals became a very possible task as they came together under Nehemiah’s inspiring leadership and started working, as our reading puts it, for the ‘common good’. The same would be true of the 11 disciples gathered around Jesus to hear the words of his so-called Great Commission in our gospel reading: a more impossible taskstill, to make disciples of all nations – and yet made possible as they worked together, with the presence and power of the supremely authoritative Jesus inspiring them along the way. I love that ‘us’ in Nehemiah’s words – ‘Come, let us rebuild the wall’. No words of blame there, no questioning of why the inhabitants of Jerusalem hadn’t got off their backsides earlier, no ‘them and us’. Just ‘us and us’ and a cheerful invitation: ‘Come, let’s get going together on the rebuilding work, on this exciting new venture of faith’. And as we begin this new triennium of Diocesan Synod, at a time when rebuilding is the name of the game, there’s much here to challenge and inspire us. For one thing, there’s the challenge of naming the elephants in the room – that in amidst many wonderful examples of church life at its best across the diocese, our congregations as a whole are still shrinking just a little and ageing just a little year by year, and Covid has probably accelerated that process a little further. Meanwhile the morale of many has taken something of a battering, andleadership isn’t easy when some whom we lead remain deeply cautious and others are living as though the threat of Covid is firmly behind them.Next there’s the encouragement here to pray (with mourning and fasting as appropriate!) in the recognition that unless the Lord builds the house, we labour in vain who build it; butequally that with God all things are possible. Prayer helps to engage the heart – but also opens up the head-space to think more clearly and move forward with strategic intent. And here’s where Nehemiah’s night-time expedition (or a daytime equivalent) naturally follows: carefully investigating the state of the wall, so as to see just where it’s broken and what might be needed to fix it.Working independently at the next stage is unlikely to achieve very much. A strong ‘them and us’ narrative – whether ‘them’ is the rival parish next door or that strange, amorphous bureaucracy called ‘The Diocese’ – is only going to hamper our efforts. Instead, the message is ‘Come, let us rebuild the wall’: us and us, not them and us; and it’s that message, in a sense, that encapsulates the vision for all that we’re seeking to do through the work of the Diocesan Synod over the next three years. And so members of this Synod will be feeding our thoughts and prayers into rebuilding strategies like the renewal of Transforming Church, Transforming Lives, our Health and Viability programme and the Parish Needs Process. We’ll be looking at how we invest in those strategies, though the annual budget cycle and some longer-term financial thinking. We’ll be seeking a way forward in areas of church life where relationships are strained, especially in the area of human sexuality; and we’ll even be seeking to play our tiny part in restoring our broken eco-system through a radical reduction of our carbon footprint. These are real grounds for hope here, even as we seek to grow the church against the odds. As recently as 2019, we saw an increasing numbers of weekly worshippers across the diocese, and a rather marked increase in the number of children and young people engaged in our church communities. And yes, a lot has happened since then, with both the challenges and the opportunities that Covid has thrown up for us. But now’s emphatically the time to step up, not give up. It’s all put rather beautifully in the verse of hymn that many of us will have sung two weeks ago:And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,Steals on the ear the distant triumph-song,And hearts are brave again and arms are strong. Alleluia. Or, as Nehemiah put it once more, ‘Come, let us rebuild the wall’.
