Saturday 12th June – Calmlands Graveyard – Grass cutting and shrub clearing.
DO YOU feel like some exercise that is cost free, in the open air and where the chat and laughter is as important as the work? If so, then you are most welcome to join our band of merry helpers. We aim for this to be an informal group, where friendships can grow as the weeds are subdued!!
Feel free just to turn up, for all or a part of the session. We have a good chat and a laugh as well as work. As we are outside, it is always weather dependent, here’s trusting for a long hot summer.
Other dates for your diary: 26th June – Calmlands Bush and undergrowth cutting. 10th July & 24th July (locations to be advised)
If you want to be included in up to date emails etc. please contact: irene.harrop@hotmail.co.uk
All groups run from about 9:30am to 12:30pm but don’t feel you have to be there the whole time. Please bring own tea/coffee and tools.
Please contact Mike on 07867 951512 for further details, or to let him know you can help.
The graveyard is at the top of Wetlands Rd, Meltham, next to the allotment field.
Unconditional Acceptance – Pete Greig – leading a short reflection on the App – Lectio 365
This week I am consciously making space for the Holy Spirit to challenge my lifestyle… … and shape my attitude towards the great biblical priority of hospitality.
Pause
As I enter prayer now, I pause to be still; to breathe slowly; to re-centre my scattered senses upon the presence of God.
Pause and pray
Prayer of Approach A prayer from the fifth century AD by Augustine of Hippo: Grant me, even me, my dearest Lord, to know you, and love you, and rejoice in you… Let the love of you grow every day more and more in me, that my joy may be full in you.*
Rejoice and Reflect I choose to rejoice today in the place God has planted me in, and the faith he has planted in me, joining with the ancient praise of all God’s people in the words of Psalm 52: I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God. I will always trust in God’s unfailing love. I will praise you forever, O God, for what you have done. I will trust in your good name in the presence of your faithful people.
Psalm 52:8-9
Pause and pray
Today’s reading opens a new vista, calling me to cultivate an equally accommodating attitude towards my brothers and sisters in Christ…. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
Romans 15:5-7 In this beautiful benediction, the apostle Paul prays that my attitude towards other Christians would be as accepting as Christ’s attitude towards me. This is an extraordinarily low bar! Our unity is not to be based on believing precisely the same things; that would make us a sect; nor on behaving in precisely the same ways; that would make us a cult; but rather on belonging to the same Father through the unconditional acceptance of his son Jesus Christ: that is what makes us a family. As Nicky Gumbel says, ‘I used to look at other types of Christians and ask “What’s wrong with them?” But these days I ask “What’s right with them?” What can I learn from them? What do they have that I need?’ Why is it that I sometimes have more grace for non-Christians than I do for my brothers and sisters in Christ? Thinking now of a Christian who annoys me, I ask You Lord to give me eyes to see them the way You see them, and an ability to accept them the way You do too.
Pause and pray I thank God now for a church or a denomination other than my own, asking the Father to bless them, and enjoying the smile on His face as I do so. These days I ask “What’s right with them?” What can I learn from them? What do they have that I need?’
Yield As I return to the passage, I open my ears to hear Your Word, and my heart to yield to Your will once again. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
Romans 15:5-7 It’s easy to miss the two key hinge phrases in this passage: ‘so that’ and ‘in order to’. Paul prays for unity ‘so that’ with one mind and voice we may glorify God and ‘in order to’ bring him praise. Whenever we acknowledge that there are indeed other rooms in the House of God, and other branches in his family tree, the result is praise and glory to the Lord. As the apostle John puts it, ‘If we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.’
(1 John 4:12)
Pause and pray
Yielding Prayer Father, I give my front door key to You. My house is Your home. Bring whoever You want, whenever You want into my private space this week. Jesus, I relinquish my schedule to You. My days are in Your hands. Help me to welcome interruptions this week as gifts from You. Spirit, I surrender my possessions to You. All my stuff belongs to You. Help me this week to ‘share with the Lord’s people who are in need.’ (Rom. 12:13)
Yielding Promise And now, as I prepare to take this time of prayer into the coming day, the Lord who loves me speaks to me saying: Trust in me with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to me, and I will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6
Closing Prayer Father, help me to live this day to the full, being true to You, in every way. Jesus, help me to give myself away to others, being kind to everyone I meet. Spirit, help me to love the lost, proclaiming Christ in all I do and say. Amen.
* Freely modified from Prayers of the Early Church, ed. J. Manning Potts, 1953
Join us in church or online for Sunday morning worship. All welcome!
9:30am – St Bartholomew’s – Meltham (can be joined via YouTube) 9:30am – St James’ – Meltham Mills 11:15am – St Mary’s – Wilshaw (can be joined via Zoom from 11am) 11:15am – Christ Church – Helme
Over a year ago we began to feel and experience the impact of the Covid 19 Virus Pandemic. The pandemic might be unique in our experience, but it is not unique in history. It comes with a hard impact on life, worship and community. Very quickly we were drawn together to pray for ourselves and peoples of every faith and nation of our world. Lockdown offered us an opportunity to read the scriptures afresh, seeing through the lens of those writers and poets who lived lives very different from ours but conscious of their mortality and the fragility of life.
