Jackie Hockley has reached a notable celebration date

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1 Issue No: 268 THE MESSENGER The Monthly Newsletter of St Michael s, Plas Newton, Chester 25 YEARS OF EXCELLENT ADMIN AT ST MICHAEL S Jackie Hockley has reached a notable celebration date 50p July 2016 Administration! How boring is that? is a sentiment that has become somewhat standard in our modern world, and this same attitude can be found in church life too. We want to add a corrective here. The very word administration carries within it the word ministry. In church life we honour ministry, but so often we limit it to the Minister, or those in a supporting role. We regard ministry in terms of its spiritual content, and see its scope in terms of proclaiming the Word and presiding at Worship. But when we just add the word ad to ministry we make the word into something less honourable. Every church needs a sound ministry of organisation, and so the church office (and this can include the Vicar s study) has to become a place where this is undertaken. It means files and notice sheets, it means phone calls and s, it means rotas and more rotas! It means lost property and stored files and papers. It means photocopiers and computers. It means service registers and banns books. It means a place of conversations and messages and sometimes parish-chat. It means a place of tea mugs and coffee cups. Jackie Hockley has faithfully worked at the helm of all this for the last 25 years. It has been a brilliant contribution to the life of St Michael s church. If any information is needed or wanted, ask Jackie and she may know the answer, but, even if she doesn t, she will certainly know who to ask. So we celebrate two things in St Michael s: the ministry of administration which serves us all, and the dedicated work of Jackie who has faithfully fulfilled this work. And we thank God for both. PS. This magazine which you are now reading is proof-read, collated and stapled each month by Jackie, who also organizes the bundles for their distribution and sale. Confidence in Jesus Invitation for everyone

2 THE VICAR WRITES and 28 August) taking place much more informally in different locations. We will use the Kingsway Café one evening, and are currently investigating other local possibilities. Again, all will be made clear on the summer Sundays leaflet which we will produce in July. Dear Friends A lot of thinking has been going on about how we handle the different needs, hopes and aspirations of our summer Sundays. The one thing that is secure is the 8am Holy Communion Service, which continues on its regular first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. However, we have also been thinking about summer Sundays at 10am, especially in the light of last year s experiment with an additional service at 9am. This year, there will be SIX all-age services at 10am, on 31 July, 7, 14, 21 and 28 August, and 4 September. They really WILL be all age, and we will ensure that there are facilities IN THE SERVICE for very young children so that parents can remain with them in church. We will produce a leaflet in July with more details, and we are currently recruiting some additional help to ensure that this summer, we can come together as the family of God in our Father s presence across the ages to worship, adore and extol God as he deserves. For some years, I have wanted to offer a Holy Communion service at a sensible time in the middle of the week where people can come to hear the Word of God and share the Lord s Supper together. I am pleased to say that this summer we are to have an experimental run of four such services, at 10am on Wednesdays 27 July, 3, 10 and 17 August. The service, which will last about 35 minutes, will be followed by coffee or tea, and biscuits. The aim is to see if this is something that could be maintained on a regular basis going forward. This depends on how well the experiment is received. It will be a modern language service, said, with no singing. Everyone is warmly invited. If you are able to get away for a break during the summer, have a wonderful time and safe travels. Do take the opportunity of meeting with other Christians at Church wherever you go, and send greetings from St. Michael s. In my May letter, I questioned whether or not we would have the 6.30pm services in August this year. Having heard the comments from members of the 6.30pm service, the answer is we will!. They will take a different form this year, with the four Sunday evenings (7, 14, 21 Rob Peters

