News

The first of our Third Sunday Breakfasts proved really popular with more than 40 turning up for the 9.30am start.

It was particularly good to be able to welcome eight visitors from Romania, here in Leeds for 10 days or so and staying with Rod, Karen and Howard. Later, during our 10.45 Service the group presented us with some lovely gifts including a beautiful white cloth which from now on in will take pride of place on our Communion table. 

Graham also took time out to thank and introduce the house group who had planned and prepared breakfast. Described purely for convenience as Phil and Suzanna Laws’ group it was great to see and pray for such a large group of people who quite spontaneously had started to meet together. 

Following Communion the Service closed with John Sherbourne introducing a video about the work of the Leeds and Moortown Furniture Store. The Store started life here at MBC in 1986 and whilst over those three decades much has changed the mission statement drafted all those years ago and the links between it and our church remain the same.

Encouraging listeners to engage with the Store as “critical friends” i.e. people who when help was being sought in a particular area might offer their expertise John emphasised that the story of LMFS is as actually as much a story about people as it is about furniture. 

If you weren’t with us on Sunday, or if you were and you would like to see it again there’s a link to John’s video here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2HTVHm3KLo

The ladies at Beacon Cast-offs have joined forces with Hookers and Clickers (do it for charity). We have one aim, to connect like-minded people in an attempt to make the world just a little bit better. We run short term, specific need projects across the UK and overseas for a variety of charities and are always open to suggestions for our next challenge.

So far we have supported Leeds Baby Bank in West Yorkshire, Moray Supports Refugees, Simon on the Streets, Sands, SSNAPS, Pilgrims Hospice, Four Fields care home, Wheatfields, Candlelighters & Outreach 4 Wolverhampton. Making the world a better place – one stitch at a time.”

Beacon Cast-offs is based at MBC. Hookers and Clickers began life at Armley Christchurch but both groups are spreading across Leeds and nationwide.

Our picture shows Kate Slater and Janis Armstrong handing over a whole load of knitted scarfs, gloves and socks to MBC’s Simon on the Streets link Alastair Bowie. 

By John Sturges…  “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.  Genesis, chapter 1, verse 31.

God was pleased with his creation, and He chose to share it with Mankind; Adam and Eve were installed in the Garden of Eden, showing us that God’s intention was that we should all enjoy the fruits of his creation since we are part of it. In Genesis chapters 2 and 3 we learn that we are disobedient, fallen and banished from the garden. Today, it is apparent to us that the natural world we live in is a beautiful place, but in truth it also contains ugliness and we must admit that this ugliness is of our doing. For thousands of years during the Holocene era, we managed to live in reasonable harmony with our world, in that the impacts of our activities, production of wastes etc. were able to be absorbed by the natural world, and our demands for resources of materials and energy did not place an excessive strain upon the Earth’s natural systems.

In the first two decades of the 18^th century however, men made two developments that changed the course of history. These were the discovery of how to smelt iron using coke (a non-renewable resource) instead of charcoal (a renewable material) in Coalbrookdale in the Severn gorge, and the harnessing of steam power to enable deeper mining for coal. This was the Newcomen engine installed in the Earl of Dudley’s coal mines in Worcestershire, and these two events took place close together in time and barely 20 miles apart, making possible the Industrial Revolution. Before this time, we relied on renewable forms of energy and materials, and our global impact was very much smaller, at a level with which the Earth’s natural systems could cope. These industrial developments gave us the power to greatly increase our demands for resources. In the early 18^th century, the world’s human population was under 1 billion souls, now it stands at more than 7.5 billion. By being created and placed in creation, God called us to be its stewards, but because we are weak and selfish, we have used the world for our own selfish ends and not cared for it with love.

Sir David Attenborough’s recent series of programmes, Blue Planet II, succeeded in raising public awareness of the serious problem posed by the accumulation of millions of tonnes of plastic waste in the world’s oceans, together with the horrible damage it does to fish, birds and sea-life generally. In the same episode ‘The Big Blue’, after showing the floating plastic, he showed the image of a floating, dead whale carcass. I believe he ‘missed a trick’ in that he could have contrasted the way that in about 3 decades, the 30 tonne whale carcass was completely cleared up and recycled by natural systems, i.e. animals and fish that were ultimately solar-powered. In other words, God’s creation is fully capable of sustaining itself naturally, whereas we humans create disorder which is not cleared up, but which despoils and harms our world. We consume the riches of this world for our own selfish ends, with no thought for the creator who gave it to us, and it is human actions that bring the ugliness into our world. Also, when we make serious mistakes, we fail to learn the lessons.

On 21 October 1966, the Aberfan disaster killed 116 children and 28 adults in the village school. A huge pile of colliery waste became liquefied in heavy rain, turning it into liquid slurry which engulfed the school. On 25 January of this year, the village of Brumadinho in Brazil was engulfed in liquid slurry from iron mining when the dam behind which it was held failed, causing 166 deaths. In both cases, the mining companies did not wish to spend some of their profits on the safe disposal of the waste they had created. These failures to properly dispose of the plastic and mining wastes are examples of ‘externalizing of costs’. It has ugly and lethal consequences. 

