Church Newsletter
What’s happening in Church today? Content of Worship The Rev Jack Holt, Parish Minister, will conduct the service. Pam Taylorwill read the Bible passages. Susan Zappertwill provide our musical accompaniment.
Today is the Fourth Sunday of Lent and the theme is Coming Home. The reading is: Luke 15: 1-3 and 11-24. It is also Mothers’ Day. Our worship uses visuals which include the hymns, readings, and congregational responses.
Following a shortened service the Annual Stated Meeting of the Congregation will take place.
There is a seasonal insert with the Newsletter that gives details of the all the special services and events to celebrate Holy Week and Easter and beyond. Please use it as an invitation to invite someone to come and join our celebrations.
What’s happening in Church this week? Ladies Exercise Class Meeting on Mondays at 7pm for an hour, this group is open to any woman interested in fitness using DVD programmes. All welcome.
Vestry Jack will once again be in the vestry on Thursday evenings from 7pm to allow people to consult him on any matter. As ever if this time is not suitable he can also be contacted by phone or e-mail to arrange an appointment for another time either at the vestry, the manse or your own home.
Kirk Session All elders should now have received the agenda for Saturday’s conference which begins at 10am.
Next Sunday The service at 11am will be led by Mrs Teresa Broere, Reader. It will be the Fifth Sunday of Lent.
Intimations Minister on Presbytery Business Next Sunday as part of his duties as Convener of a Presbytery Visitation Team, Jack is taking the services at Braemar and Crathie Church. As the process of forming congregational teams to take services in his absences is not yet complete he has invited Mrs Teresa Broere, Reader, to take Pulpit Supply in his absence. However, Jack will next be absent due to Presbytery business on Sunday, 11 April when he will preach the charge of Mid Deeside vacant as its Interim Moderator. On that occasion and hopefully thereafter the congregational teams will function.
Self-Sufficient Church The minister is aware that there were people who could not attend the earlier workshop on leading worship and as there are still gaps in the hoped for 3 teams he would like to run this workshop again. It will take place on Tuesday 23 March at 7.30pm in the Church.
Guild Soap lunch The next Guild Soup Lunch will be on Sunday 21st March. Donations will be gratefully received in aid of Guild Projects. £140 was raised at the last soup lunch and will be donated to the Mission Aviation Fellowship-Madagascar. Please add your name to the list on the church notice board if you would be willing to make soup or donate bread or cheese.
Self-Sufficient Church The minister is aware that there were people who could not attend the earlier workshop on leading worship and as there are still gaps in the hoped for 3 teams he would like to run this workshop again. It will take place on Tuesday 23 March at 7.30pm in the Church.
The Crocus Concert Two local groups are joining forces on Sunday 28th March, to create a musical fundraising event. The Crocus Concert held at the Birse and Feughside Church, from 2.30pm-4.30pm and will be an afternoon of music, song and comedy from a collection of local artists. The Banchory Visually Impaired Group and the Forget Me Not Club, welcome you to attend the Crocus Concert, accompanied by refreshments. For Tickets £7.00 each, and any other information, please contact Peter Hall on 07765488875 or Heather Morrison on 07702735122.
Donald Horsfall (Anne’s son) is again running the London Marathon on Sunday 25th April. He has chosen as his charity the RNLI which is so reliant on public support and donations to carry on providing the life saving service which we take for granted. It is a charity close to his heart, as one of Donald’s work colleagues was killed in April last year, when the Super Puma helicopter went down northeast of Peterhead. If you would like to support Donald in his challenge to raise money for RNLI Please visit:- www.virginmoneygiving.com/donaldhorsfall If you don’t have access to a computer other donations can be given (in a sealed envelope), to Anne at church. Many Thanks.
