Contact Magazine - February 2019

CONTACT

Magazine of Erdington Methodist Church Station Road - February 2019 GROWING GOD’S KINGDOM IN ERDINGTON, THROUGH WORSHIP, PRAYER, ACTION AND FRIENDSHIP 1

Contents Our Minister in training writes this months article . . .

Useful Information Virgin London Marathon Taxing Thank You Sign seen in a restaurant Knife Crime Kills; our walk for Justice Les Vaches dans Le Champ Youth Worship Cornerstone Holiday Clubs Reaching Out Into Our Communities Accessible Theology Course Become a Dementia Friend Church Council Ear wax (again) Remembering WW1 in our Community Palestine Visits Helpers for luncheon club February 2019 Regular Meetings Tuesday Club Sunday Worship Weekly Church Activities

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Our Minister in training writes this months article . . .

“Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Matthew got up and followed him - Matthew 9:9 If only it was that simple . . . But what stops us from following Jesus? I know that there are many occasions where I fail to hear a caution, a calming, a response to be still, or a call into action. I fail because I am human, I am too busy, I am unsure, I am finding difficulty trusting in an uncertain future . . . For these and numerous other reasons, I fail to ‘get up and follow’ Jesus.

Yet I am still called.

I wonder, is it easier to follow God’s call as an individual than it is as a community of faith? And when we describe ourselves as a community of faith, do we refer to our congregation or those who follow Christ in our locale, whatever congregation they belong to?

I listen to many who no longer belong to Church because it has been a place of pain, conflict, or simple neglect. Others that I have spoken to, speak of times of difficulty and how they couldn’t have got through, if it hadn’t been for the support of the church community.

I have been both uplifted and trodden down by church communities at different times and in various places but one promise remains with me and keeps me following Jesus in the context of a community of faith: In every Baptism service I am asked to respond to this call: 3

The Promise of the People: Members of the church, the visible presence of Christ in the world, we celebrate with this family in their choosing to belong to the community of Christian faith. Will you so maintain the Church’s life of worship and service that all may grow in Grace and in the knowledge and love of God and of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord?

The congregation respond: With God’s help, we will.

Helen

Useful Information You may already know that on the Birmingham City Council website it is possible to report problems in your neighbourhood.

What you may not know is that there is a website that offers to do it on your behalf. It is called www.fixmystreet.com and enables you to report graffiti, fly tipping, potholes, broken paving slabs or street lighting online.

It is quite simple: 1. Enter a nearby UK postcode, or street name and area.

2. Locate the problem on a map of the area.

3. Enter details of the problem.

4. They send it to the council on your behalf.

Discovered and shared by Anne Churcher 4

Virgin London Marathon In 2019 Kerry Challoner and I (Kat Payne) are taking on the ultimate running challenge . . . the Virgin London Marathon!!

We've run seven half marathons between us and now we're stepping it up!

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a cause close to my heart, and this is a fabulous opportunity for us to raise oodles of money that can really make a difference for people suffering with MS. We’re undertaking this HUGE challenge for everyone that can’t, so please help us succeed.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure.

Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity.

There will also be a Coffee Morning fundraiser on 23rd February at Erdington Methodist Church to which you are all invited to enjoy tea, coffee, toast and cake.

We would be very grateful if you can support us in any way

Taxing An exasperated woman, being questioned by a HM Revenue inspector about her tax deductions, was heard to say: ‘I wish the government were half as fussy about how it spends money as it is about how I spend it!’

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We currently have a number of opportunities for service within the day to day life of our church at Erdington.

Could YOU be the person to fill one of them?

Pastoral Secretary / Coordinator This crucial role in the life of the church ensures that, working with the minister, approriate pastoral care is in place for every member.

Please speak with a steward for more detailed information about this role

Secretary to the Church Council Anne Churcher has indicated that she wishes to resign as secretary following a number of years of valuable service.

Could you be our next Secretary?

Saturday Coffee Rota Coordinator Saturday Coffee is a valuable part of our outreach. We need someone to coordinate the rota making sure all Saturdays are covered - usually they are!

External Notice Board Coordinator Another valuable part of outreach - the key to this one is making sure all the notices boards are up to date!

If you would like to know more about any of these roles please speak with one of the stewards.

Why leave it to someone else when it could be you!

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Thank You Hi All! Sorry it has taken me so long, but I just wanted to say a massive thank-you to those who supported me in my fundraising for my trip to Africa!

