This Sunday's joint parish Holy Communion service is at St Peter's Church, Hascombe at 10am. We hope you can join us there. If you can't be with us in person you can take part in the service by clicking on this Zoom link:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84387771148?pwd=Uzkvc1ZIWkFOcHRYWXJLaVgwNWZKdz09Meeting ID: 843 8777 1148Passcode: 135371
To mark International Day of People with Disabilities today (December 3rd), Christians in the Church of England in Greater Manchester and Rossendale who live with different disabilities share very personal stories on video about how they have found a welcome in the Church of England and been encouraged to fulfil their Christian calling.In a series of short films released today, (please click on link to watch the films) a diverse group of Christians who are training for ministry in the Church of England, or who already serve as clergy, tell their stories in moving and honest accounts.In the five films we hear from ordinands, who are studying at theological colleges, a serving member of clergy and a retired minister who lost his sight as an adult. Each contributor has something to say about how people who have experience of living with a disability, either personally or within their family, can flourish in the Church.Helen Tyler, who was diagnosed with dyslexia just as she started discerning her calling to ordained ministry and was worried about the training, said:“I realised ‘I can’t fix this. This is all part of me – it’s who I am – and I’ve got to learn to try and embrace it. I am still on that journey.’”Helen had this advice for someone in a similar situation: “Know your strengths, but also, be aware of what you struggle with and don’t be afraid or embarrassed to ask for help because there are people out there who are willing to help you.”Canon Nick Smeeton, Director of Vocations in the Diocese of Manchester, commissioned the films. He said: “As part of our ongoing work to encourage and enable everyone to fulfill their vocation in the Church, we wanted to hear from individuals who have experience of living with any type of disability, either themselves or within their family, as they pursue their calling. We are very grateful to the men and women at various stages in the discernment process who have volunteered to tell their stories on camera.“We are challenged and will continue to do more to encourage vocations from as diverse a group of people as possible.”The five films are published to mark International Day of People with Disabilities on 3 December 2021. Further films will be added to the series in the coming weeks.View the videos at www.manchester.anglican.org/disability-and-vocations
If the Lord had not been on our side’, let Israel say, ‘then the raging waters would have swept us away’”… It’s an arresting start to one of the ‘Songs of Ascent’, sung by pilgrims as they made their way to the Holy City; and the imagery in Psalm 124 – of feeling attacked, swallowed alive, engulfed, trapped – continues to resonate nearly three millennia after the song was first written. Underlying the Hebrew here is the word ‘Emmanuel’, though couched in the negative: ‘if God had not been with us, then imagine what would have ensued!’. But God has been with them, is the message of the Psalm, so that real disaster has been averted. ‘And let’s celebrate that together’, adds the Psalmist, as he encourages all Israel to join the song. It’s an important message, not least with the gloom surrounding the announcement of an omicron variant of Covid-19 and all the ensuing challenges faced by our churches, schools and businesses. How many more letters in the Greek alphabet will become common parlance, we wonder, before this wretched pandemic is behind us? In response, there’s no promise of an easy life here, but the prospect of both hope and help in the midst of our struggles and difficulties. And where better place to start this Advent than in joining together in another song – the one that starts, ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel’? Every BlessingBishop Andrew
