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Service of Celebration and Dedication of the URC in South Leeds, Saturday 29th October 2011.
Below is a flavour of the events from the above day, which was a wonderful celebration enjoyed by all.
Following the welcome and opening sentences from the church secretary, Shirley Rawnsley, the opening hymn was ‘Great is Thy Faithfulness.
This was followed by an introduction of Prayers of Praise and Thankfulness complied and read by Diane Maxwell, church member.
Introduction
For some of our present Congregation our journey has been a little Nomadic to this present place, a bit like Moses leading God's people out of Egypt through the wilderness to the Promised Land.
A nucleus of churches have bound themselves together in commitment to a combined worship and travelled through the 'Dark Valley' with the hope and expectation of a fulfilment of being about (our) 'Father's business' as Jesus put it.
Prayer
We thank you Lord that You have sustained us as we have sought to do your will, giving us strength of will, hope when all seemed a hopeless and dark future, keeping our faith strong when all seemed to strive against plans, giving us the determination to face the hard work ahead and the battles presented before us, struggling to see it through to the final fulfilment of all we sought to do/ achieve in Your Name.
We praise You and give you the Glory for this wonderful building and seek Your guidance to reach out into the community and may it always be our 'Mission' to 'go out and spread the Gospel of Peace to all people' both in gentle words and loving actions. May all who enter this place feel a sense of peace and belonging and want to share in all that there is to offer here and feel part of a caring community.
We ask you to keep us strong in our faith when we weaken and never forget Your great love for us as we 'go out into all the world'.
This we ask in the Precious name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
AMEN
This was followed by the Lord’s Prayer.
Our early journey was then conveyed by Rev. Graham Cook retired/former minister in South Leeds
THE BEGINNING OF THE SOUTH LEEDS TEAM MINISTRY
How do you tell the story of the first sixteen years of the South Leeds Team Ministry in five minutes?
We could tell stories about:
v Persuading different churches to work as one;
v Creating two elderly persons day centres;
v A centre in which families could learn to care for their children;
v A hostel for homeless young people;
v And a workshop for unemployed young people;
v Of thousands upon thousands of meals on wheels delivered;
v Of sending our representatives to chair Community Health Councils
v To serve on broadcasting bodies;
v To help recreate Leeds Pottery with people whose medical history prevented them from finding work.
We could tell stories about
v A woman who gave the last years of her active life to work as a voluntary social worker amongst us;
v another woman who instead of retiring as a minister came and gave years of ministry to the church at Belle Isle; and came back from retirement after retirement to take up new challenges amongst us;
v a young minister who was as competent in social work practice and theory as he was in scripture and the tradition of the church who came to work on the frontier between social services and the church;
v another young minister whose background was in industry and trade unionism who came to minister here;
v a young woman who left college to work amongst us as a minister for a year and stayed for five to become the ecumenical minister at Cottingley;
v a woman who allowed us to use her flat as a place in which to invite her neighbours to come and share a communion service and so begin that church in Cottingley
v another young minister who came to work with us for five years and then stayed for a further six to continue the work at Cottingley and as well as the church in Morley.
v A woman who in addition to her own job went to live in and care for young homeless people in our hostel;
v A man whose intellectual ability, personal skills and physical drive had taken him to a senior management position in the BBC who was overtaken by serious ill health at an early age devoted his remaining years and energies into becoming a voluntary ‘Ministerial Associate’;
v A man who had been called from the world of scientific research into traditional ministry who shared his skill as a printer and his managerial skills to run the training workshop.
We could tell stories about the many, many more who
v cooked the meals in the Day Centres, and the Meals on Wheels;
v drove the vans and the minibuses day after day;
v who attended worship, said their prayers, wrestled with scripture year after year;
v who taught young people skills in woodwork, engineering and catering in the workshop;
v who acted as church secretaries and treasurers who spent hours writing minutes and years keeping accounts;
v who regularly turned up at meeting after meeting to make decisions and give support;
v who swept the floors, moved the furniture, made the tea and buttered the bread and maintained the buildings.
We could tell the stories about institutions such as
v the United Reformed Church who saw the need and agreed to use its resources of ministry and buildings to serve this community;
v the local authority who encouraged its social services department to work with us in imaginative and new ways;
v Manpower Services Commission who along with the local authority looked at what we were doing and saw that it was good and trusted us with many hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money for the sake of this community.
There are many stories that could be told and they all would be true. But at the end of the day there is only one story and it is true. That is the story of the God who came in Jesus. Who in both the words and the work of Jesus showed that he loved the world and its people. When Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment he said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ He went on to say that the second commandment was, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’
The only story I have tried to tell is about a group of people who heard both of those commandments and tried to live by them and just see where it led. And that, I believe, is what you are doing still and it is that which has brought us here today.
This was followed by the hymn ‘Thy Hand O God Has Guided’.
Rob Craggs, Architect of the Calls Architecture, then outlined the journey through the build and the growth of the building.