3 MY LIFE AND MY FAITH Edwin Barker tells his story I am the youngest of four children and born into a Christian family, going to the local Methodist church in rural North Yorkshire, where my parents were both local preachers. opportunity to support work in a Romanian orphanage and enjoyed several trips driving vans of aid over five summers, a fantastic and humbling experience. At 18, I left to do a degree in Civil Engineering at Loughborough University where I attended a Methodist church in the morning and Church of England at night. I was also involved in the University s Christian Union where I was a House Group Leader in my halls of residence. During my degree I took a one year placement with Voluntary Services Overseas to work as a Civil Advisor for Slum Re-development in Mumbai (India). This was a real eye opener as it involved working on several sites across India, including the largest slum in Asia. During this time I attended a Baptist Church and decided the time was right to make a public declaration of faith, and so got baptised. On returning to the UK, I completed my degree and was then given an opportunity to undertake a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering at the University of Birmingham. During that time I attended St John s in Harborne, becoming involved in a house group as well as helping to lead the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme that the church ran as part of their youth group. It was during this time that I had the After Birmingham, I took a job in Railway Engineering in Nottingham, where I attended the Cornerstone Evangelical Church. Here I got involved in a house group and various practical projects. It was during this time that I decided to take a trip with my Dad to Peru with Oak Hall. A fellow traveller (Mel) on this trip caught my attention and at the end of the two week trip exchanged addresses and before long were in regular correspondence. Our relationship blossomed and we married a few years later, upon which I moved to Chester. We have since been blessed with three daughters and while raising young children can be demanding at times, we have both found it very fulfilling. A few years later, I took a job with a train manufacturer in Derby which involved extensive travel, mainly in the Middle East. After a few years of this unusual commute, I decided to return to my previous employer. While for the last two and a half years this has meant commuting to London 3-4 days per week, I am at least home nearly every night to put the children to bed! I have been at St Michael s now for seven years and been very blessed by the warm fellowship and support we have received, as well as enjoying good friendship during this chapter of our lives.

4 Prayer requests from Argentina Many of you will remember that a group of our church members visited Salta and Tucuman in Northern Argentina back in 2008 to support the work being done by our CMS Latin Partner Hugo Vergara and his wife Techi. We were welcomed wonderfully whereever we went, particularly at the three churches that Hugo pastors. St Michael s is continuing to support Hugo s work financially but much more importantly with prayer. In this article I hope to encourage you to join us by regularly praying for Hugo, his churches and their congregations. Hugo has been a full time pastor for 28 years now and will soon be thinking about retirement. Please pray for wisdom for him and that the right person will follow him. San Pablo Church is in the area of Ceferino in Salta. The congregation is small and placed in a very difficult area of the city. Pray for the group of women who faithfully meet to pray and seek to be light in this very dark area. The other church in Salta is San Andres and recently they had a lunchtime meeting for married couples. They were very encouraged as 15 new couples attended, most of whom were new to the church. Pray that they will become regular members of the church and get to know our Lord. It is planned that Hugo and Techi will repeat these meetings in La Gracia, the church in Tucuman, as well. Hugo has asked us to pray for Pastor Miguel in Principe de Paz Church where he needs much wisdom and grace while working through difficult issues there. I hope these few words will encourage you to hold Hugo and Techi in your hearts and pray for them and their work regularly. Garry Scargill Out and About... In early June a party went from St Michael s and enjoyed a lovely Saturday visit to the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, in Liverpool.