I had a fantastic time and enjoyed every minute of it. Whilst I was there I had the opportunity to help with a local school in Zimbabwe called Mizpah Primary School. I helped them paint the walls and decorate a few of their classrooms. There was one classroom that needed to be entirely refurbished which meant it was all hands-on deck!

I also had the chance to meet a few of the school children who lived in the local villages, they helped with the painting and they taught me a few of their playground games.

The money I fundraised helped to get me there and allowed me to buy a few supplies that I took with me for the children, so thankyou to everybody who came and supported my Coffee Mornings and other fundraisers!

Carly

Sign seen in a restaurant One of the greatest mysteries of life is how the idiot your daughter married can be the father of the most beautiful and intelligent grandchildren in the world.

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Knife Crime Kills; our walk for Justice If I may I would like to paint a picture . . . On the 14th April a dirty great truck is going to rumble out of the circuit bearing a large metal cross made of knives. It will be adorned with banners, pennants and the collective creative efforts of our knitters, paper folders, carpenters, welders and crafty souls. As this spectacle of colour heads off the local press will record the event and our message of peace, love and hope. No doubt a couple of the politicians who are supporting us will be making sure they are in shot. More importantly we will be distributing message cards and small gifts to any people that have gathered.

Earlier that day a commissioning Palm Sunday service will have been held where all our walkers will be blessed. Then it will begin in earnest. As the lorry heads off to our first overnight stop, probably Coventry, the walkers will trudge the first of the six 18ish mile sections of this epic pilgrimage. Of course not everybody will want to, or be able to, walk the whole thing. We'll have people who'll cover short sections, others who might wish to walk for several days - and one or two might want to attempt the whole 114 miles!

From then on it will be rinse and repeat and until we reach London.

In each place en-route we'll hand out gifts, we'll probably sleep on floors and no doubt get our pictures taken as we head off on the next stretch.

On the sixth day - when God saw that is was very good - we'll hold a service and protest outside Westminster Central Hall. Our message will be simple and blunt. Knife Crime Kills, and that 8

something can be done about it. We will be calling for better youth work, policing, and a campaign to encourage young people to stop carrying knives. Our communities will not be forgotten or ignored.

So that is the picture; and it’s no pipe dream. Enthusiastic souls have already stepped up to cover communications, media, admin, logistics and crafts. We even have a scarf-ordinator looking after all the knitting. Today I saw the skills of our creative team in action.

In a few short hours and with the support of a cream tea they produced so many great ideas.

The Muslim Council of Britain has offered us support for the London leg, and we have letters and messages of support from politicians of various hues.

In conclusion it only remains to ask what part you might like to play? What started as the 'They don't know' campaign has grown rapidly. It’s an important message and we need to make some noise about it. Would you consider walking part or all of the way?

Would you like to help with the worship at either end, or the protest? Would you like to join the craft team or help raise some money? Would you consider coming to London on a coach to join the final event?

We would very much like to have a clear picture of who, how and how far by the end of February. If you are interested, please call 07794639382 or email andrewbrazier@hotmail.com God bless Andrew 9

Les Vaches dans Le Champ A middle aged couple, Bernie and Martin, spend their first holiday together without the children to rural Brittany where they stay in an old charming stone cottage. They soon settle in and make friends with their elderly French neighbour, Marie. However, strange things begin to take place, such as the discovery of a mysterious music box in the barn which seems to have links with the house's past. The action then takes us to the cottage during the Second World War where two sisters, Colette and Marie Therese live under Nazi occupation. Their lives are disrupted when a wounded RAF pilot appears at the door. The action alternates between the 1940s and the present day as Martin begins a journey where he is determined to find an answer to what took place in the house and the consequences that are still unresolved.

Want to know more? See the poster on the following page . . .

Patrick B Hayes

Youth Worship FUTURE DATES: Sun 17th February at Witton Sun 17th March at Villa Road Methodist Sun 14th April (Palm Sunday) at Kingstanding Sun 19th May at Stockland Green

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Cornerstone The other day Moya came in from Stay and Play and said that someone had commented to her about the outreach which this service offers to those who come with their children.

Later that week we were sitting in the Cornerstone café in Ashbourne enjoying their fresh sandwiches and watching the aggregate lorries rumbling past. This café is outreach from the Methodist Church in Ashbourne and has now been open for over 20 years. The majority of the volunteers are from the church, but they are open to assistance from other churches. The motto on the café paperwork is “…and the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself.”

Presumably some of the proceeds go into church funds but importantly 10% goes to charities nominated by the volunteers who work there.

As an aside our church and those who are associated with it were involved in raising in excess of £1,000 over the Christmas period to give away.

