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Avatar photoJohn Sherbourne

Owzat for a first attempt… MBC all stars snatch victory with just one over to go

May 28, 2018May 25, 2018 by John Sherbourne
After decades in the doldrums MBC is once again fielding a cricket team.  That’s because Moortown Baptist Church are currently playing in a four team, 20 over tournament running on Wednesday evenings in May and June at Harewood House. The teams are Mosaic, St George’s, Leeds Pathology (links to Bridge Street) and Moortown.
 
Skipper Mike Gray reports… All of the teams consist of players from each church and friends to make up the numbers. In our first game we had a close victory in the 19th over of our batting innings. Leeds Pathology hit 120 runs and we chased a score of 121 to win.
 
Our Man of the Match was Graham (right) with a fine performance as both wicket keeper and batsman; indeed it was Graham who secured our victory by dispatching the ball to the boundary for the winning four. 
 
Other individuals shone, particularly debutantes Edward (above, left) claiming a wicket and a run out, Andy 2 wickets and Sam who took a brilliant catch.
 
There are still two matches to play so if anyone would like to join the team please contact Mike Gray on 07505634522.
 
Included in the gallery is a picture we’ve found in our archive taken of the MBC cricket team in either the late 1950s or very early 60s. If you want to see a larger version of this or any of the others simply click on the image. 
 

 

20th May – a busy, busy day at MBC

May 24, 2018 by John Sherbourne

I think it’s fair to say that no Sunday morning service at MBC is ever what you might call quiet or straight forward. Besides all the traditional elements there’s very often a mission slot, or our children come back in to share what they’ve all been up, sometimes we have a visiting preacher or maybe some weeks just an up date on one of our many and varied projects. Sunday May 20th, however, was even busier than normal.

This was because after a shortened service (one hour, five including Communion) we held the second of our special open Church Meetings.

On the agenda this time was the election or reappointment of deacons, confirmation that Howard Dews is to be our GDPR guru and the latest news on our ongoing search for a new youth worker. Then, an hour later it was time for the top side of a hundred of us to share lunch. 

The gallery below shows a selection of images taken on the day. This includes pictures of a splendid new “stained glass” window, specially designed and built for Pentecost by Kate Slater, our two new deacons – Paul Smith and Phil Laws and a shot taken in the lounge showing what some of our kids were doing during our meeting. 

So there you have it, Sunday May 20th, just another day in the eventful life of Moortown Baptist Church. Fortunately everything ran smoothly even if it was a bit of a struggle getting everything cleared away before it was time for Shona and Graham to clock on again, this time to lead a 4pm Tea Service. 

You can view a larger version of any of these images simply by clicking on the picture

Sunday 20th May – Special Church Meeting & Shared Lunch

May 18, 2018May 16, 2018 by John Sherbourne

10.30am Morning service, including communion (with children out from the start and young people going out at 11am)

11.30am Special Church Meeting to discuss Youth, future developments and an election of deacons. Children are welcome at the meeting however it will be broadcast in the meeting area to enable families with young children to participate in the meeting while the children are welcome to watch a film in the lounge if they prefer.

12.15pm Bring and share lunch. Please bring enough for yourself and a bit extra.

4.00pm Tea Service – ‘Pentecost’ followed by afternoon tea.

Cas, Moira and 7,000 others take part in the thirty third running of the Leeds Half Marathon

May 14, 2018May 14, 2018 by John Sherbourne

Below is a gallery of pictures taken last Sunday as some of the seven thousand runners who took part in the ASDA Foundation Leeds Half Marathon streamed past MBC. Naturally after the slog up Stonegate Road many were extremely grateful that some of our young people were again on hand offering a short, sharp Haribo boost. 

The event which believe it or not has been “running” for thirty three years is now organised by the Jane Tomlinson’s Run for All project and attracts some of the world’s top athletes.

However, as you can see from Ross Bromley and John Sherbourne’s pictures when the field includes a 44 year old bearded nun called Jonny, Spiderman and a guy weighed down by having a 34kg anchor strapped to his back not everyone is in it to win it. 

