13/10/24
Your weekly update from the Benwell & Scotswood Team.
Click below to read this week's information and latest news.
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Services this week
Sunday 9.30am - St John's Holy Communion
11am - Hub service (Parish Eucharist) at St James' 4pm - St Margaret's Evening prayer
Tuesday
9.30am Morning prayer at St Margaret's
4.30pm Bible study at St James
Wednesday
3.45pm Evening Prayer at St John's
Thursday
10.30am Venerable Bede - Holy Communion
Dates for your diary
Mon 14th October
7pm - PCC meeting with Bishop Mark at St James
News
Who will our new Rector be?
The process for finding a new Rector has begun!
We want to know your thoughts to help us, it's important that everyone in the community gets their say. So we have 3 questions for you:
What is exciting in the parish that our new Rector should know about?
What do you think will be the biggest challenges for the new Rector to tackle?
What kind of person would you like our new rector to be?
Please email your responses to church@benwellscotswood.com or write on a piece of paper and hand it to a churchwarden or Revd Chris.
Sunday 27th October, 11am - Moving to the Venerable Bede
From Sunday 27th October our 'hub' service (11am parish eucharist) will move to the warmer Venerable Bede Church for the winter months.
Venerable Bede, West Road, NE4 8AP
Every Sunday at 11am
From 27 October
Don't Forget this will also be the same day the clocks change! The clocks will go back one hour, so you get an extra hour in bed.
All Souls' Service - Thanksgiving for the departed
Sunday 3rd November, at 4pm
At St Margaret's Scotswood, NE15 6AR
Every year we hold a special service on All Souls' Day (or on the nearest Sunday).
During this service we gather to remember those we have lost, to pray for them, and light a candle in honour of them.
This year the service will take place on Sunday 3rd Nov at St Margaret's. Everyone is very welcome.
During the service a list of names of those we have lost will be read out, including those whose funerals have happened in the last 3 years. If you would like to add a name to the list please send an email to church@benwellscotswood.com (alternatively a paper list will be available in our churches).
If you have any questions or would like someone to talk to, please do let us know.
Remembrance 2024
We will be holding an Act of Remembrance in each of our churches this November. This is when we remember those who gave their lives in the First World War and all other wars, and we pray for an end to all conflicts.
On Remembrance Sunday -10th November
St John's Benwell Village 9.30am
Holy Communion followed by an Act of Remembrance.
Act of Remembrance at the followed by Holy Communion.
Act of Remembrance and prayer
On Armistice Day - Monday 11th November
St James, Benwell, 10.55am
Act of Remembrance at the war memorial inside St James' church.
The Parish Giving Scheme
Watch our generous giving video:
The Parish Giving Scheme makes it easy to give to us securely and safely online.
You can set up a regular gift or donate as a one-off. Just click below
PGS makes it easier for you to give, and it also makes it easier for our volunteers!
This is why:
Encouraging regular giving
It is still possible to give one off donations. But PGS makes it easy to give a regular amount, which helps us to plan and ensure that our activities can keep running.
Gift Aid made easy
An additional 25% can be added to every gift from UK taxpayers. That means for every £1 you give we can receive £1.25!
Because PGS process Gift Aid on behalf of the church, it maximises every gift to be put towards serving our community, free from time-consuming administration.
Increase your gift with inflation
One of the biggest problems faced by local churches is that of ‘static giving’. If giving levels had kept track with inflation since the year 2000, they would have increased by more than 50%!
A unique feature of PGS is the option for you, as a giver, to commit in principle to increase your gift annually in line with inflation. This is voluntary and you can change this commitment at any time.
Harvest - Thank you!
Thank you to all who brought food and financial donations to our Harvest service at St Margaret's last week! There were a huge amount of food donations, and we raised £95 to be split between Cornerstone and the Foodbank. We then shared a wonderful lunch together.
Also the following day, we had our Macmillan Coffee afternoon to raise money for the Macmillan cancer charity, we raised £66!