And people stayed at home
And read books > And they rested >And did exercises > And made art and played >
And learnt new ways of being > And stopped and listened >More deeply >
Someone meditated > someone prayed > Someone met their shadow >
And people began to think differently > And people healed >
And in the absence of people who > Lived in ignorant ways > Dangerous > meaningless and heartless >
The earth also began to heal > And when the danger ended > and People found themselves >
They grieved for the dead > And made new choices > And dreamed of new visions >
And created new ways of living > And completely healed the earth > Just as they were healed.
This is supposed to have been written by Kathleen O’Mara in 1869 for the then pandemic of typhus then reprinted for the Spanish influenza of 1920, the outbreak of which killed more people than the entire losses of the First World War!
Presently
We are living with the variants of the virus and at the same time trying to get to something like normal in commerce, business. and communal living.
In the many and various circles of life, people are accepting that we are entering a journey towards a new normal. New because change has already set in and will continue to change and develop. We need to ask the Question what will the New World look like and what might it be like for each of us ?
When this is all over
Lord, when this is over, may we never again take for granted:
The handshake with a stranger,
Full shelves at the store,
Conversations with neighbours,
A crowded theatre,
The taste of Communion,
A routine check up,
The school rush each morning,
Coffee with a friend,
The stadium roaring,
Each deep breath,
A boring Tuesday,
Life itself.
Lord when this ends may we find that we have become more like the people we wanted to be, we were able to be, we hoped to be and may we stay this way – better for each other because of the worst.
IT IS IMPORTANT TO PLEAD TO THE HOLY SPIRIT FOR OURSELVES– BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY TO PRAY FOR THOSE IN THE POORER NATIONS. OUR OWN HEALING IS DEPENDENT ON JUSTICE AND THE SUPORT EXTENDED TO THESE NATIONS.
It’s Trinity Sunday! God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit! Three in One and One in Three! Holy, Holy Holy! Join us in church or online for Sunday morning worship. All welcome!
9:30am – St Bartholomew’s – Meltham (can be joined via YouTube) 9:30am – St James’ – Meltham Mills 11:15am – St Mary’s – Wilshaw (can be joined via Zoom from 11am) 11:15am – Christ Church – Helme
Welcome to the June edition of the #Meltham parish magazine. Thank you to all those who have contributed, it really does help to make it YOUR magazine. This month we look back over the recent years of the Crossroads Project and the wonderful work they do. We continue our feature on how a hymn or song is helpful to express your faith and Pam gives an honest account of her road to confirmation.
We continue to include the Daily Readings and Prayers, it can help in our daily prayer life and either start or finish the day focusing our heart.
The next issue will be a summer bumper issue hopefully full of exciting submissions. The next deadline for our DOUBLE ISSUE will be Friday 18th June. Please send your submissions via: melthamparishmagazine@gmail.com or via the vicarage letterbox (150 Huddersfield Rd, HD9 4AL).
When we do come to God. Or when we return to God. Or when we receive Holy Communion and hold that broken piece of bread in our hands. Or when we hear a passage from scripture that moves us. Or when we see in each other a love that holds and sustains us. And when we know we are loved, the only real response is silence.
There is a place beyond words, where the heart rests in peace, in the knowledge of being known and loved.
Not all of us experience such love in our lives. Some of us have been very damaged by life’s injustices. But the love we receive from Jesus, the love that is from God, is secure. It is waiting for us the other side of words. We only need to turn.
PRAYER
Loving God, our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you. Hold me, for the storms are raging and the waves crash over. Be my rest and my security. And even though human touch and human love is so beautiful and so longed for, help me to know today that it comes from you and, like everything that is good and beautiful, will return to you in the silence of your eternal and never changing love. Be with me as I hold myself and hold others in your embrace.
2 PENTECOST
Receive the Holy Spirit. In the Bible there are two accounts of how God gives us the Holy Spirit. First, the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, today’s celebration. But in John’s gospel, on Easter day itself, with the disciples locked away like so many of us have spent the last year locked away, Jesus breathes on them and gives them the Spirit. (see John 20.22)
Both stories have important things to say, but this year, with all the challenges we face, and knowing what lockdown has done to us and how many of us have slipped from the practice of our faith, I am holding onto a picture of Jesus coming to each of us and breathing his life and goodness into us. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he says. “My spirit of peace.” And then He sends us into the world: praying for others and serving them in the name of Christ.
PRAYER
Overflowing God, breathe the spirt of Jesus into me and into all those who long for peace, especially those who have drifted from your way, got stuck in their faith, or who have not yet found a way to believe. You believe in them. Renew them by your Spirt. And today may your Church be filled with joy.
