Notes from St Mary’s Church
Collective Worship in our Schools...
Child’s question: where did Noah keep his bees?
We have two excellent village schools: links with Roughlee and St Mary’s Cidari Newchurch Primary School continue to develop and change. Sometimes people ask what work we do with schools.
Collective worship (“assembly” in old money!) takes place every day. It is different from/additional to the Agreed RE Syllabus schools follow. Our schools’ collective worship is broadly Christian, and usually interactive, with stories, songs, time for reflection, and prayers – all in about 20 minutes. The Vicar, and representatives from the churches, visit schools regularly, between 3-7 times a half term.
Fr Paul visited both schools regularly until October 2024 as Gin and Mel did and continue to do, providing a lively programme of collective worship which has included lots of dressing up, stone soup, and tossing pancakes amongst other activities. You had to be there! Schools shared harvest festival in St Mary’s Church (we’re still finding the sunflower seeds!) and held services at Christmas and Easter and a leaving service in the church, too. Both contributed to the Passion Play last Easter, providing delightful, thoughtful music, rehearsing in school and church as well as the final, well-attended performance.
Claire and Gin helped make “findings” for the Rush Bearing along with children, staff and volunteer parents/grandparents in school, and a Rush Bearing King and Queen were chosen from the pupils for Rush Bearing Day. Such fun in school. Don’t miss the Rush Bearing in Newchurch this year – Saturday 12th July, 2pm by the school. Free refreshments!
Claire and friends ran well-attended craft sessions at Hallowe’en in the church, with lots of suitable refreshment, and craft and an egg hunt at Easter.
Peter Crewe runs a school gardening club at St Mary’s, working in the churchyard and the school gardens. Children grow and take home plants like potatoes, herbs, tomatoes, daffodils, and are experts on weeds!. Peter is a governor there as was Ruth White. Gin is a governor/chair of resources at Roughlee School. They provided extra supervision for St Mary’s School pantomime visit in January 2024. Rev Nick held a crib service soon after his arrival and has been in for collective worship quite a few times. St. Mary’s has worked with Barley Methodists on child centred events like Barley to Bethlehem and the Lambing Service.
In St Mary’s church is a play area complete with toys, appropriate books and cushions which has been in regular use. We have plans to develop different forms of church offerings more attractive to young people in 2025.
We are building a team from both churches to develop school/young people/church links further in 2025, which leads smoothly to our new collective worship project: Open the Book – Bible Society is about telling Bible stories, not preaching or evangelising, so children of all faiths and no faith can watch and interact with the stories in their own way. It provides a structured framework and lots of resources, and our group of about 10 are looking forward to piloting it after the Spring Bank Holiday. If you are interested in joining us, do contact Rev Nick who is very enthusiastic about it all.
Onwards and upwards!
Answer: in the Ark hives.
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Just as May often feels like it has too many bank holidays June, this year, feels like it has too many festivals. On the 1st of June we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus. After Jesus was risen from the dead he was with the disciples for over forty days. They ate with him, walked with him, caught fish under his supervision, we are even told that on one occasion he was seen by 500 people at one time. But His ascension, when the church reflects on him returning to heaven (Luke 24 and Acts 1 for details). This is a significant part of Christian teaching our crucified risen saviour is alive today and represents his followers to God the Father. This is a wonderful thought that means we are never alone in what we face because He brings our needs to the Father.
Pentecost (see Acts 2 for details) is an Old Testament festival where the early harvest, the first fruit (something like gooseberries I suppose) are gathered as a symbol of the promise of the future harvest. As the early church received the power of the Holy Spirit enabling them and empowering them to speak and live for Jesus, they were in a sense the first fruit of a harvest of people who were being gathered in. The following 300 years saw the church grow and establish itself as the dominant practice of much of the known world. As we remember that Pentecost, we continue to ask that the Holy Spirit enables and empowers Christians to live lives that have a powerful dynamic impact on those around them to share the love of God.
Which brings us to the third festival of the month Trinity Sunday. God’s driving force has always been love. He exists in a unifying love of three unified persons. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Their mutual self-sacrificial love for each other is the power behind the universe. The fact that we struggle to understand how God can be a unified Trinity only serves to under score how unqualified we are for the job of God and we should seek to live within his loving unity.
Come and explore these deep and significant festivals with us over the coming weeks.