Looking at the Church and Christians in action
worldwide
Get ready for Operation Christmas Child
2006!
You wouldn’t want to live as a pig does
- ANIMAL WELFARE SUNDAY
Signs & Symbols: Parapets
Kirsty Balfour – swimmer with a
Christian faith
Choruses or great hymns of the past –
which is better?
Bless this house….what our minister can
do for your home
Get ready for Operation Christmas Child 2006!
It’s time to start filling shoe boxes
again – with gifts for desperately needy children who will have no
Christmas this year – unless you help.
Since 1990, Operation Christmas Child
worldwide has brought the joy of Christmas to more than 47 million
boys and girls. Last year Samaritan’s Purse in the
UK sent out over 1.18 million gifts to children across
Eastern Europe
and Africa.
Each year this project attracts tens of
thousands of people like you across the country. Individuals,
schools, churches, businesses, and other organisations work together
to fill ordinary shoe boxes with small toys, school supplies,
sweets, and other gifts for hurting children around the world.
Last year Operation Christmas Child
sent gift-filled shoe boxes to more than 1.18 million children in
desperate situations in 13 different countries. They live in
orphanages, hospitals, refugee camps, homeless shelters, old railway
carriages, in underground sewers, and in impoverished
neighbourhoods.
The gifts are given regardless of
nationality, political background or religious beliefs to children.
Nothing is required of them, their families or communities in
return.
If you would like to pack and send a
shoe box, or even volunteer some time during November or December to
work in a warehouse that sorts and send OCC shoe boxes, please
visit: www.samaritanspurse.uk.com for further details.
You wouldn’t want to live as a modern pig does - trust us
ANIMAL WELFARE SUNDAY – 1st October
This year, Animal Welfare Sunday falls
on Sunday 1st October. One Christian society which concentrates on
animal welfare is The Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals, a
UK
based organisation. Its main aim is to raise awareness of animal
welfare issues within the Anglican Church and the wider Christian
community. ASWA is ecumenical and welcomes all Christian
denominations as members and supporters.
Lately, the secular animal welfare
movement has often been highly critical of the apparent lack of
concern shown by the Church for the suffering of animals. This has
not always been the case however and Christians have been involved
in animal welfare reform throughout history.
For example, the RSPCA – the first
animal protection society, was founded by an Anglican priest – Revd
Arthur Broome. Well known Christians such as C S Lewis, John Wesley
and William Wilberforce all spoke out against animal cruelty. It is
ASWA’s aim to put animal welfare back onto the agenda of the Church.
As the Psalmist says in Psalm 148,
animals in their amazing variety of species were all created for the
glory of God and to praise His name. They were not created for our
exploitation and domination.
Sadly, Creation continues to be abused
today. The economics of providing us with low-cost chicken, pork,
beef and milk results in cruelty towards millions of animals.
Just one example is how pigs are kept.
Intelligence tests show that pigs are at least as intelligent as
dogs – they can be house-trained and trained to sit on command. Yet
the majority reared in
Britain are kept in totally barren environments on metal slats
between concrete walls. All the evidence shows that they suffer as
much as dogs would in such environment. Having nothing to explore,
they resort to fighting, and the weakest animals suffer most.
If you want to help the welfare of
animals in some way, please visit: www.aswa.org.uk or write for a
free information pack to: The Secretary, ASWA,
PO Box 7193, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8GT.
Signs & Symbols: Parapets
When you get closer to one of our older
parish churches, there are aspects of the building, particularly
some of the decorative features, that make you wonder why they were
added.
Have a look at the top of the tower or
the top of the wall where it joins the roof. Often you can’t see
the join because they’ve put a decorative wall of a couple of feet
tall there (0.6 m). So why is it there?
There’s lots of these walls - parapets
- in
London on ordinary houses dating from early 1700s. They were
introduced because the Building Act of 1707 banned projecting wooden
eaves in the cities of
Westminster
and London. They were considered a fire risk. Instead an 18-inch
brick parapet was required, with the roof set behind.
But churches much older than this have
them and they can help to date the building. In the fourteenth
century they were plain, while towards the end of the fourteenth and
then into the fifteenth they were crenellated – in other words they
look like castle battlements. (The rising parts are called merlons
or cops and the separating spaces are called crenels, embrasures or
loops.) From the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries they were
often pierced with carving or of a balustrade form.
But the question, as you can imagine,
is why? Why were they built like they are?
Some experts suggest that their primary
purpose was to hide ugly flat roofs. But many of them are not with
a flat roof, so that can’t always be right.
Others suggest that they are there to
give the building a pleasing design for the eye. That makes sense.