So special mention this year to run regular Moira Richardson (right) and also to our Children’s Worker Cas Stoodley. Cas joined Luke Dean, Meanwood Valley Baptist Church’s Youth, Children and Community lead and Ben Jones, founder of Missional Generation to run in memory Luke and Gemma Dean’s daughter Orla who died in March 2017. In fact now the team have all returned safely you can still help their causes: Martin House Children’s Hospice and Leeds Mencap by going on line and visiting https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/orla-river 

 

MBC Plant Sale raises £1,200

May 12, 2018May 12, 2018 by John Sherbourne

Once again one of MBC’s most popular and successful events, our annual plant sale has proved to be a great hit. In just two hours money raised from the sale of plants and donations for coffee and cake totaled £1,200. 

Huge thanks to Jenny Dixon and her green fingered team who between them had spent days, weeks and months preparing for the big day. 

All the money raised will be donated to two charities: Living Local, a community project based here in north Leeds and Christian Aid. 

Here’s a gallery of pictures taken at the sale… you can view a larger version simply by clicking on the image. 

 

 

 

In just half an hour our youngster’s home made baking raises over £150 for International Nepal Fellowship

April 23, 2018April 23, 2018 by John Sherbourne

If you were with us on Sunday morning you probably treated yourself to one, or maybe more, of the delicious home made cakes that our young people had baked. The donations the goodies attracted totaled £152.25 which will very soon be being transferred to the International Nepal Fellowship. 

The Fellowship works with or runs a number of very practical projects and with UK cash going a long way in Nepal you can be assured that this sum will be put to very good use. 

The youngsters who baked either by themselves or with friends each get to choose which projects they want to support. 

Hilary Willmer has kindly supplied us with a list of some of just some of these projects which you can see below… 

Green Pastures Hospital

£5 – shoes for a leprosy patient, £17 for a leprosy self care kit

Disability

£8 toys for children with disability, £25 school disability training

Medical camps

£5 medical supplies for one patient, £13  transport medical team to remote health post

Community development

£10 chicks for family small business, £15 plant a fruit farm (50 saplings)

Then larger sums such as £80 clean water tap or £225 goats and training to care for them

So thanks to those who bought the produce and of course to Debbie and Chris Drew for suggesting this to us.

To see a larger version of any of our gallery pictures simply click on the image

Special Church Meeting – change of date

April 23, 2018 by John Sherbourne

On 20 May there will be an hour long service followed by a special church meeting to discuss Youth, future developments and an election of deacons.

After the meeting there will be a church lunch which will be bring and share. Please bring enough for yourself and a little bit extra.

This is the meeting that was initially scheduled for May 6th. 

Welcome back, and many congratulations

April 16, 2018 by John Sherbourne

As part of their Golden Wedding celebrations Susan and David revisit MBC

It’s always a pleasure to welcome new people to MBC, and I’m glad to say that’s something we do often. However, when the people you are speaking to turn out to be a couple who were in fact married here at Moortown in 1968 that pleasure takes on extra significance. 

Such was the case recently when on a visit to Leeds Susan (nee Susan Cheesbrough) and David Poole, who now live in Hampshire, attended one of our Sunday morning services. 

Following the Service John Sherbourne caught up with them and much to his delight discovered that tucked away in Susan’s handbag were not only some original wedding pictures but also an invitation to their reception which like many at the time was held in the opulent surroundings of The Mansion at Rounday. 

Fortunately for us, after being introduced to a couple of MBC’s “old timers” – folk who fondly remembered mutual friends Susan and David were more than happy to share their story with us. 

“Susan at the time had lived in Harehills, Leeds until she went to university and attended Allerton High School. It was during the sixth form that she started going to Moortown Baptist Church; a little group of three from the school went Sunday by Sunday.

We were both teachers and living in London when we were married but soon moved to Holmfirth.  We visited Leeds frequently because Susan’s parents remained in Harehills until, a while after the death of her father, Susan’s mother moved to be nearer us in Holmfirth.  Our two children grew up. went to university and began working in the south – Bath and East Grinstead.  It was for that reason that we moved to Hampshire to be able to visit more easily.