In truth, we behave as if we were the lords of creation; taking whatever resources of materials and energy that we need with no thought or understanding of the consequences. We dishonour God by our spoiling and wanton destruction of His world. People increasingly refer to ‘saving the planet’, but these words are misleading; our planet Earth is in no real danger, what we are doing is putting in danger our future existence on the Earth, by threatening its capacity to sustain us. We ultimately depend on all of the other life forms on Earth, both plant and animal. Even vegetarians could not survive without the bird, animal and insect life that acts to pollinate crops and other plants. As humans, we are just a part of the world-wide web of life, the Earth’s ecosystems, and we could not survive without them. We are only now learning of the extent of our dependence on all of created life. We must recognise the fact that we do not ‘own’ our world, rather it has been entrusted to our stewardship for the duration of our lives, and that others, including our descendants will inherit the world and its stewardship after us. In depleting the world’s resources we are depriving our descendants of their inheritance. Finally, I am aware this piece has a serious tone, but it addresses a very serious situation that concerns every one of us.

What can we do to help?

• Take an interest in how our world works, and take time to think of the impact that our choices place upon it,
• Take care to correctly dispose of our waste materials,
• Keep in mind that we should not so consume the Earth’s resources today that we deprive our descendants of the means to enjoy a good quality of life in their turn,  
• Avoid the mind-set that says ‘it’s someone else’s problem’, or ‘the government should do something’. We must all do what we can.do by taking individual responsibility for our care of creation.

           j.sturges@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

March 2019

With Rewind to Easter just a matter of days away here’s a gentle reminder to our team that this coming Sunday is “Set Up Sunday.” 

This year we have a total of 344 Year 5, that’s 9 and 10 year old children from 9 primary schools as our guests. Looking after them and sharing what we as Christians believe to be the true meaning of Easter will be our team of more than 20 wonderful volunteers.

We’d like to begin setting up immediately following our Sunday morning service and with with a team of 5 or 6 willing hands this has been known to take less than an hour. Then between 2.30pm and 4.30 we’re having our one and only drama rehearsal. 

Thank you to Joe Kapolyo for giving the Whitley Lecture here at MBC on Wednesday March 6th. Such was the response that it has got us thinking that we might  like to do something similar in the coming months. 

However, in the meantime if you would like a copy of the booklet that accompanies the lecture they are available from Whitley Productions c/o Regents Park College, Oxford, OX1 2LB or by going to www.rpc.ox.ac.uk 

This coming Sunday, March 17th, we are once again trying something new. By that we mean that whist we are continuing our programme of two morning services, with this being the third Sunday of the month i.e. our week for communion we thought that we would have just one communion service during the 10.45am gathering, and that the 9.30 early birds could come together for breakfast. 

Initially flagged up as a feast of croissants and the like I do now hear a very strong rumour that for those who prefer something a little more substantial our hosts, Phil and Suzanna Laws’ House Group, are laying on bacon buttys. 

So once again the choice is yours: 9.30am til 10.15 in the Music Room for breakfas, coffee and fellowship and/or 10.45 to 12.15 Communion Service. 

Oh and finally this coming Sunday also see our next Tea Service. This begins at 4pm and is of course followed by a light tea.  

A couple of weeks ago Graham told us a little bit of history about St David. Born somewhere around 500AD, David, the Patron Saint of Wales became bishop of Mynyw (now St Davids) during the 6th century. A renowned teacher and preacher we learned that St David’s most famous miracle took place when he was preaching in the middle of a large crowd at the Synod of Brefi when the ground on which he was standing is reputed to have risen up to form a small hill.

However, as interesting as all this was what Graham was leading us to was a story of an encounter he recently had with a welsh friend at a UK Citizen’s meeting. Seemingly it’s a known fact that as something like 99% of all zimmer frames are grey those who rely on them for mobility have great difficulty determining which is and which isn’t theirs. 

ANSWER – MAKE THEM ALL DIFFERENT!

In Wales personalising a zimmer is known as pimping, or in slightly more refined circles as shimmering, and as part of their agenda to address areas of need the particular branch of UK Citizens that Graham’s friend belongs to have taken up this challenge with a local engineering company. 

By coincidence our Senior’s Worker Carole Smith has just mounted a fabulous display in the MBC sports hall of pictures and comments taken and made about Seniors’ Lunch Club. 

If you get chance do pop into the sports hall and read some of the comments, each and every one underlining the value of this important part of our ministry which believe it or not began its weekly programme in March 1975, that’s exactly 44 years ago. 

We’ll keep you up date with any news we get as to if and when any of our seniors get their hands on some new super duper shimmered zimmers; in the meantime keep your wits about you and keep looking out for grey ones.