READING
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Romans 5.1-5)
3 FINALLY
If you have worked your way through these thoughts and prayers over the last four weeks and made some notes about how you feel about God and how you make sense of life, and if the promises of God that we receive in Jesus are even beginning to make you wonder whether there is more to life than the things you see around you, and more to hope for than the fleeting promises of the world, then the best way of knowing and following Jesus is in the company of his Church. We’re not perfect. Far from it. We are also followers in the way, working out how best to live this life and trusting in God, knowing how much we need God’s love and forgiveness to keep us going. We are not an organisation looking for new members. We are a company of travellers and explorers who are very glad to have new people help us. We have things to share with you, but you also have things to share with us. Together, we can travel God’s way. And for those of us who are members of a church community let us continue to pray for the work of God’s church both locally, nationally and worldwide.
It’s Pentecost (or Whit Sunday as it used to be known). Join us in church or online as we welcome the Holy Spirit. All welcome!
9:30am – St Bartholomew’s – Meltham (can be joined via YouTube) 9:30am – St James’ – Meltham Mills 11:15am – St Mary’s – Wilshaw (can be joined via Zoom from 11am) 11:15am – Christ Church – Helme
In order to live the way of life we see in Jesus, we need
help. We can’t do it on our own. We can’t manage in our own strength. Who can
we help today by our prayers and example?
As the Church waits to celebrate the coming of the Spirit at
Pentecost, let’s remember that Jesus calls the Spirit ‘helper’.
God knows we can’t manage on our own. Of course, we can’t. After
all, we are made for community with God and with each other. Jesus makes this
possible by uniting our humanity with God in his own person. The Spirit is the
spirit of Jesus, helping us become like Jesus and uniting us to God. All we
need to do is let go of the pride that puts self-first and cuts us off from
God, and in the end from everyone else as well. Overcoming God, make me new in
the Spirit of Jesus so that I can truly become the person I am meant to be. And
today may your Spirt help me help others, especially those who have drifted
from your way, or who find it impossible to believe, or who are trapped by fear
and guilt. Set us free, God. Set me free to be myself. Free to help others.
PRAYER
Overcoming
God, make me new in the Spirit of Jesus so that I can truly become the person I
am meant to be. And today may your Spirt help me help others, especially those
who have drifted from your way, or who find it impossible to believe, or who
are trapped by fear and guilt. Set me free, God. Set me free to be myself God,
make me new in the Spirit of Jesus so that I can truly become the person I am
meant to be. And today may your Spirt help me help others, especially those who
have drifted from your way, or who find it impossible to believe, or who are
trapped by fear and guilt. Set me free, God. Set me free to be myself. Free to
help others.
READINGS
Jesus
said, “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the
Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach
you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (John 14.
25-26)
Jesus
said, “ This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved
you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s
friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (John
15. 12-14)
2– Adore — Ambassadors for Love
The
greatest gift of the Holy Spirit is love. We are most like Jesus when we love
and adore each other, and when we love and adore the world.
Love
is not just romantic love. It is the complete self-giving that we see in Jesus.
This is the love the world needs if we are to navigate a way though the huge
challenges we face.
Following
Jesus, returning to the life of his Church, means being part of this great love
affair. We become God’s agents of change, God’s ambassadors for love in the
world.
However
small or fragile your faith is, most of us have strong feelings of love. They
are from God. Use this love to change the world. One heart at a time.
PRAYER
Quickening
God, fan the embers of my little faith. Help me see that the love I feel for
those I love is from you. It shows me that you are real, that you are love
itself. Be my friend. And today, draw me back into the fellowship of your
church and help others, who also long for love and acceptance, to find it in
Jesus, the one who lays down his life for his friends.
3– CELEBRATE –Give us our daily bread
On
the night before he died, Jesus had a meal with his friends. Breaking bread and
sharing wine, he said they were his body and blood. He was giving them a way of
understanding what his death and resurrection would mean. He was also giving
us, for all time, a way of being nourished by his risen life.
It
is hard to be a Christian on your own. You cut yourself off from this food and
drink. And because faith is not a private thing, but a way of life lived in
community, then we need to nurture this life in celebration with each other.
This is what the church is: the bunch of men and women who know how much they
need each other and need God. Join us. We need you.
PRAYER
Bountiful
God, feed me with the bread of heaven, and give me today the things I need for
today and save me from wanting more than my share. There are so many people who
are hungry for love and thirsting for peace. Help me to help others find their
place at your table.
READING
The
cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The
bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because
there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one
bread. (1 Corinthians 10. 16-17)
God’s
love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so
that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God
but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our
sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one
another. (1 John 4. V 11)
KEEP SAFE
– KEEP ON PRAYING
Peter
PS In earnest prayer pray for Bolton and India in the grip
of variant strains of the Covid Virus.
Pray for or own country as it relaxes the guidelines in selected
areas of our life together.
We ask that people will exercise due caution and keep the world
around them safe.
Join us in church or online for Sunday morning worship. All welcome!
9:30am – St Bartholomew’s – Meltham (can be joined via YouTube) 9:30am – St James’ – Meltham Mills 11:15am – St Mary’s – Wilshaw (can be joined via Zoom from 11am) 11:15am – Christ Church – Helme