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part of the Anglican communion |
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A Church of England in the diocese of Manchester. |
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St Nicholas Church with St John and St Michael
Founded—1511—listed 2* |
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Church Magazine |
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The magazine is published every month and is self funding through local advertisements. It incorporates the diocesan magazine called CRUX. Extracts from the magazines will be placed on this page to give the reader a flavour of: who thinks what and what happens in St Nicholas Church along with any other article that might appeal to the interested mind.
Opposite is magazine no 1 from 1891. Its insert was called The Parish Magazine but changed to The Church Monthly in 1892. In December 2007 there will have been 1388 magazines without a break. |
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A Letter from the Vicar— June 2007 In my previous world of School Teaching, we were continually being told to ‘target set’. Along with lots of other organisations, it seems the Church has also taken target setting on board, not least that both St Ann’s and St Nicholas have Mission statements and Vision Documents.
A briefing paper given out at the Lambeth Conference of 1998 gave the mission of the church as:
a. to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom b. to teach baptise and nurture new believers. c. to respond to human need by loving service. d. to seek to transform the unjust structures of society. e. to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.
The Conference came to general agreement after long discussion, prayer and reflection that: ‘To talk about mission is no use unless it involves doing it.’ And to do it, God uses fallible human beings just like you and me.
Church growth is not a tick box exercise; it is a journey not a destination. In both our churches we are looking at the depth of our resources to further the mission of the Church within and outside our communities. The Responsibility Is Ours; but to do what? The commission of Christ to his disciples was: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations….. [Matthew 28.19 NRSV]
But why should we want to get involved? The responsibility of a Christian is to think about the consequences of saying: I believe….. Our faith can be a comfortable armchair occupation, or we can be transformed by passionately seeking to thank God for all that he has done for us, and by believing that God wants his church to grow.
Time and talent contributions are essential ingredients for growth but there is need for financial support too. Billy Graham was right when he said that: ‘a bank statement is an important theological document.’
We cannot put a price on what we should give back to God. To think about responding generously to God, is one thing that Christians do particularly well, but as Lambeth concluded it is of ‘no use, unless it involves doing it.’
Article on PRAYER July 2007 St Nicholas is a catholic church ( note the small c ) in the sense that it is part of the ‘whole Church’ throughout the world, throughout time and eternity. It has been the practice of the Anglican Church in every age to pray for, and with those who have departed, and it is good therefore to see the pricket stand so well used in church.
To sit quietly in St Nicholas Church and to be surrounded by structures which have born silent witness to so many prayers over nearly 500 years is a great privilege. “The stone is the library of his poetry” R.S Thomas.
Our fellowship together and witness to the risen Christ is based on love and prayer, for we are “compassed” about continually by “a great cloud” of those who have borne witness to the faith (Heb 12:1), and who form with us “the general assembly and church of the first born” (Heb. 12:23).
Indeed the Lord taught us how to pray and we also gladly say: ‘Therefore, with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name; ever more praising thee and saying, Holy…………….’ [Preface and Sanctus BCP]
When we pray we are not alone. The Christian departed, expect the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come – the Creed is testimony to this hope. We believe that they rest “in Christ” (I. Cor. 15:18) for the present, and that they will rise again on the last day.
RS Thomas –a Welsh Poet / Priest, spent a lifetime grappling with God and often he would express his frustration with His apparent absence in his life and the apparent uselessness of prayer, but then he found himself writing thus: Prayers like gravel / flung at the sky’s / window, hoping to attract / the loved one’s / attention. But without / visible plaits to let / down for the believer / to climb up, / to what purpose open / that far casement? / I would / have refrained long since / but that peering once / through my locked fingers / I thought that I detected the movement of a curtain. [Folk Tale]
As for me I quite like the idea [who knows (God knows!) what the reality is?] of the departed and the angels praying for me and me praying with them. A good friend / priest, once told me just hours before he died that he would pray for me – and strange as it might seem, I just know that he does.
A Letter from the Team Vicar June 2008
Sadly, much of the wisdom about God’s gift of wisdom is arrived at through suffering. Not so long ago I buried a full term still born child. We can only start to imagine what anguish was experienced by the parents. And often I have to say to parents in situations like this, that I do not have any glib answers when they ask: Where was God? But I know that God did not want the baby to die anymore than he wanted the recent floods in Burma or earthquake in China.
I am sure that many of you have also experienced that, ‘dark night of the soul’ as Jesus did when he cried on the cross: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Job did not find any immediate answers either but slowly came to realise that prayer and worship, love and relationship were crucial to the understanding of the wisdom of God.
It is not insignificant that the Christian God is not buried on earth, unlike the God’s of many other religions. Christians have only an empty tomb and a bare cross to point to, but that is enough. For behind the resurrection of Christ and his ascendance into heaven lie the Holy Spirit and the earthly scriptures of the Old and New Testament together with the new covenant which Jesus Christ chose to leave us with.
Rather than old bones and archaeological interpretation, we have Jesus saying in Matthew 22 v36-40, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and the greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself. All the Law and all the Prophets hang on these commandments.’ Here is the beginning of the understanding of the Wisdom of God.
He is there in the midst of suffering of whatever kind, sharing the grief, and crying too. He is there, with wide open arms catching all the emotions that fall on him – with Love.
Our gift as Christians, which I believe God has granted us through His grace, is to hold the hand in the darkness, to be able to pray and worship, and to seek the light that we know is there.
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