5 Kingswood is just coming up to its first birthday. Built on the former site of Woodfield Primary School, Kingswood, is a retirement community based within St Michael s Parish and only 500 yards from the church. The building has 83 individual apartments where residents live independently. It has been specifically designed to cater for people in their senior years and Kingswood Retirement Living A community that s keeping active and making new friendships those who may have physical disabilities. There are no steps to negotiate. There are automatic doors to enter the building and each resident has their own unique electronic key giving them access to both the building and their own apartment. Resident s facilities include communal gardens, a TV lounge, a small meeting room, a treatment room, a garden room, and a craft and hobby room. Added to this there is a laundry and a reading room/library. There is a guest bedroom available for visitors. Outside, there is a greenhouse and a number of raised flower/vegetable beds for those with green fingers. Some Kingswood facilities are accessible and available to everyone in the wider community, these include: the Terraced Bistro, the hairdressers and a community hall which is available to hire. Currently Slimming World is using the hall each Monday. In recent months Rob and Alison Linfield have been holding a short communion service in the lounge. So far these have been attended by eight residents. The format includes a couple of popular hymns, a message for the day, a period of prayer, and the communion itself. The service takes about half an hour and then Rob and Alison join the residents in the bistro for a cup of tea and a chat. One outcome from these communions has been that it has brought together residents who may have had little contact with each other beforehand and now find that they share a Christian faith. Through activities like this new friendships are being made by people, many of whom may have previously lived alone for many years. This process has taken some time because many have not made new friends for quite a while. Many Kingswood initiatives and activities have been organised by the residents themselves. Particularly successful has been the Supper Club which is held every month. There is also a gardening club, which has been so successful that the more industrious and knowledgeable residents have proved more than a match for the contracted gardeners. Along with the residents, John Wynne who is the Manager, Age UK, and Swettenham s, our local Pharmacy, have put together a full calendar of events so that most week days the residents can find something going on. In recent months Rob and Esther Peters have been meeting occasionally at the Bistro with other St Michael s members for their Sunday Lunch. On Sunday 7 th August, St Michael s is planning to hold a Songs of Praise service in Kingswood s gardens. This will be a great opportunity for St Michael s to make new friends with the residents of Kingswood. Look out in the church notices for further details.

6 ADVENTURE OF A (MID) LIFETIME Ella and Jon Sharples tell an unusual story Approaching 50, having spent 20 years in church leadership and with our four children grown and flown, we took the decision to Sabbath: to take time to discern God s leading and his invitation to us as individuals for what lies ahead in the next 20 years. We felt a strong call to simplify life and part of that was selling and giving away 90% of our possessions a scary but ultimately incredibly releasing process. It funded a six month journey across three continents in over 60 homes. We often stayed with Christians who were living and working in radically different contexts, including Benedictine and contemporary monastics, pioneer ministers and small missional communities. (We also did couchsurfing, air B&B, sleeping in cars and a brief stay in a commune run by an insane cult leader!) We resigned from the parish jobs we had and became jobless and homeless, embarking on what our children called our hippy gap year. The people we met, the adventures we ve been faced with from crocodiles and charging elephants to dreadlocked bishops and Maori Hells Angels; from armed escort in Johannesburg to the simplest of living in a remote New Zealand monastery this year has been filled with so much that we will be learning from it for years to come. We have experienced new and ancient ways of being church and are convinced that taking time out in mid-life brings huge personal benefits. We find ourselves journeying for a while with the Scargill community as we move through the end of our Sabbath year and on into the second half of life, excited at the path ahead. Part of the purpose was to meet as many people as possible who could articulate a sense of vocation about their life and work, both laity and clergy. Our intention was to learn something from them about God s calling and their discernment in different contexts and at different stages of life and ministry. We also wanted to understand a bit more about vocation in mid-life. (And because we d come up with a great name for a blog amidlifechristis.com you can follow some of the journey on that.) Copied with permission from the Scargill Movement Newsletter, October 2015.) (Jon and Ella (aka Angela) and their family of Bec and Annie, Ben and Tom spent a few years with St Michael s and Newton School in the early 2000s. Jon and Ella each went on to be ordained and to serve in parishes in the Sandbach area. Very recently Ella has been appointed Chaplain of Queen Mary College, University of London.)