This was then followed by the hymn ‘The Love of God Comes Close’
Followed by the Bible Reading John chapter 20 v 19-31 read by Brian Simpson, church member.
Our Moderator Kevin Watson then gave the address: “Unless I see… I will not believe”, which was followed by the hymn ‘We are Your People’
Prayers of Dedication for the Building and the Triptych were then offered by the Moderator, using the words of Rev. Jean Mortimers hymn ‘ On This Day of Celebration’.
On this day of celebration
As we dedicate this place
May God’s love, made known in Jesus,
Reaching our through time and space,
Build us up for faithful service
Strengthened by the gift of grace.
May each room within this building
Planned with vision, skill and care,
Be a place of friendly welcome,
Peace and love for all to share.
May these walls of bricks and mortar
Resonate with praise and prayer.
As Christ’s living bricks and mortar
Bonded in fidelity,
May we honour all whose service,
Given with integrity
Strengthens human trust and sharing,
Building up community.
As Chirst’s church and as his people,
May we work fo what we pray,
Loving people as we find them,
Listening to what they say,
Living out our faith in action
As we follow in this way.
Our Present and Future Vision (words compiled and read by Jessica Isherwood, church member and elder). “The first time I came to Belle-Isle to a church service in the day centre, was at the beginning of July 2010. The footings for this building had just been dug and there was great excitement. Imagine after all those years of planning, work and worry, that you have been hearing about, and one day arriving here to see the layout of the new building, each room picked out and at last it’s really happening. I caught that excitement, excitement that has given us the momentum to keep moving forward with our vision for the future. A blind man heard that Jesus the healer was coming to town. So he got himself to the roadside and sat there shouting out to Jesus. When Jesus came by and heard the man he went over to him and said, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ Jesus did not presume that the blind mans’ most pressing problem was his blindness.
It is not right that we presume to know what this community needs from us. We have to ask the question ‘What do you want us to do for you?’
So we have opened our doors, we’ve held events and we have others in the pipeline.
We’ve had a Flower Festival and a Summer Fair both very well attended and in two weeks’ time we will be hosting a Christmas Fair. We’ve had the first of what we hope will be a successful and regular Community Café. During Advent we are having a crafting afternoon for families in this area to come along and hear the Christmas story while having fun cutting, gluing, painting and also learning to rap! That is rap without a W.
We now have a church member who liaises on our behalf with the uniformed organisations. They are now meeting weekly in here and we have been able to re-establish Church Parades. Another link with young families in our community.
Here and at our Dewsbury Road site we have Trinity Network our charity giving social opportunities to older people. A wide range of activities take place in the clubs throughout the week from holidays away and days out to line dancing and gentle exercise; bingo and dominoes to the monthly Age UK surgeries.
Trinity Network also gives us an opportunity for volunteering and getting to know one another. Some of the Trinity Network members are now involved in their own outreach to the Hamara Project where they are sharing their knitting skills with a group of Asian ladies.
We have a good relationship with Nesfield Lodge our very close neighbours here. Residents and staff have enjoyed coming across to some of our events and partaking of a cream tea or two and we hope to establish a dementia café for residents and their families to visit. We take communion to the residents once a month and they enjoy singing the hymns which they remember from long ago.
We run a charity shop twice a week from our Dewsbury road site which gives us outreach into the community there. People don’t just come in to look round the shop and pick up a bargain, they come for a chat, to say or to ask for a prayer, to seek advice on all sorts of issues and we can usually point people in the right direction to get the help they need.
There are a variety of groups coming in to use these premises during the week like the community bingo and the Tuesday evening zumba group.
We are hoping to establish links with Health for All and with the Careers Leeds young people’s group.
All of these activities provide people in our community with the chance to come into this building to see what we are about, to enjoy themselves, hopefully to go away thinking they want to come again. The big thing for us is the opportunity to be among those people saying, ‘We are here,’ and asking that all important question ‘What do you want us to do for you?’
One vital thing we do need to continue working in this way is finance. We are blessed with two people who give of their time and expertise to do serious fund raising on our behalf. We are very grateful for the funding we have already received from successful grant applications.
We will of course continue to support and care for each other in this place. Since we moved in at the beginning of April several people have started to worship regularly with us and we have three new members. Together we will go on worshipping God and seeking to serve him in our community.
Jesus often helped people with the practicalities of life before he could address their spiritual needs. Life is no different today and if we want people to come and worship with us then we have to be here for the day to day things.
So our vision for the future will change and adapt but we will always be here, with our doors open, willing to listen and act.
Being part of our vision is challenging - scary - exciting - hard work and well, well worth being part of.”
This was followed by Closing Prayers and The grace and our final hymn was ‘You Shall Go Out With Joy’
After this joyous celebration and dedication we all adjourned to share in a finger buffet, people were encouraged to sign our visitors book below are some of the comments from the day:-
‘A wonderfully uplifting occasion’
‘Well done South Leeds’
‘Lovely time great food’
‘I am so happy to have shared this day with you’
‘Thank you for your invitation and all your hard work. Fabulous food. Very uplifting afternoon’
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