Women's World Day of Prayer 2016

Women's World Day of Prayer 

2016

Friday March 4th

2pm at St Columba's Church, 

Nothumberland Square, North Shields

northshields.urc.org.uk

7.30pm at Cullercoats Methodist Church

Broadway

www.cullercoatsmethodistchurch.co.uk

All welcome

Lentweets

Each day in Lent I will post a tweet (a Lentweet) on aspects of public penitence (#PublicPenitence).

Lent is the season of preparation for the revelatory and transformative moment of Jesus' death and Christ's resurrection.

In this transformative process - spiritually, symbolically and in the people we are - Christians are made new. We can become more ourselves as God made us - a little more Christlike, a little closer to realising the godly qualities in each of us.

This is both personal and public, individual and communal. None of us is an isolated atom: we are who we are only in continual engagement with the people around in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Our potential may be vast, our constraints are legion.

The Lenten disciplines of penitence and denial are intended 

1. to help us determine and focus on what is important (against the background  clamour of so many very persuasive distractions)
2. to re-prioritise our lives - giving spiritual considerations much greater importance in lasting practice
3. to prepare ourselves for the transformation of being caught up in Christ's death and resurrection.

I suggest - and this is what the Lentweets will focus on - that a part of our Lenten observance should also address the world around us. We should repent both of our own failings and of those of the world in which we live.

I suggest we should look at the evils of our ordinary existence - from the biggest (eg. war and poverty), to the near at hand (like addictions and discrimination), to the pervasive (such as the mal-distribution of wealth, income and opportunity).

Those things are all  bigger than us. It can be very hard to get our heads around them. But they are all made and sustained by the decisions people make. None of them are natural or inevitable. 

We are not individually responsible for the way things are. But we are complicit in it. We are responsible for our response to the evils of the world. And we are deeply shaped by so much much that is simply wrong. 

Pray for transformation and work for a little better.

Paul Bagshaw

St Hilda's annual meeting & report

St Hilda's annual meeting will take place on Sunday February 14th in the church hall after a
shortened morning service.

All are welcome.

Annual Report and Accounts (pdf).


Highlights:

• A busy and enjoyable social life
• A mutually supportive and pastorally sensitive community 
• The chapel has been refurbished with excellent new lighting and a new ceiling and has been repainted
• Finances remain strong

However:

• Numbers continue a slow decline
• We are not well engaged with the community around us

The year ahead:

• To celebrate and enjoy St Hilda's 50th anniversary year
• To begin to re-engage with the local community