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Dear Friends
Waiting is significant. The waiting for the birth of a child can mean the last two weeks seem endless. Waiting for Christmas to come when one is a toddler is interminable. Waiting for God to come can seem endless. Advent is a time when we acknowledge this.
When I was a teenager my family ran cafés and so the holiday job was to wait on table. This is an active thing, not passively hanging around for a bus or for the kettle to boil, but attentively being ready to serve when required. This is how we are to wait on God. We need to have our oil lamps filled with reserve oil in stock. We need to have our batteries charged for the torch. We are to wait on God in prayer and thanksgiving. Attentively listening to what God requires.
Psalm 130 talks of ‘Waiting for the Lord, more than watchmen wait for the morning.’ The period before dawn is the bleakest. If you have ever stayed up all night, you will know this is when the coldness sets in, the body clamps down, everything slows and it feels like the whole world is held in suspended animation. Yet it is at this point when the watchman is the most expectant of the coming of the dawn. It is this kind of waiting for God to come amongst us in Christ that we are called to.
Waiting entails anticipation about what it will be like when God comes. There are memories of previous experiences. Prophecies, experiences and dreams recall possibilities of justice and judgement, suffering and victory and light in the darkness. Our past glimpses of God’s glory bursting through into our lives colour our anticipation. This was so for the early church as they reflected on seeing God in Jesus and developed the stories of his birth so beloved at Christmas of angels and shepherds, magi and star. It is so for us now as we anticipate God bursting into creation.
We are to wait on God more than those guarding the city wall wait for the morning. We wait by offering thanks, listening in prayer, paying attention to the Word in the bible, and by telling the story of our faith by recalling and sharing our previous encounters with God. This leads to Vision 4 life.
Wait, wait for the Lord
Whose day is near
Wait for the Lord
Keep watch. Take heart. (Taizé chant)ROWENA
Spirituality for Survival
This significant event is being organised by North East Christian Churches Together (NECCT), Christian Aid, Cafod, Tear Fund and other agencies in partnership with the Diocese of Durham.
Bishop Tom Wright will be one of the principal speakers helping participants in “shaping a Christian Response to Climate Change”. The morning includes workshops which promise to “explore theologically, reflect spiritually, and take responsibility in the light of our Christian Hope”.
Saturday 6th December, 9.15 – 1.15, at Durham County Hall.
Book with the Archdeacon of Sunderland’s secretary –
secretary@archdeacon.eu or tel 0191 5362300
NEWS OF PEOPLE
Induction services in recent months have brought new areas of ministry to ministers well established in the synod. John Durell now exercises the URC part of the LEP ministry at St Andrew’s Dawson Street, Crook, and Steven Orange has moved from NW Durham to be minister at Waddington Street, Durham.
North Northumberland is now operating as a single pastorate with a ministry team including David Herbert and Pamela Ward whose induction to the pastorate (still with one declared vacancy) was part of a service that also saw the commissioning of retired minister Tony Ritchie and lay preachers Kate Baxter, Maurice Taylor and Graham Ferguson as the other members of the team.
n Newcastle, in the East/Coast Mission Partnership Peter Heckels and Liz Blair have been inducted to the LEP at St Cuthbert’s, and in North/Central James Breslin is being inducted to St Andrew’s Kenton.
Two of our retired ministers have died in recent weeks: Tom Nicholson who ministered within the synod from 1970 and cared for Horsley for many years during his retirement; and Howard Cross, who had ministries at High Howdon and later at Belford, Embleton and North Sunderland up to his retirement in 1988. We offer our sympathy to their families and all who mourn them.
Our sympathy too to Hartlepool minister Val Towler, following the death of her husband David.
At the end of the year we say goodbye to Hannah Middleton, who is taking up a new post as family worker in the Newcastle West Methodist Circuit. Hannah has served as our Children’s Officer from 2001: at our October Synod meeting she was warmly thanked for her great contribution and encouragement to our ministry with children over that time.
Ministers binned for Mozambique
East Cleveland ministers Catey Morrison and Meg Robb in last summer’s sponsored wheelie bin push which raised £400 for the Mozambique Fund. Despite this year’s set-backs we hope that there may be visits to and from Mozambique in the near future.
NEWS OF CHURCHES
St Andrew’s, Benton reopened at the beginning of September after a substantial redevelopment programme. People of all ages took part in the service, and committed themselves to look outwards and be a church for the whole community. St Andrew’s was formed as a Local Ecumenical Partnership (LEP) in 2003, and the sale of the former Forest Hall URC helped provide the synod contribution to the development work at St Andrew’s.
St George’s Morpeth were at the centre of the flooding which badly affected the town over the first weekend in September, and which saw not only the church cellars flooded, but water in the sanctuary up to the level of the dais. Speaking a few weeks later at our synod meeting, minister Ron Forster spoke more about the affect on the life of the town, and the positive ways in which people were caring for one another. Less publicised at the time, Rothbury was also badly affected, but quick action prevented the rising water entering our building.
A church meeting at Blyth this summer agreed to a plan to vacate their building within the next two years, and user groups have been asked to seek other venues. Although the church is well used for baptisms, weddings and funerals, the upkeep of the Grade II listed building is increasingly beyond the small membership.
Stockton Road Church is the new name for the united congregation of St George’s and West Park in Sunderland. The two buildings for now continue to be used and will be known at the St George’s Centre and the West Park Centre of Stockton Road URC.
EDUCATION & TRAINING
There are lots of things going on in the Synod— and every church should know about them from the Education & Training Bulletin which was in the mailing back in September. Good things that have already happening include the Beginning to Preach course held at Stanley— ten of our people from North West Durham ended up with not just a certificate, but also a little bit more confidence to stand up and do it.
About twenty people had a wonderful bird-watching weekend with David and Pat Peel on Holy Island in October—and a couple of weeks later another great success was the Preachers’ Day with John Proctor. A similar event is already going in next year’s diary! Look again at the E&T Bulletin to see the good things that are to come—including the following
MEET THE AUTHORMeet and engage in discussion with Revd Dr Susan Durber, Principal of Westminster College, Cambridge on the subject of her book, Preaching Like A Woman
At St John’s URC, Wideopen, Friday 9 January 2009 11.00 am – 4.00 pm. Cost: £8 including drinks and hot lunch. Book places with David PeelCALLED BY THE DESERT— A Journey to Sinai
Organised by Barry Hutchinson and Ruth Crofton of our synod Retreat Group, this event is scheduled for 5-12 November 2009. Brochures can be obtained from Ruth Crofton (tel 01388 763093 —Email: revcrofton@aol.com). The cost will be £885, and this should be part fundable by ministers’ EM3
or lay people’s Synod Personal Learning Grants.
Keep the news coming in! - Contact the Synod Clerk