January 2023 Newsletter from Mark

Dear friends.

I hope you have all had a lovely time over the Christmas & New Year season. There has been a dose of winter virus rattling around for several weeks now, of which I have been dealing with, but I do hope that you have all managed to avoid it, find some time for a good rest and perhaps even get to spend some time with family & other loved ones. And, if I may, every blessing to you and yours for the year ahead.

Something New: On the 2nd Sunday of each month (exceptions to this will apply) we hold a service in the afternoon. (3pm at All Saints, Calthwaite). It’s a little less formal to our morning services and is open to all, especially for those of you who find a morning service difficult to manage. We’re trying to bring in guest speakers. This Sunday (Jan 8th) we have the Rev Keith Speck joining us to share some teaching. In March we have Pete Barton from the charity Adopt A Child coming to share with us the work the church is doing to help youngsters in parts of Guatemala and in Romania.

Alpha: Rev Martin is inviting anyone interested to join the upcoming Alpha Course that will be starting later this month in Newbiggin Village Hall. If anyone is interested please let me know and I shall pass your details with Martin. On a side note ……..my sermons over the coming months will be loosely based around the headings of the Alpha Course, which I will be tying in with that Sunday’s Gospel reading. I aim to record these and I will work out a way of sharing the audio files with you when I have a bit of spare time.

Lent Course, “You Can Be Serious” – This short course digs in to the Gospel of John. If you were part of last year’s Lent group you’ll remember that we had a very ‘heavy’ book to plough through but this book only has about 30 pages. It’s release date is soon and I shall do a bulk buy for the benefice. There will be a Zoom session and sessions where people can meet. Please let me know if this interests you.

Men’s Prayer Group: There is a some wonderful teaching about prayer in the Bible. In the Church of England we may have a tendency to reserve prayer for those intercessions someone reads out on our behalf in church on Sundays. Whenever I hear those prayers being read my heart jumps for joy as I listen to the carefully crafted words that cover a range of issues that are being offered to God. But prayer should be more than that. It should be as natural as breathing, as offered in every breath we take. In Acts 1 it says the following: They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. I believe that for your churches to flourish in the way God intends we need to be meeting often and we need to be speaking to God (praying!) constantly. I’m starting this year with a men’s group. We’ll meet in different ways (Zoom, in a church and sometimes we might even meet for a bacon sandwich in a café somewhere). Let me know if this interests you. (& if any women are interested in starting a group ….)

I am meeting with many families who are grieving presently. Every time the phone rings it’s usually another funeral director asking what my availability is. Please keep all families in your prayers during this season, continue to be kind both to those you know but also to the ‘stranger’ in our midst (Matthew 25:34-46)

Until next time

Mark