Christchurch United Church

Minister’s Message – June 4, 2023

June 4, 2023June 4, 2023

Many years ago, something I said led to a Pastor getting sacked. (Let me add straightaway that that wasn’t my intention!). I was a student in Glasgow at the time, and sometimes attended a small and rather obscure Pentecostal church. This church had recently called a new Pastor who was young and enthusiastic; they were very pleased with him although I personally didn’t much like his style.

Minister's Message

Minister’s Message – May 28, 2023

May 29, 2023

Learning a language is a complex process which involves learning grammar, syntax, verb tenses, noun cases, intonations, sounds and, of course vocabulary. Children manage to do it naturally (some of them actually learn two or more languages at the same time); adults may well find it even more difficult. I studied Portuguese for eighteen months before going to West Africa; it was an enjoyable but sometimes frustrating task (and I loved living in Lisbon). Since we moved to Wales Moira has been determined to learn Welsh – she’s invested a lot of time and effort in it and folk say that she’s doing very well; however she’s aware that there’s still a long way to go before she’ll be reciting poetry at the Eisteddfod!

Minister's Message

Minister’s Message – May 21, 2023

May 29, 2023

Have you ever been ticked off by an angel? Indeed, have you even met an angel? It seems highly unlikely, doesn’t it – although we must remember that the Bible tells us that people can encounter them without recognising them for what they are. However, the eleven disciples who’d witnessed Jesus ascending to heaven from the Mount of Olives definitely did receive an angelic rebuke! For, once Jesus had vanished into a cloud, they stayed rooted to the spot, gazing skywards and no doubt hoping fervently that their Master would soon reappear. According to the author Luke, what happened next was strange. For he tells us that two white-robed men appeared as if from nowhere, and “had a go” (as we might say) at the distraught disciples: “There’s no point in looking for him to come back, you know. He will return, as it happens, in clouds of glory and power – but that’s not going to happen today. What you need to do is remember his final words, and act upon them. So don’t just stand there: Move!”

Coffee and Chat Afternoons

Coffee Afternoon

May 14, 2023May 14, 2023

Following the very successful Coffee-‘n’-Chat social event last month, a further one has been arranged for Tuesday 23^rd May starting at 2pm. All welcome -stay for five minutes or a couple of hours – and enjoy tea, coffee, biscuits and a chat.

Minister's Message

Minister’s Message – May 14, 2023

May 14, 2023

We’d probably agree that truth is at something of a premium today. When the fact-checking team of the “Washington Post” started to catalogue President Trump’s false or misleading claims, they recorded 492 in the first 100 days of his presidency alone. And that was just for starters: by the end of his term, they reckon that he had uttered 30,573 untruths, which comes to about 21 erroneous claims – or should we say “lies”? – per day. What’s especially striking is how this “tsunami of untruths” kept rising the longer he served; it increased steadily from about six per day in his first year as president, to 39 per day in his final year. And, of course, we all know how he attacked incontrovertible, proveable facts which he didn’t want to hear as “fake news”; I’m troubled by the fact that so many people, including Christian pastors, believed (and still believe) that he is a truthful man.

Minister's Message

Minister’s Message – May 7, 2023

May 8, 2023

One of the trials of modern life is being asked to fill in Evaluation or Feedback forms. You go to the theatre, you buy plants at the garden centre, you catch the train to London or a flight to Spain, you ring the company that insures your car, you get someone in to service the washing machine … and, within minutes, an email cheerfully headed “How did we do?” plonks into your Inbox with the assurance that your view is important. Your heart sinks as you read the questions whose responses, you are promised, “will help us to improve our services” – you cynically wonder if they’re more about telling the company that they can now bombard you with advertising? Perhaps we should start asking all of you to fill in a questionnaire after every Sunday’s service – although I’d dread reading the answers on Monday morning!

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Spring Fair on May 13th, 11am – 1pm

May 7, 2023

Join us next Saturday for our Spring Fair. Selection of stalls and games including books, toys, crafts and gifts, garden plants, sweet and savoury tombola, coconut shy and lots more. Join us for a cuppa and refreshments. All welcome

Minister's Message

Minister’s Message – April 30, 2023

May 3, 2023

I did old-fashioned maths at school, the kind that Rishi Sunak wants us all to learn, with arithmetic, algebra, geometry – and calculus in the Sixth Form. But, as a spot of light relief in the last week of summer term in the year before my A-levels, our teacher introduced us to “new maths” – which, just a few years later, was being taught to young children in primary schools. At the heart of what we learned that week was “set theory”, a way of doing maths by grouping or placing objects together. I won’t go into this any detail, but simply say that we were shown how it could be illustrated with Venn Diagrams: you’ll know what they are even if you don’t know what they’re called. For each circle represents a set of objects. If you have more than one set, they may be quite distinct or overlap: a bigger set may even envelop a smaller one.

Minister's Message

Minister’s Message – April 23, 2023

April 27, 2023

There are many stories told about the famous orchestral conductor Sir Thomas Beecham. Here’s one of them. “In the foyer of a Manchester hotel, Beecham saw a distinguished-looking woman who he thought he knew, though he could not remember the name. He paused to talk to her and as he did so vaguely recollected that she had a brother. Hoping for a clue, he asked how her brother was and whether he was still in the same line of work. ‘He’s very well’, the lady answered, ‘and he’s still king’.”

Minister's Message

Minister’s Message – April 16, 2023

April 17, 2023

Two major legal investigations made the news just before Easter: one which we’d all known about for months, the indictment of Donald Trump; and one which caught us totally “on the hop”: the arrest of Peter Murrell, the Scottish National Party’s chief executive. Murrell was of course released the same day without any charge being made against him (although investigations continue); Trump will definitely come to court. He definitely won’t come quietly!

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