Parish Newsletter for Sunday 26th September 2021 Services this Sunday 9am Said Communion, President and preacher: Revd Mary Cruddas 10.30am Contemporary Worship: Leader Revd Jeremy Putnam, preacher Revd Janette Mullett Readings for the seventeenth Sunday after Trinity Esther 7.1–6,9,10; 9.20–22 Psalm 124 James 5.13–20 Mark 9.38–50 Almighty God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you: pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself, and so bring us at last to your heavenly city where we shall see you face to face; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Shirley Woodhouse I share the sad news that our much beloved sister in Christ Shirley Woodhouse has died at the age of 65. Shirley had worshipped at All Saints for years and served All Saints in many ways during that time, including leading Thursday Club, prayer ministry and in her leading of musical worship. Shirley leaves behind many close friends and family, and a legacy of conviction in her faith as well as the results of an active service in Christ. Following a committal service at Penmount Crematorium a memorial service will be held at All Saints on Thursday 7th October at 2pm. Dear Heavenly Father, it is always hard to say goodbye to those that have died, for we know that they will be missed by so many who are left behind. But Lord, You also remind us that the death of Your saints is very special to You and we want to join together to thank You for Shirley and all that she was and is to us. A faithful sister in Christ who was such an encouragement and wonderful witness of Your love and grace. Thank You, Lord, for the blessings of this special person, whom we all remember so fondly, but who is now taking that last journey to be with you the Good Shepherd. Thank You for their life and the many happy memories that we all share. We pray that You will be a special comfort to her family, to uplift and care for those that will feel the greatest loss. Help us to remember that although we are separated for a time, we will all rejoice one day when we stand together in Your presence. Thank You that the night of weeping will pass very quickly, and we will all be rejoicing in Your presence on that glorious morning when we will all be reunited in the hope that is set before us. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Revd Jeremy Putnam Priest in Charge for the Parish of All Saints Highertown and Baldhu VISION UPDATE The ministry team here at All Saints has been praying into what comes next for our church and how to best move forward with our congregation, the Lifehouse Project, and outreach through Transforming Mission. We met as a church on Sunday, 19 September to go over this vision and answer questions. If you were not able to attend that meeting, please see this page on the website: Vision Going Forward - All Saints Highertown (asht.org.uk). There you will be able to find the recording of the meeting, along with the slides from Jeremy’s presentation. New pattern of services We have now returned to Holy Communion once a week with the introduction of the 9am service on Sundays where the 10.30am is not a Eucharist. Please click on the link below for a full list of services up to and including Christmas. Service timetable September-December 2021 Exciting Team news Our Social Justice Missioner – Joff Phipps, and his wife Stevi have had their second child on Sunday, 19 September! The happy couple had a son named Jesse John Oliver Phipps. To make these days as easy as possible for Stevi and Joff as they welcome their new addition to the family, we would like to provide them with a meal train, so they have one less thing to think about in these early days. If you would like to help with the provision and delivery of a meal to Joff and Stevi in Porthowan, please contact Hannah Mitchell at:
[email protected] . Lifehouse update Hello everyone! Here’s an update on the status of the Truro Lifehouse project. A few Sundays ago, we announced at church that, due to many factors, the costs of the original design of the new building had outpaced our ability to fundraise and for the project to continue, we needed to adapt. Since then, several developments have taken place, which are summarised below: The PCC voted to approve a redesign of the building to bring the costs of the project in-line with an achievable budget. This move caused us to rethink possibilities and to move away from the European Union Funding and the business spaces included in the original plan. We have met with the architect to begin work on a revised design that maintains the original vision of constructing a new building that better equips the church and its partner organisations to serve our local community. This new design is still being finalised and details will be shared when we are further on in the process. All of these changes mean that the timeline of the project is pushed back. It is difficult to give a start date for construction at this point as that will be dependent on our further fundraising and the schedule of the contractor who is appointed to construct the building. While it has been a long road with many twists and turns to get here, we are confident that this is a course correction for the project. We believe that these changes were long needed to address the post-pandemic landscape and have put the project into a positive position from which we can move forward with our objectives to serve our community in deeper ways. Pastoral reflection Reflections on Psalm 19:1-4 When your breath is taken away by the beauty or majesty of a landscape, or, the intricacy and detail of the tiny things we might only see under a microscope, or, the mysteries of the universe displayed for us through telescopes does it turn your heart to praise of our creator? Does it convince us that we have a creator God? Does it allow us to confidently say that God is revealed in nature? The psalmist in what we heard this morning seems to say that not only is God revealed in nature but that nature itself, his creation, is telling us about it! – “the heavens are telling the glory of God”. But the psalmist not only says that the heavens are telling us, but also that they are proclaiming God’s handiwork, and pouring out to us speech to declare knowledge….. Although the psalmist is using these declamatory words to describe the way in which creation is speaking to us of God’s glory, it is not in speech as we understand it, it is not spoken words in English! Creation is praising the Creator with a form of speech that is inaudible to humanity. And yet humanity is the very part of his creation we are told is created in God’s image. The psalmist says the voice of God’s creation is not heard by humanity. The psalmist says, “There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard”. Here the psalm explores the mysterious relationship between nature, God and humanity. We can, of course, discern in nature an amazing testimony to God’s glory, and yet we cannot seem to distil our experience of creation into any kind of intelligible formulae. Certainly, we can experience something of God in in nature and see something of God in nature, we can be moved by it ….God can reveal himself to us through it, and if we allow ourselves to be tuned in to it we can be turned to praise. But it is elusive, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” Or, as older translations say “for now we see through a glass darkly”….. Jostein Gaarder, in his book Through a Glass Darkly says: “(As human beings) We see everything in a glass, darkly. Sometimes we can peer through the glass and catch a glimpse of what is on the other side. If we were to polish the glass clean, we'd see much more. But then we would no longer see ourselves.” But even though creation’s words may be inaudible to us, nevertheless, we are not deaf to the call to praise our creator, there is no doubt that creation reveals to us something of who our Creator God is. Many poets and songwriters have been moved to write words on this theme so that we can add our voices to creations song. But here is the thing… We see and we can be awe-inspired, we hear and we are moved to praise and yet we humanity, made in the image of God, seem to be heading in a dangerous direction of seriously damaging our world with climate change, pollution, exploitation and sometimes just plain greed. If creation proclaims God’s glory, then we as humans who are part of God’s creation ourselves are made to join in. We surely must bear a responsibility not to exploit creation, but to care for it, to be good stewards of it. Because, in caring for God’s creation we are allowed to be participants in this amazing revelation. Revd. Janette Mullett Churches together in Truro Month of Prayer and Fasting We will be uploading a number of short reflections based on Nehemiah throughout the month - they will be released at the end of each week. Matt Noble, Pastor of City Life Church and Bishop Hugh Nelson have recorded one each and this week, we will be hearing from Mark Richards (lead chaplain at the RCHT) (please click on the link below to view) then finally next week from Sarah Yardley (Creationfest) There will also be handouts available in church on Sunday so that you can follow the prayer pattern for the season ahead. 2021-09 Churches Together Prayer and Fasting Leaflet.pdf Download File Daniel Roberts of Transformation Cornwall and our own Joff Phipps, Social Justice Missioner have written and compiled a helpful toolkit for churches for the season of Creation. The toolkit can be downloaded here and contains contributions from the Diocesan Environment