Time passes so quickly and, then, we once more visit the Baptist Church for our golden wedding anniversary.

If we are in the district again, we shall try to find time to attend worship. It is clearly such an active fellowship contributing much to the district. Visitors are certainly made welcome; we very much enjoyed our visit.”

For the record: the MBC Minister who officiated at Susan and David’s wedding was Rev’d Ralph Drake. 

 

 

Part time Admin vacancy at Leeds & Moortown Furniture Store

April 18, 2018April 15, 2018 by John Sherbourne

To see a full job description follow this link 

To download an application form follow this link here

Haddon Willmer – Mariner: a voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge

April 16, 2018April 15, 2018 by John Sherbourne

The poet, theologian and Christian Malcolm Guite (left) has written a marvellous book, Mariner: a voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge  (Hodder, 2017). I got it early this week and could not put it down.  Now I would like to press it upon as many friends as I can. 

Coleridge (1772-1834), a brilliant poet, philosopher and spiritual teacher, wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner when he was 25, when he was working with William Wordsworth, ‘strong in love!’  in the exciting days of the French Revolution,  ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!’.   They wanted a new kind of poetry,  ‘free, natural, lucid… drawn to discover the beautiful in what is close and everyday….but equally committed to finding in folktale, superstition and myth, emblems of our own inner nature and deeper truths of the human heart’.   

Guite explores these deeper truths by taking us through the poem stanza by stanza.  It never bores partly because the Rime is ruminous, and partly because Coleridge’s own life, as it unfolded after he wrote the poem, turned out to march step by step with the poem.   The Mariner is Ancient, his voyage is told in antique terms, but the telling came from the imagination of a young man, living in the modern world as we are.   When his life is put alongside the poem it turns from being a bit of charming entertainment into a searching and redeeming word for our living today. 

The Mariner and his mates sailed off with high hopes; they were blessed on their way, not least by an albatross who flew with them as they got to Cape Horn.  Then, the Ancient Mariner shot him, an act of inexplicable evil, and he was cursed, his guilt – the dead albatross –  hanging round his neck.  All his shipmates die, cursing him; he wishes he could die, but cannot.  He finds he can neither live nor pray.   Then surprisingly, ‘some kind saint took pity on me’, so that he looked on the water-snakes which earlier had horrified him with their sliminess, and saw them shining in the soft light of the moon:

O happy living things! No tongue

Their beauty might declare:

A spring of love gushed from my heart,

And I blessed them unaware…

The self-same moment I could pray,

And from my neck so free

The Albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea. 

This was not the end, but it was the turning point.  And so, he came home, living within the compulsion to tell  his story of sin and loss and of rescue and renewal, accosting people like the Wedding Guest, who misses that happy occasion, hears the whole tale, and leaves ‘a sadder and a wiser man’.  

Uncannily, Coleridge’s poem turns out to be an illuminating commentary on his whole life, which still lay in the unknown future when the Rime was written.  Coleridge was immensely gifted, full of hope and creativity at the beginning, but soon he ran into trouble.  He started on opium, a common legal medical treatment then, because he suffered from rheumatic pains.  He became addicted, which meant misery when he was using, misery when he was withdrawing, as he tried to do repeatedly.  He became difficult to live with; weaknesses in his character were exacerbated; despite strenuous efforts by both partners, his marriage failed.  He could work furiously and successfully at projects, for a while, and then they fell apart.  Instead of being carried on by ambitions befitting his gifts, he was burdened by the disappointment and guilt at the failure of his life as a whole.   He was a man of profound faith in God and strong Christian thoughtfulness, but in his despair, like the Mariner he could not pray. 