Generally, the staff in Cornerstone who take the orders are older ladies. They have a simple foolproof system of recording orders.

They write everything in an A5 note book and the staff are generally of an age to be able to add up without a calculator. But on that particular day there was a lad on the counter who could have been anywhere between 16 and 22. We were dealt with appropriately and he was able to add up five items in our order and well as discuss with me how the shared item was to be served.

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I wondered whether he thought that he was involved with outreach? He finished his shift at 1.00 pm and at an appropriate moment he left and I was gently envious of his dayglow yellow shoes. At the same time, I wondered how I would have coped in a similar situation and whether I would have given up my time for such a cause?

Outreach comes in all shapes and sizes and to be called outreach do others have to know that it is being done in the name of Christ?

When I was doing my Pre-registration training in London and preparing for VSO as a pharmacist in Ivory Coast, a friend at MethSoc said that I was taking the easy route to service by going overseas, when there was so much to be done in the UK. But this was Martin Luther King's time: the time of “it is always the right time to do the right thing� and I thought that I was doing the right thing. Because it is much more difficult to talk to people about a loving God, if no one is helping them with their day to day problems.

During the service on the second Sunday in Advent we remembered John the Baptist who adopted the opposite view.

He came in from the wilderness to preach to the people who were marginalised by their rulers. They may also have been excluded by racism, intolerance and deprivation. I suspect that the only thing which has changed during the last 2,000 years is that the wilderness has increased because of ecological degradation.

On our trip to Palestine with Nichola, whilst driving down to Jericho along the Jordan valley, we saw people trying to grow crops without irrigation and the results were meagre to say the least.

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I wondered whether people who work to maintain the environment think that they are doing outreach?

Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me - you did it to me.'

Peter Farley

Holiday Clubs at Witton and Falcon Lodge this half term 18th, 19th, 20th February at Witton 20th, 21st, 22nd February at Falcon Lodge If you can help at Falcon Lodge this February or in the future, please let Tracey Gough know (contact details from Stewards).

Future dates at Falcon Lodge are: 13th - 15th August 27th - 30th August

Reaching Out Into Our Communities A further session is taking place at South Parade on 23rd February 10.00 - 12.00. More details are available from Chris Shaw or Stephen Willey (Circuit Bulletin).

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Accessible Theology Course

Professor Anthony Reddie at Stockland Green We are fortunate that Professor Reddie will be coming to lead an Accessible Theology course over four weeks in February and March.

Professor Reddie is a Methodist Regional Learning and Development Officer in Discipleship and Evangelism. Please make a note of the dates: February 10th and 24th and March 10th and 24th.

5.30 - 7.30pm in the Cafe on the Green This will take the place of our usual Sunday evening worship Everyone Welcome

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In addition Professor Reddie will be taking the service on Sunday February 10th at Nechells Methodist Church at 11am.

If you are interested then more details are available in the Circuit Bulletin - please speak to a Steward.

Become a Dementia Friend Saturday 9th February 10.00 am & 11.00 am A free interactive information session here to learn how dementia affects a person and what you can do to make a difference.

Anyone of any age can become a Dementia Friend.

Details available from www.demntiafriends.org.uk

Church Council The next Church Council meeting for Erdington Methodist Church will be on Monday 11th March 2019 at 7.30 pm.

Please note the change of evening as we are hoping that this will be more suitable in terms of noise and car parking.

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Ear wax (again) Quite a long time ago I wrote a piece for Contact about ear wax.

Later someone told me that it was the most ‘unusual’ contribution that I had ever written. Well recently I read a book entitled ‘A brief history of everyone who ever lived’ by Adam Rutherford. A book which appealed to my scientific tendencies. It is a book full of information resulting from the detailed examinations of the DNA records and of thousands of people who are alive now and as many as possible from the past.

To address the question of ear wax as a starter. Apparently, the world population contains two different sets of genes for ear wax, dry wax and wet wax. The further east you live the more likely you are to have the gene set for dry ear wax!

But this book is full of all sorts of other genetic gems. For example, our DNA gene code sequence contains about 4% Neanderthal DNA. This came to us because Neandertal men and Homo Sapiens women had children together. Similarly, the original population of Iceland was made up of children from Scandinavian men and Scottish women.

One snippet that I was not aware of, is the relationship between colour vision and sex. It is predominantly men who are red green colour blind. I had not understood the significance of this, but as hunter gatherers, mainly women’s work at that time, the differentiation between leaves and berries would have been very important and therefore a significant survival trait. In addition, there are now a small group of women who see in four colours.