Calling all photographers 'Birse and Feughside Parish Church has decided to publish another calendar. This time we arerunning a photo competition to choose 13 photos for the calendar- 12 months and one cover photo. We are looking for local landscapes to represent all twelve months of the year. The closing date is 30th April and we will then hold an exhibition in June as part of a social event and judging will commence! Please send digital photos by e-mail to Pam Taylor at pamatwoodside@googlemail.com orpost a disc to Pam Taylor, Woodside Cottage, Ballogie, Aboyne AB34 5DQ. We will not be able to accept prints so please only send electronic images. Get raking through all your photos!'
Road Closure The B974 is currently closed at SpittalBridgedue to an accident which caused the parapet to fall over, rendering the road unsafe, and has nothing to do with snow blockage. It is expected to be closed for the next 3 weeks.
DAFFODIL TEA We are also looking for donations of home baking and volunteers of help for the day. If you can help in any way, please add your name to the list on the church notice board.
Fireside reflections The LORD be with you…And also with you. Jack writes: Good morning! Once again as I write the snow is rapidly retreating, the sun is gaining warmth and the green shoots that announce the coming daffodils to the world have emerged. Is Spring in the air this time? I hope so. We are moving through the season of Lent and focusing upon the journey of Jesus to the cross. Yet on this Sunday the calendar also holds another occasion: Mother’s Day. Actually its real title in this country is Mothering Sunday. Mother’s Day is a secular occasion in many countries celebrated in May. In USA, for example, it is a national holiday that resulted from the campaign by Anna Jarvis. Her mother had been a prominent social activist during the American Civil War. On May 12, 1907, two years after her mother's death, Anna held a memorial to her mother and thereafter embarked upon a campaign to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday. She succeeded in making this nationally recognized in 1914. It was deliberately called ‘Mother’s Day’ rather than ‘Mothers’ Day’ to ensure that not some general idea of motherhood was honoured but each person’s individual mother. However, it wasn’t long before the commercialism that becomes associated with these special days disillusioned Anna. She said: A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself. A petty sentiment! She spent the rest of her life campaigning against the very holiday she worked so hard to create. Most of the world have followed the USA on holding this commemoration on ‘the second Sunday in May’ (a phrase that was trademarked by Anna Jarvis) but not all countries. Mother’s Day is actually spread throughout over most of the calendar when all countries are considered. But in our country it is not Mother’s Day but Mothering Sunday. There was in the ancient world religious festivals that celebrated motherhood. In the Roman religion the festival was in honour of the mother goddess Cybele and it took place during mid-March. When the Roman Empire converted to Christianity these old pagan acts were remembered as part of cultural folklore, and the Church did what it always did to try and wean the populace away from such practises; it overlaid the existing festival with Christian meaning. For Christianity that meant focusing upon two thing: Mary, the mother of Jesus and the Church, known to all Christians as mother Church. The season of Lent had its six Sundays and the fourth was known as Laetare Sunday. This comes from the Latin for ‘rejoice’. In the middle of Lent it was felt the worshippers needed a break from the weeks of fasting and penitential behaviour; they needed a sign of hope that joy was on its way. This Sunday also had an association with flowers, especially roses. In the Middle Ages an ornament of a golden rose was created and on this Sunday the pope would bless it and send it to Catholic monarchs. One pope, Innocent III said: "As Lætare Sunday, the day set apart for the function, represents love after hate, joy after sorrow, and fullness after hunger, so does the rose designate by its colour, odour and taste, love, joy and satiety respectively." March 25 is the day set apart to remember the Annunciation. Nine month before the date of Christmas, it is on this day the angel Gabriel told Mary she would conceive and bear a son. She then sings forth her praise in joy to God in a song. So the Church remembered Mary and also Mother Church. Congregations in England would create a circle around their church on this day to ‘embrace it. The joy of the occasion was then the inspiration to allow servants the chance to go home to their mother church and their own mothers. The joy also allowed the custom of baking cakes to take home, and the giving of posies that are part of this nation’s cultural heritage of Mothering Sunday, now mixed in with the secular commercialism of Mother’s Day, that so irritated Anna Jarvis. So to mothers everywhere, including my own: Happy Mothering Sunday! Until next week…The Lord Bless You and Keep You.
|
DAILY READINGS