Diocesan Growth Team launches website; Cork hosts Indian Orthodox service; Belvoir Parish celebrates its 50th Anniversary; Clergy visit Inland Waterways; ‘Journeying Through Depression’ healing service; Zion Harvest Concert; Fears over NI education body plans; How Wilson’s Hospital made the big switch; Children’s charity hit by €1.5m loss as donations fall
Diocesan Growth Team launches website
The Dublin and Glendalough Diocesan Growth Team has launched its new website. The Diocesan Growth Forum website can be found at www.growthforum.net. The site aims to gather all the elements from the hugely successful Diocesan Growth Forum which took place in The High School, Rathgar, on October 6.
While that forum was attended by 250 people from all over the dioceses, the website will allow the talks and stories delivered at the forum be seen and heard by a far wider audience. The videos can now be shown at events organised by parishes or rural deaneries.
The site has been launched in response to feedback received by the team which suggested that many who attended the forum wanted to share the experience and information with others in their parishes.
So far, the video of keynote speaker, George Lings, is up on the website along with that of Canon Neil McEndoo of Holy Trinity, Rathmines. The remaining speakers’ videos will have been added in the coming days. Slides and text of the presentations are also available online.
To further facilitate discussion and sharing of ideas a new facebook page has also been created. It can be found at http://www.facebook.com/DiocesanGrowthForum.
The growth team has also sent out its first newsletter to those who provided their email addresses at the forum.
The Diocesan Growth Forum was attended by clergy and lay people from throughout the United Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough. Organised by the Diocesan Growth Team, the forum aimed to address the challenges faced by the church and examine opportunities for fresh expressions of church within the dioceses.
Delegates heard from Revd George Lings of the Church Army Centre in Sheffield and heard stories of how other parishes are doing things from Canon Neil McEndoo and Revd Rob Jones in Rathmines, Dublin, Canon Roly Heaney from Redcross, Glendalough, Revd Adrian McCartney of Boring Wells in Belfast and Revd Jackie Bellfield, a Methodist minister in Warrington.
Cork hosts Indian Orthodox service
Recently the Indian Orthodox community had a special service of celebration when they were visited by their diocesan bishop Dr Mathews Mar Thimothios. The service took place in St. Michael’s Church in Blackrock where the congregation meets on a fortnightly basis for much of the year. Members of the Indian Orthodox community travelled from across Munster and beyond to attend. On his arrival the bishop was greeted by the parish clergy and a number of parishioners including the curate Revd. Sarah Marry and parishioners Jim Queally, Wendy Gilbert and David Kerr.
Belvoir Parish celebrates its 50th Anniversary
Invited guests joined regular worshippers at Belvoir Parish (Down) last week to celebrate the church’s fiftieth anniversary. Preaching at the service, Bishop Harold Miller drew on aspects of the early church’s life as depicted in the Acts of the Apostles to call the congregation to a future centred on shared discipleship and outreach, care for the community and a commitment to the young.
The Bishop also paid tribute to previous rectors, two of whom, Canon Brian Mayne and Reverend Desmond Hanna, were able to be present, and to the work of the parish’s longest–serving incumbent Canon Tom Keightley who has ministered in Belvoir for almost thirty years.
Belvoir Parish was formed on the first of September 1962 under the leadership of the late Bishop James Moore. Founding members swiftly set down roots with the opening of a temporary Church Hall in December of that year. In a little over two years later a church had been built and consecrated but this is not wholly the one that stands visible on the Outer Ring today. On the twenty third of September 1992 an IRA bomb detonated just across the carriageway, causing extensive damage to the building and to homes across the parish.
Despite such adverse circumstances the church flourished as she moved, temporarily, to the local community centre. As homes affected by the blast were repaired and refurbished, a new church opened again for business on its original site, its frosted windows replaced with clear glass, allowing light to flood the whole interior and giving the world outside a window on the worshipping community.
As the church’s fiftieth anniversary approached it was decided that this Year of Jubilee should be marked by a “giving back” to God. The Jubilee India project was born and in the three years leading up to its fiftieth birthday, the church raised £100,000 towards the building of a hospital at The Promised Land orphanage in South India. Other projects closer to home have since sprung up that seek to build community, reach out to the elderly, and assist those in adverse circumstances.
Church, community, children: these were the themes of the Bishop’s sermon. In its first fifty years Belvoir has made a beginning. As the Bishop also said, “The ending remains to be written.”
Clergy visit Inland Waterways
Recently a group of the Enniskillen Rural Deanery clergy visited Inland Waterways, Enniskillen. The purpose of the visit was to hear the concerns the company for equal opportunities for employment. They hope that by their meeting there that they have been able to show their support for the policy of equality. At the end of the morning they enjoyed a boat trip to Devenish Island in pleasant weather.
‘Journeying Through Depression’ healing service
“Journeying through Depression” is the topic for the first in a series of healing services which will take place in Shankill Parish Church, Lurgan, tomorrow, Thursday 18 October at 7.30 pm
Zion Harvest Concert
On Saturday October 20 at 7.30 pm the Young European Strings Chamber Orchestra will perform a concert in Zion Parish Church, Dublin. The concert will feature music by Bartok, Deane, Elgar and Suk. Entry is free with a retiring collection in aid of parish charities.
Fears over NI education body plans
Belfast Telegraph – A single Education and Skills Authority (ESA) would give republicans too much power over Northern Ireland’s schooling system, it has been claimed.
Ulster Unionist Danny Kinahan said he was opposed to the new authority being set up to replace five regional education and library boards because it could allow Sinn Fein too much influence over grammar schools.
Mr Kinahan, MLA for South Antrim, said: “We know that Sinn Fein don’t like grammar schools. We know that Sinn Fein don’t like the power of the church and to some extent it seems, the maintained sector. We know they don’t like the voluntary grammar sector, they don’t like the Dickson plan.
“In fact, anything that is good and is successful they don’t seem to like it. We do need this bill but there is much more that we need and we have got to get it right. We need a proper long-term strategy – an agreed strategy and policies and plans that all fit together.
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/local/unionist-education-authority-fears-1-4369657
How Wilson’s Hospital made the big switch
Irish Independent – The principal of a Protestant school that stopped charging fees last year said other Church of Ireland institutions have sought his advice about changing to the free education scheme. Wilson’s Hospital School principal Adrian Oughtan …
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/how-wilsons-hospital-made-the-big-switch-3258549.html
Children’s charity hit by €1.5m loss as donations fall
Irish Examiner – Children’s charity Barnardos plunged into the red last year to record losses of €1.5m.
Public donations declined by 9%, from €7.4m to €6.8m last year. The loss follows a surplus of €139,000 in 2010.
Barnardos suspended its services for one week earlier this year and made 14 staff redundant in a bid to stem the losses.
The remaining staff agreed to take a pay cut of more than 10% and lost their incremental pay increases.
The directors’ report states the charity’s need to protect its capacity to continue to provide high-quality services in cost-effective ways “will involve hard decisions and shared sacrifice”.
The charity’s spend last year decreased from €24m to €23.9m.
The drop in public donations came in spite of the charity increasing its spend on generating voluntary income by 58%, from €2.1m to €3.3m.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/childrens-charity-hit-by-15m-loss-as-donations-fall-210937.html