Apparently, they have a much richer experience of olive greens.

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But as this would not be important to hunter gatherers it did not spread rapidly through the population as a survival trait.

There was one section about King Richard III - the skeleton which was found under the car park in Leicester. He lived 1452 – 1485 and when he was discovered there were all sorts of claims made about who may or may not have been related to him. Apparently, he lived long enough ago that everyone who can trace their GB lineage back to that time would have at least one relationship with Richard III. Therefore, we are all Princelings.

Finally, there was a long section about race and genes. Adam Rutherford claims that ever person in the world today has a relationship with a common ancestor who lived about 3,500BC. This means that everything which would now be regarded as exemplifying racial differences have developed since then. This includes skin, eye or hair colour and texture, eye lid shape and body height. Given that we all have two parents, four grandparents and eight great-grandparents etc etc I had always thought that at some point in history we would all be related but I had assumed that it would be longer ago than 5,500 years. He goes on to say that such is the variation in our individual genes across population groups that the differences between people with GB lineage are greater that the average differences between people with GB lineage and people with Mongolian or Chinese lineage.

A fascinating read if you are of a scientific predilection.

As a post-script I was watching Professor Alice Roberts on the telly over Christmas and she was expanding upon the suggestions in this book. The claim is that about 100,000 years ago a small group 20

of people moved out of Africa: maybe just one tribe and the entire population of the world is descended from these one or two hundred people.

Peter Farley

Remembering WW1 in our Community At the front of church is an art installation which has been created

by Creative Moments Craft Group of which our own Claudeth Phillips is a member.

The group has worked alongside genealogist, Liz Palmer, to research families and translate their findings into the artwork you see with the help of artist, Phillipa England.

Claudeth has asked if it can be displayed in our Church for a few weeks so please take time to have a look at it and Claudeth will answer any questions you might have.

Palestine Visits Revd Nichola Jones is off to Palestine very shortly and will be seeing many that we have met in earlier pilgrimages. She asks for our prayers.

We pray too for Revd Malcolm who will be on Sabbatical for February and also in Palestine at the same time as Nichola as a member of an Inter Faith team.

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Helpers for luncheon club Sadly we have recently lost five helpers at luncheon club which meets on the 1st & 3rd Wednesdays of the month and we hope that you may feel you could fill one of the gaps!!

The job description is that it's easy (must be if I can do it!).

Tasks are laying the tables, helping the chef, serving the dinner and washing and clearing up afterwards. There is NO cooking involved. Hours are from 11am to about 2pm. Pay is a free dinner.

Please talk to Elizabeth Livingstone or Marion Griffin if you want more information. A trial visit can be arranged.

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February 2019 Regular Meetings

Each Saturday 10.00 am to 12.00 noon

Tuesday Club Every 2nd Tuesday in the month at 2.00 pm

Sunday Worship All worship starts at 10.30 am unless stated otherwise below.

3rd

CIRCUIT LINK SUNDAY - Bob Dauncey

10th

CIRCUIT LINK SUNDAY & RACIAL JUSTICE SUNDAY a choice of either Erdington or Streetly

17th

CIRCUIT HOT POTATO SUNDAY HOLY COMMUNION - Rev Andrew Brazier

24th

CIRCUIT JUSTICE SUNDAY - Glyn Constantine

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Weekly Church Activities Sunday

10.30 am

MORNING WORSHIP and Young Church

Tuesday

2.00 pm

Tuesday Afternoon Meeting

Wednesday

9.30 - 11.30 am 12.30 pm

Stay and Play Luncheon Club - (1st and 3rd)

Friday

5.00 - 6.15 pm 6.15 - 7.45 pm 7.45 - 9.15 pm 7.45 - 9.15 pm 5.30 - 6.30 pm 5.00 - 6.30 pm 7.30 - 9.00 pm

Beavers : Lynn Turner Cubs : Elizabeth Baizon Scouts : Paul Harris Explorers : Lucy Porter Rainbows : Debbie Barnett Brownies : Lesley Carter Guides : Helen Rainsford

Saturday

10.00 - 12.00 noon 10.30 - 11.30 am

Coffee Morning : Lesley Morgan Church open for prayer : Margaret Curzon

Please hand any items for the March CONTACT to any of the Editorial Team (Peter Farley, Christine Rankin, Ann Tomes & Nick Riley) by 15th February 2019 at the latest please, or alternatively email me: nickriley@blueyonder.co.uk with the word ‘CONTACT’ in the title.

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