The Parish of Christ Church, Lancaster.
A vibrant inclusive worshipping community
Sunday 17thFebruary 2019
Welcome to Christ Church today, especially any visitors and those worshipping with us for the first time. We hope that within our worship everyone – regardless of age – will have a moment of highlight. This might be the music or a line from a hymn, something from the Bible readings or prayers or sermon. It might simply be worshipping in fellowship with other people. Please do stay for refreshments at the back of church.
Useful things to know about us:
- This building is fitted with an induction loop system – please put your hearing aid to the ‘T’ position.
- Magnifying sheets are available – please ask a steward.
- If you prefer not to receive the communion wine, eg if you are in recovery, please feel free to simply return to your seat having received the bread first.
- Mums are very welcome to breast feed babies anywhere in the church where they feel comfortable. Likewise babies can be bottle-fed anywhere. There is a baby-change area at the back of the church.
Please remember in your prayers:
Those who are ill: Sheila Kelly, Abdussabur Kirke, Graham Lee, Norman Haworth
RIP Ebony Gould (aged 12 years from our parish), Betty Stewart, Barbara Meehan
Thought for the week
Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. Mark Twain
Action for the week
Donate tinned food to our nightshelter or the food bank.
CALENDAR
Sunday February 17th
8.30 am – Said Eucharist
10.30 am – Parish Eucharist followed by discussion group
Tuesday
9.30 am – Church cleaning – volunteers welcome
Wednesday
5.30 pm Meditation and 6 pm Evening prayer
Friday
9.30am Said Eucharist
10-30am Tiddlers – cancelled this week
Sunday February 24th
8.30 am – Said Eucharist
10.30 am – Parish Eucharist discussion group
FROM THE NIGHTSHELTER Please make donations of hotdog sausages and rice pudding, if you are able to.
CHRISTINGLE 2018 Many thanks to all of you that supported our Christingle events during December. To Fr Phil and Sarah for hosting the hunger lunch at the vicarage which raised £120.00 and to everyone else for your generosity in helping raise £367.58. I have therefore banked £487.58 this week which the Children’s Society will use to help fund their invaluable work with vulnerable children. Thank you again. David and Julie Buckley.
CHURCH COUNCIL
The next meeting in on Wednesday 27 February, 7-00pm in Christ Church School.
Sabbatical/study leave
Fr Phil is delighted to have been offered a sabbatical by the Bishop of Blackburn.This means he will be doing some different work in local schools and will be back in church in early June.
ROOF REPAIRS – APPEALThe extreme weather last autumn led to extensive leaks in the church’s roofs. The most urgent have been repaired, with further emergency work to be done early in 2019. The first phase has cost £6,200, with a further £5,000 needed for the second. This is money the church does not have. Please consider making a Christmas gift to Christ Church towards the cost of this essential and unavoidable work to enable us to carry on worshipping here without further need for buckets! If you can Gift Aid your donation, that adds 25 pence to every £1 you give. Thank you in advance for your help.
MIRTH AND MOANING This helpful and supportive group has resumed this year. It meets 2-15pm in the church hall to offer company, support and self-help for anyone living in pain, upset or any kind of hardship. Next meetings are: 26 Feb. Details from Jacqueline – all welcome.
RECYCLING The recycling drawers in the hall kitchen are still filling up quickly at the moment. ANYONE can take away a bag of recycling to put out with theirs – please try to do so. Thank you.
GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATIONS (GDPR)
Changes to legislation earlier this year mean that we have to obtain your consent to contact you. This means you signing a form, and affects everyone. It takes less than a minute! We will be doing this on an ongoing basis.
TIDDLERSThis group for pre-school children and their parents and carers meets on Fridays at 10.30 am. There is space to play, a craft table and a time of singing children’s action songs. A simple lunch is available for those who wish to stay for something to eat.
PRAYER REQUESTS You can send requests for prayer by text to 07980 351855. If you would like to join the prayer group who respond to these requests, or you would like to know more, then talk to Pat.
Food Bank As well as the usual items the Food Bank needs donations of lentils, chick peas, vegetable oil and rice.
Sunday’s Readings
Jeremiah 17
Thus says the Lord: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. The heart is devious above all else;
it is perverse— who can understand it? I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.
1 Corinthians 15
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? 13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; 14and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. 15We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. 19If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. 20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.
Luke 6
He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. 18They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
‘Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 ‘Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. ‘Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
‘But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.
26 ‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.