Embrace - Gaza appeal
The people of Gaza are living through an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Israel’s response has led to indiscriminate civilian suffering, with residents forced to move from place to place in search of safety. Food and medical supplies have all but run out; water, electricity, and fuel have been cut off.
The people of Gaza were already on their knees with 80% of residents reliant on humanitarian aid to survive. Please, can you make a donation into help in their hour of need?
You can donate online, by clicking below, or by calling 01494 897950. Your gift will support Embrace’s Christian partners in the immediate aftermath of this humanitarian crisis and to help to heal the wounds it’s caused across Israel – Palestine.
Sunday Worship
Trinity 20
Green
Readings
Hebrews 4.12–16
12 The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.
14 Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. 16Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Mark 10.17–31
17 As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 18Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.” ’ 20He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ 21Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ 22When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ 24And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ 26They were greatly astounded and said to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’ 27Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’
28 Peter began to say to him, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.’ 29Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news,30who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’
Intercessions
Prayers for others:
Lin, Tai and Derek
Emily Watson and family
Lawrence Okonkwo
John Nicholson
Malcolm Smith
Paulette Thompson
John Peterson
Maria Hawthorn
Herbert Agbeko
Ellis & Pauline Nelson
Michelle Wilson
Peter Wilson
Alan & Maureen Taylor
Irene Foskett
Pat Law
Moe and Mary
Lynn Mosby
Irene Scaife
Baby Alice Rose, Jodie and family
Christina Wilson
Diane Humphrey
Joan, Mike, Aoife, Dervla and family
Rest in Peace
Vincent Patrick Flood
If you would like to add someone to the prayer list please email church@benwellscotswood.com
The name will stay on the list for 1 month unless requested to be long-term.
Sermon
Revd Chris
A man asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus answers by reminding him that only God is good and that the man needs to follow all the commandments to love and care for others.
*
The man replies that he has kept all those commandments since his youth. Jesus doesn’t doubt his sincerity—he looks at him and loves him—and because he loves him, he tells him the truth: he needs to sell everything, give the money to the poor, and follow him.
*
Here we come to the point where the man can go no further. This is the only story in the Gospels when a personal call of Jesus is rejected. The rich man walks away grieving because he was not able to give up his wealth.
*
Throughout Mark’s Gospel, anyone else who comes to Jesus kneeling, asking for a blessing, is either ill or demon-possessed. The rich man gives the impression of getting everything right, of being a healthy, good, person following what God wants. But I wonder what would happen if we saw the rich man as sick?
*
The difference between the man and those who came to Jesus for healing, is that they knew they could not do it in their own power, they already knew they needed something miraculous, they knew they needed God.
It is through approaching Jesus in their weakness, that they find God looking back at them with love. It is in approaching God in their ‘imperfection’ that they find transformation.
*
I wonder, how do you see yourself? All of us are always comparing ourselves to others. Are you someone who looks at other people- people like the rich man- and feel like everyone else is doing better than you? Or do you look at other people and think ‘at least I’m doing better than them’?
We are always looking at others, comparing ourselves. But in the passage, we read about the gaze of another. The passage says Jesus looks at the man with love.
*
The passage is a warning, but it also leaves us with hope for the rich man. A rich man entering the kingdom of God is like a camel going through the eye of a needle, an impossible, ludicrous, task, but as Jesus says “‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’
*
If we recognise we are all sick, then we recognise we can heal, if we recognise we cannot heal ourselves, then we accept that what may be impossible for us is possible for God.
Jesus later tells his disciples about the coming difficulties for the world and his followers. Jesus is telling us that the world is sick, and will always be so until everything is turned upside down and ‘the first will be last, and the last will be first.’
*
Christianity isn’t about being perfect but is about our transformation through God’s power. It is in our weaknesses that God is strong. It is in our letting go of our lives that we will find eternal life. This is grace. From whatever our starting point, and however impossible the task seems, there is hope, because God looks at us always with unconditional, unending, transforming, love.