But why are so many crenellated?
This month:
Keep an eye out as you travel for
churches, and then go and find one with battlements. What battle do
you think is going on there? What are they protecting themselves
from?
Kirsty Balfour – swimmer with a Christian faith
2006 has been a year of real progress
for City of
Edinburgh breast-stoke swimmer, Kirsty Balfour. After graduating in
sports science at
Herriot-Watt
University in Edinburgh last summer, Kirsty has been a full-time
swimmer.
She has been a good swimmer for several
years. She first became noticed when she broke a Scottish Junior
record in 2000. She reached two Commonwealth Games finals in
Manchester 2002 and swam in a relay final in the 2004 Olympics.
Then the 2005 world championships proved to be a real
disappointment. She was expecting to reach the final but went out
in the heats – falling short of the semi-final, let alone the final.
Then in the 2006 Commonwealth Games,
she exceeded expectations. At the Commonwealth Games in
Melbourne
she had picked up bronze in the 100 and silver in the 200 metres
breaststroke. The 200 was a memorable race with Leisel Jones of
Australia
breaking the world record. Kirsty’s 2:24.04 beat her own personal
best by 3 seconds and was only one hundredth of a second from the
European record.
Then in the 2006 European championships
she took silver in the 100 and gold in the 200 breaststroke. The
gold was
Britain’s first in the event since Anita Lonsborough in 1964 – sadly
your correspondent is old enough to remember it! Kirsty said of the
200 final, “It hurt so much at the end. With every breath I kept
saying ‘come on, come on, pull’. I’m thankful to be able to use the
talent God’s given me.”
She followed the two individual medals
in the European championships by being part of the British 4 X 100
metres medley relay team that took gold. Kirsty’s was an epic swim
pulling the team from 1.78 seconds down to 0.77 ahead in her leg.
Brought up to attend church every
Sunday, Kirsty became a Christian at an early age. “I think I was
about seven when I gave my life to Jesus”. However, it wasn’t until
just a few years ago that she started to think more seriously about
what she believed. “I came to a point where I had to think through
everything I believed again, and I have now made a firm commitment
to follow Jesus Christ. In the past few years my relationship with
Jesus has grown a lot stronger and I feel closer to God.”
Kirsty’s faith too is fully integrated
into with her swimming, "I've given my life to God. I believe
everything I do has a bearing. I believe things happen for a reason
– the disappointment of the world championship and the success in
the European championship. I think God has a plan for each of us."
“I pray before competitions and when I
am in the water. One of my favourite verses in the bible has to be
Philippians 4:13, ‘I can do everything through him who strengthens
me’. It is a very simple verse, but when I am training or competing,
feeling like I am just about to die, I know God is there in the
water with me, and he will see me through.”
Penny Heyns (double Olympic champion on
breaststroke for
South Africa
in Atlanta 1996) and also a Christian is a hero of Kirsty’s. “Penny
used to say she liked to use her talent as an act of worship to God,
to try to give everything back to him because he gave it. I try to
swim with the same attitude in races and in training”.
Choruses or great hymns of the past – which is better?
You arrive at church on a Sunday
morning wanting to draw near to God. Which works better for you:
singing a short chorus with simple words several times over from
memory, or singing a great hymn of the past from your hymnbook in
the pew?
Which are your favourite hymns? Which
are your favourite choruses? Why? Do write in and tell us.
Bless this house….what our minister can do for your home
When you move house, you’ll call in the
estate agents and the surveyors ahead of time… but have you called
in the minister after you move in?
In many cities and towns across the
country, ministers are now offering a new service to home owners: a
blessing on their homes.
The Rev Chris Painter, a minister in
Greater Manchester, was one of those who launched the initiative.
He believes that this is one way in which Christians can ‘adapt’ to
the increasingly secular age.
“There is still a huge interest in
spirituality and this is a way of our meeting that need, but not in
a traditional way,” he explains. “The current trend in New Age
spirituality is aimed at self-fulfilment, people wanting to be happy
and achieve things. We are trying to focus on Christianity and show
people that God has an interest in our lives.”
Many Christians will be familiar with
blessing services. In the case of non-churchgoers, clergy will
spend time with them to ensure they are happy about the process
before the blessing is given.
As the minister goes from room to room,
they will lay hands on everything from the bed (praying for a
healthy sex life), to the kitchen counter (praying for tranquillity
in serving others), to the garage (praying for safety in travel).
The overall aim is to show people that
they can turn to the Church for support at a time of new beginnings
in their lives.
If you would like our minister to come
and pray for your new home, please contact…….