He was difficult to help, but he had friends, old and new, who did not altogether give up on him.  After over a decade of descent into the depths, a good Dr Gilman and his wife took him into their home, managed his addiction wisely until he was released from it, so that he lived fruitfully for 17 more years.  Relations with his wife and children were repaired.    He knew, like his Ancient Mariner, that he lived by the forgiving grace of God and not by his own achievements, however good some of them were.    

In that last time, he wrote works on literature, theology and life which are still influential.  He was a prophet for his time, acutely observing what was happening and pointing to the narrow but open ways to life rather than death.  All through the book, Guite helps us to listen to Coleridge for ourselves today:  ‘Coleridge was reading and thinking for his life – and for ours’. 

Three things stay with me, after my first reading.  First, the picture of Christian faith that we are given by accompanying Coleridge on this voyage is unusual, orthodox, challenging and enriching, not to be missed.   It is focused on God, on Christ and the Cross, on the Holy Spirit engaging with human beings, who sin, despair and come to death, where the dying God meets them and brings them to repentance and new life.  This repentance for Coleridge was a lifetime of hard experience in the world, not a religious moment in church. 

Secondly, Coleridge saw that the modern material and instrumental view of nature was ‘utterly deadening’ and would ultimately crush any notion of ‘soul’ or even ‘person’.   It meant reducing persons to things, and limiting truth to ‘facts’ based on empirical observation, and belittling imagination as groundless opinion.   We feel the pressures today of treating the person as a brain and the brain as a computer, and are not so sure we can distinguish between a person and a robot.  We are caught in systems that aim to make children employable, so that they are valued and rewarded according to their usefulness to systems.  Human beings have, for long ages, been engaged in, often overwhelmed by, the dilemmas of seeking life in a world of deadly wisdoms and rationalities, like those represented by the High Priest Caiaphas, who said to the Pharisees debating what to do with Jesus: ‘You know nothing at all; you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole people should not perish’ (John 11.49, 50).

Thirdly, Guite brings out how Coleridge speaks to the ecological crisis and guilt that is engulfing us.  The Ancient Mariner brought disaster and death to the ship and all who were sailing in her, when he shot the Albatross, treating it as a mere Thing, alien to human being, to be disposed of at a whim.  It was a gross failure to respect the Albatross as a fellow-creature, in the wholeness of God’s creation.  It was a terrible rejection of the love which is the real presence of God in all things.  

He prayeth well who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best who loveth best,

All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.

This points us beyond any environmental concern driven by worry about our survival, regardless of its cost to other creatures, including the inanimate earth.   As Guite points out, the ‘alls’ in this stanza are significant.   We need hearts purified from self-interest, to share in the love of God and to go along with it, so that we become free for all and with all. 

I would like to think that what I have said will lead friends to say, I want to read this book – indeed I will read this book for myself.  But I know I have not begun to do it justice – how could I in this little piece when it is a book of nearly 450 pages?    Now is that a fact I should have kept quiet about?   Have I put some friends off:  ‘I would like to read it, but that is really too long for me’.  Please don’t say that.  It is not boring, it is constantly eyeopening, informative, illuminating.  It is a beautifully structured book, taking small groups of stanzas in turn, so it is easy to read a bit at a time.  And it would be rewarding as a book for daily reflection and prayer – the poem has spoken deeply to Guite our contemporary, he hears it as a Christian thinker and shares with us what he has found.  I wondered as I read it whether it might help some readers to begin with Part II, which takes us through the Rime, and then go to Part I, about Coleridge’s life up to the writing of it.  That would be feasible. But I still think the book’s double act, partnering the poem step by step with  Coleridge’s pilgrimage has the wind of the spirit in it to carry us along. 

The Wedding Guest tried to get away from the old crazed looking Mariner when he was hastening to get to the wedding on time, but he was not sorry in the end that he compelled by the eye of the old man to stay to the end.  Please don’t succeed in doing what he failed to do, even if you have a wedding to go to.  

If you want to read the poem straightaway, see https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-text-of-1834

See Malcolm Guite’s own blog about his book, including the beautiful epitaph Coleridge wrote for himself.

https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/tag/the-ancient-mariner/

Haddon Willmer

 

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