St Peter Kirk Onchan. Making Christ Visible July/August 2017

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1 St Peter Kirk Onchan Making Christ Visible July/August 2017 it's on Sabbath... Sabbath Rest Productivity is now a thing. A quick internet search will turn up blogs, podcasts, individuals and organisations all trying to help you get the very most out of every minute of every day. Of course, you need to start with your Morning Ritual often a cup of green tea, some meditation and journaling followed by your MIT, or Most Important Tasks. It s a good idea, I gather, if you have to eat a frog to do that first! This is productivity talk for getting the 1 difficult/unpleasant tasks done first so that you feel a sense of accomplishment and can clear the decks for other tasks. Whatever you do it should have been planned and scheduled and you should do all you can to minimise interruptions. After a full and productive day you review it, carry any uncompleted tasks over to the following day and check your diary for that day to prepare yourself mentally for it. I m all for being productive! I even do some of the things Iʼve just mentioned, or variations on them but can I just give a shout out for rest. If you forget to rest to have to re-creation time, you will soon stop being productive at all. This is where the biblical idea of Sabbath comes in. It turns out that God wants us to rest now and then; so much so that he made it one of the Ten Commandments. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy" is one of the Ten

2 Commandments found in the Hebrew Bible. The full text of the commandment reads: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. There are a few things to note here about the Sabbath: Firstly, we are to remember. Sabbath literally means rest. Remember the Sabbath day means, Don t forget to take a day off. Second, Keep it holy ; something holy is set aside or set apart from everything else like it, so our Sabbath day should not resemble any other day no quick check of the work then! Specifically, we are to keep it to the Lord ; In other words, the rest is not to be aimless rest, but God-centred rest. Attention is to be directed to God in a way that is more concentrated and steady than on ordinary days. Keep the day holy by keeping the focus on the holy God. Third, the holy rest day should be one out of every seven: "Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God." Work six, rest one. Work six, rest one. That's the pattern prescribed in the Ten Commandments. Note it does not say that the Sabbath ("rest day") has to be the last day of the week or the first day of the week. The concept of weeks is not even mentioned. The command is simply work six, rest one. Every seventh day should be a Sabbath. The final, and perhaps most important, thing to note is that it s a COMMANDMENT not a suggestion. It s in the same paragraph as not committing idolatry, murder and blasphemy so I think we can assume God takes the Sabbath seriously. Maybe we should too! Blessings Clive 2

3 of Man Foodbank Isle First of all, thank you to everyone at St Peters who has been supporting the Foodbank with grocery items. Now more than ever, in the current economic climate, there 3 is a real need to provide food parcels to help people in difficulty in the Isle of Man yes here in the Isle of Man! People who need a helping hand and support to get through a difficult time. The Isle of Man Foodbank was set up by a number of local charities and faith communities, along with government representatives from Social Care and the Office of Fair Trading. The mission is to meet the unique local community needs. The scheme first went into action on 1st December 2013.

4 Isle of Man Foodbank provides crisis support in the form of food parcels to families and individuals who are referred to them when they are in crisis. Then, to help the person or family to get beyond the crisis, Foodbank will point them to relevant support organisations such as Debt Management, Life Skills, Careers and Budget. Most people s perceptions of the Foodbank is that it is like a minimarket where people can pop along and do their weekly shop for free. Many also have the perception that so-called scroungers can spend their weekly allowance on booze and cigarettes then go and get their food shopping for free at the foodbank. These perceptions are WRONG. Would you want to use a foodbank? I think most of you will answer no. Did you see the recent storyline in Eastenders where Denise Fox lost her job and was so desperate that she was starving yet was too ashamed to use the foodbank? It was a fictitious story but one which struck home. Isle of Man Foodbank provides real support to needy families and individuals in the form of weekly food parcels which are delivered. There is no shop. Families or individuals are referred so they can t just turn up and get provisions on a whim. The Foodbank relies on donations of both money and food. Here at St Peters we have been supporting the Foodbank with food supplies since late last year. The box at the back of church is emptied regularly and supplies are delivered to the Foodbank office in Albany Lane in Douglas. This is one area of Christian mission which we can all be part of. So please please continue to support this very worthy cause by adding just one extra item to your weekly shop and dropping it in the box at the back of church. The list of items required is attached to the box but generally consists of nonperishable food items, baby food, nappies, toiletries and cleaning materials. Elaine Litherland 4

5 Regular Services at St Peter s Sundays: 9.00 am: BCP Holy Communion First Sunday of each month am: 1 st 3 rd 5 th Sunday: CW Holy Communion 2 nd Sunday: CW Morning Praise 4 th Sunday Family Service(unless Holy Day or a special celebration falls) 6:30 pm: BCP Evening Prayer or(holy Communion 2 nd 4th Sunday) Wednesday: BCP Communion Holy Days as announced Baptisms, Weddings and Funerals contact the Parish Clerk Useful Parish Contacts Parish Patricia enquiries@stpeterschurch.org.im Clerk/Office Cooil Warden Marcia Clague marciaclague@manx.net Warden Lyn Kinrade Lynkinrade@hotmail.co.uk Warden Elaine elaine.litherland@manx.net Litherland Warden vacant Safeguarding Lisa Morris safeguardingstpeterslaxeylonan@gmail.c om Onchan, Lonan & Laxey Team Ministry Information Team Rector: Revd Canon Clive Burgess, St Peter s Rectory, 18 Windermere Avenue, Onchan, Isle of Man IM3 2DJ. Phone onchanrectory@icloud.com Team Vicar: Revd Jo Dudley Lonan & Laxey Phone jodudley56@gmail.com Parish Office: enquiries@stpeterschurch.org.im Website: stpeterschurch.org.im Office usually open 9.30am pm 5

6 Safeguarding in St Peter s, the Diocese and the Church of England is the same for us all. The Incumbent, Wardens and PCC members have to ensure that they have due regard in all aspects of safeguarding to comply with all new legislation. We are putting the wellbeing of everyone at the forefront of everything we do. One of the groups that we are safeguarding is the reputation of the Church, when I first read this my heart sank. Were we going back to the old days where what happened in the Church stayed in the Church? Aren t we paying the price for this kind of practice? You only need to look at recent news to see what has happened in the past. Towards the end of June 6 Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey has resigned his post as Honorary Assistant Bishop for not being open about his knowledge of abuse that was happening within the Church 25 years ago. Today when we talk about safeguarding the reputation of the Church we are talking about showing everyone that we are taking Safeguarding seriously and doing what needs to be done to try to prevent abuse happening both within the Church, to the people who visit our Churches and within the wider community, and that we have done our best to make sure that the people working within the Church, both paid and voluntary, are trustworthy and know what to do if a safeguarding situation should arise. To enable this to happen we insist that people are safely recruited, do the correct level of training for the role that they do and if required have a DBS check (this is what was formerly known as a police check). All training has to be refreshed every three years, anyone who doesn t get their training refreshed are not able to continue in the role that requires them to be trained. Lisa Morris PSO

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