Magazine and Events, January 2011

January 2011

We’re starting the New Year with something new

‘What is the something?’ you might be wondering.  The something is Fair Trade Communion Wine. Or we might have started using it at Christmas, depending on when precisely we finished the ‘freetrade wine.’

Most of us are familiar with fairtrade coffee and tea, or bananas or even chocolate.  There is now a vast range of products imported from developing countries.  The method is to ensure that the farmers and craftsmen get a fair price for their products.  In free trade, producers may find prices forced down by the multinational companies who monopolise the shipping and selling to rich countries, and who take more profit.  In fairtrade, more is paid to the producers both directly and in using some of the profit to spend on communities, eg. schools.  Yes, fairtrade products are more expensive but that’s because the producers are getting a fair price.

At the Diocesan  Conference in July we clergy were introduced to fairtrade communion wine. In the autumn we at St Thomas’ tried it and found nothing wrong with it.  Our Church Council decided to use it on a regular basis.

Wine buffs will be interested to know that it is 90% made from Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Muscat grape varieties with 100g of residual sugar (the same as port) to produce a rich, fortified, wine.

The grapes are grown and harvested in South Africa and the proceeds from the sales are shared by the Trawal Primary School and the Stellar Employees’ Trust.  Employees’ children attend the school, and the Trust has so far provided fencing for workers’ houses to provide privacy and enable gardening, and to provide laptop computers.  On the wish list are the purchase of a bus for transporting seasonal workers, and the building of a community centre.

This fairtrade wine is exactly double the price of the freetrade wine we used before.  The Church Council believe it is worth the extra cost’

Andrew Dawson

Dear friends

As we enter 2011, what do we feel about our nation’s prospects?  Do you agree with this writer?  ‘Ordinary words have changed their meaning to suit the times.  “Irrational daring” is called “courageous loyalty to one’s party”, “intelligent hesitation” has become “specious cowardice”, “prudence” takes over the mantle of “effeminacy”, while “complete understanding” has become synonymous with “complete inactivity.”  Sharpness of an undisciplined kind has been added to the conception of courage, and plans formed for personal safety are considered a fair-seeming excuse for inaction.  The leading members of the parties have fair-sounding manifestos, championing civil equality for all or for a reasonably limited aristocracy.  But while paying lip-service to this public aim, they lay claim to the prizes, striving to outdo each other by appalling deeds of daring, resorting to greater and greater measures of revenge, with no limit set by justice or by the benefit of the city at large.  The moderate citizens have been wiped out by both parties, either because they would not join in, or in anger at their possible survival.’

That was the Greek historian Thucydides who was writing approx. 2,400 years ago about his country.  The reason that I quoted from him is to give the perspective that, if we are worried about our nation, ours is not the first once proud nation to worry about itself. Incidentally, Thucydides lays a lot of the blame on politicians – if they share in the blame today, we have our part in it aswell as voters and citizens – as they should not aim for short-term support from us, nor should we ask of them unrealistic aims which cannot be fulfilled without sacrifice.

Thucydides told half the truth – Jesus tells the whole truth: ‘Peace is what I leave with you.  It is my own peace that I give you.  I do not give it as the world does.  Do not be worried or upset; do not be afraid.  Don’t be troubled when you hear the news of battles close by and news of battles far away.  Such things must happen, but they do not mean that the end has come.  Happy are those who work for peace; God will call them his children!  When the time comes, say whatever is given to you.  For the words you will speak will not be yours, they will come from the Holy Spirit.’  (John 14, vs 27; Mark 13, vv 7 and 11b; Matthew 5, vs 9).

It’s so easy to be mesmerized by bad news, mesmerized into despair and inactivity.  Take the trouble to look for good news, both locally and nationally.  If you still feel downhearted, spend time reading about Jesus.  He is alive.  We meet Him in Christian people, in the New Testament and during worship.  No-one is disqualified from meeting him. If we keep doing this, we will have peace and hope within ourselves and sometimes among our families, colleagues and neighbours.  This will give us the imagination to start being confident about our nation also.

Dates for your diary

Sunday 9th January: (from 6th)     The Festival of Epiphany, of the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles: 

                                                            8 am    Holy Communion 

                                                           10.30    Morning Worship

16th– 25th:                                        International Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Sunday 23rd:                                    10.30 Morning Worship

Officiant and Preacher,                   Sr Eileen O’Doherty

                                                            I will be preaching at St Patrick’s.

Friday 18thFebruary:                       Churches Together in Oldham Annual Dinner

    Speakers:          Adrian Plass, author of ‘Sacred Diary’, & Bridget Plass.

    At Salt Cellar, tickets £15 from Biddy Dawson.  Deadline 30 January.

Yours sincerely

Andrew Dawson

Christian Funeral

‘For I am convinced that neither death nor life … nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ – St Paul to the Christians in Rome 8, 38 – 39.

16 December    Harry Hollingworth    aged 89 years

Current priorities of St Thomas’- as agreed by Church Council, September  2004

1.  Evangelism/Church Growth out of love for people and because we need new members.

2.  Worship, including Sunday School, Healing, Prayer and Music.

3.  Witness to Asians through individual friendships and through shared work with the community.

4.  Presence, that is letting people know that C of E Christians live and/or worship on the Coppice.

5.  Working with St Paul’s, as we have been requested by the Diocese