7 ST MICHAEL S NEWS Programme Card for Summer Sundays Look out for a special edition programme card covering midweek and Sunday services from 27 July until 4 September. Available in Church soon. Church at Prayer Please be reminded that we meet on Wednesday, 6 July at 8pm in CHURCH. Raising our World Mission Profile St. Michael s supports a number of mission partners, and at a recent meeting the World Mission Committee agreed that we needed to raise the profile of our partners, and the work they are engaged in. We will do this in a number of ways and they will become apparent over the coming months. On 17 July, at 10am, Olive Frost will be interviewed about her recent visit to Central Asia. things that are happening locally, and for our planning for the Autumn programme. We have another date in the diary for later this year Wednesday, 23 November at Kingsway Chapel, when we will be focusing on Christmas outreach and activities. All welcome! Rob Peters. Report of PCC meeting on 20th June Amongst the topics discussed were arrangements for Pastoral Support in the Parish, the Children and Young People s work, the Pre School s report and the latest report on the Fabric of the church and other buildings. The minutes will be posted in due course on the notice board in the Hall. Guest Speaker 6.30pm 17 July On the same day that we welcome Paula, we welcome Rob Smart as our guest preacher. Rob has been a church elder at Beechwood Chapel since During the week he works as a Social Worker alongside adults with physical and learning difficulties, based in Wirral where he grew up. Rob is passionate about discipling and equipping people with the gospel as they love and serve the Lord Jesus within their local church family. Rob is married to Becky who enjoys teaching French and Spanish at a secondary school in Wirral. Praying with Kingsway Chapel 7.30pm Wednesday 27 July Late last year I agreed with Geoff Thompson, the pastor of Kingsway Chapel, that it would be good for Kingsway and St. Michael s to meet together for prayer a couple of times a year ahead of major festivals and periods of planning. Our next joint prayer meeting will be here at St. Michael s on Wednesday, 27 July at 7.30pm. We will be praying specifically for From the Registers Thanksgiving Joel Daniel Donaldson, 5 June We welcome this young one in the name of Christ Funerals John Silvester, aged 92, of Newton House, cremated 26 May. Maureen Laura Peters, aged 79, of Rutland Place, cremated 10 June. We send our prayerful love to all who mourn.

8 Sun (3) TRINITY am Holy Communion 10.00am Morning Worship - Rob Peters 6.30pm Evening service - Alison Linfield Mon (4) 7.30pm Standing Committee Meeting Wed (6) 8.00pm Prayer (Church) Thur (7) 8.00pm Wedding Rehearsal (Church) Sat (9) 12 noon Wedding of Laura Flynn and Matthew Tatler Sun (10) TRINITY am Holy Communion - Andy McConville 6.30pm Café Church Thu (14) 2.00pm Café Committee Meeting 7.30pm World Mission Committee Meeting Sat (16) 8.00am PCC Prayer Breakfast Sun (17) TRINITY am Holy Communion 10.00am Morning Worship - Rob Peters 6.30pm Evening Service - Rob Smart (Beechwood Chapel) Mon (18) 7.30pm PCC Meeting (Café) Wed (20) 7.30pm Deanery Clergy and Readers Meeting (Church) Sun (24) TRINITY am 6.30pm DIARY DATES JULY There will be an experimental Midweek Service of Holy Communion at 10am on Wednesdays, 27 July, 3, 10 and 17 August at 10am. The service will last about 35 minutes and will be followed by tea or coffee and biscuits. See the Vicar s letter. Morning Worship - Rob Peters Holy Communion with Prayers for Healing - Christine Blackmore Mon (25) 7.30pm Ministry Team Meeting Wed (27) 10.00am Midweek Communion (Church) 7.30pm Sun (31) TRINITY am 6.30pm FOR YOUR INFORMATION... Joint Prayer Meeting with Kingsway Chapel (Church) All Age Summer Special - Rob Peters and Team Evening Service - Rob Peters VICAR: Rev Canon Rob Peters St Michael s Vicarage 22 Plas Newton Lane Newton, Chester, CH2 1PA rob.peters@tiscali.co.uk YOUTH DEVELOPMENT CO-ORDINATOR: Andy McConville WARDENS: Steve McKew Derek Taylor DEPUTY WARDENS: Graham Cooper Estelle Byrne PCC SECRETARY: Alison Pantony TREASURER: Mary Webster HALL BOOKINGS: Mary Webster CHURCH MAGAZINE: David Blackmore CHURCH OFFICE: BOOK KEEPER: Fiona Prichard (Mon & Tues) finance.stmichaels@gmail.com CHURCH SECRETARY: Jackie Hockley (Thurs & Fri) office@stmichaelschester.com Open for enquiries: Mon & Tues 9.30am 3.00pm Thur & Fri 10.00am 5.30pm WEBSITE: