Clerk’s Weekly Briefing
No 3 - 16th April 2020
Dear Friends,
HAPPY EASTER – HE IS RISEN. That great cry we sing out on Easter Day is still resonating in our ears as we move through this happy season to Pentecost at the end of next month. This briefing is my regular noticeboard, pointing you in the direction of useful information and activities elsewhere on the web and in the wide world of social media. Some of these you may have seen in your own searches and we may have pointed you to these sites via the Synod website, however any reminder here is no bad thing.
I hope that you are still dipping into the Synod’s website as I know that there are some resources which just missed my deadline last week and other items which are signposted below that have been uploaded since last week including a letter from our Synod Safeguarding Adviser, Matt Knowles. His new guide sheet complements that which came from the Denomination centrally and reflects the common approach being taken by the Northerly Synods group as well.
Church Links and Mission Activities
National Day of Prayer and Worship Last week I brought your attention to the initiative Ashley, our Synod Evangelist was leading in our response to the National Day of Prayer and Worship. Yorkshire Synod has really stepped up, with the following churches already committed (with their time slots) to taking part. As you will see, there are some slots that have more than one church taking part – which is fine – and there are slots that do need to be filled. If you feel moved as an individual, as a church, or as a group of churches to fill one or more of these slot, please contact Ashley at ashley@bvcurc.org.uk.
Midnight to 7.00am Holme URC
Midnight to 1.30am Bolton Villas Family Church
2.00am-3.00am West Park, Leeds
3.00am to 4.00am St Paul’s Harrogate
4.00am to 5.30am York St Columba’s
5.30am-6.30am Herringthorpe URC & Bolton Villas Family Church,
6.00am-7.00am Herringthorpe URC & Westfield URC
7.00am-8.00am Whitby Flowergate
7.00am-9.00am Holme URC
8.00am-8:30am Herringthorpe URC & Bolton Villas Family Church
8.30am-9.00am Burley in Wharfedale Salem URC & Jon Steel (Children and Young People Development Practitioner)
9.00am-10.00am Bolton Villas Family Church
10.00am–11.00am URC in South Leeds & Pudsey URC
11.00am-Midday Herringthorpe URC
Midday-12.30 pm St Andrews Skipton
12.30am-13.00am West Park & Kevin (Moderator) & Lynne Watson
1.00pm-2.00pm Pudsey URC & Holme URC
2.00pm-3.00pm Longcauseway URC & Holme URC
3.00pm-4.00pm Saltaire
4.30pm to 5.00pm Bolton Villas Family Church
4.00pm-5.00pm Kevin & Lynne Watson & Stainbeck
5.00pm-6.00pm Herringthorpe URC & Bolton Villas Family Church
6.00pm-7.00pm Westfield Wyke URC
7.00pm-8.00pm Holme URC & Bolton Villas Family Church
8.00pm-8.30pm Jim Sharp, Beverley Toll Gavel United Church & Jon Steel (Children and Young People Development Practitioner)
8.30pm to 9.30pm Pudsey URC
9.00pm to Midnight Holme URC
10.00pm to Midnight Bolton Villas Family Church
Families on Faith Adventures@home is an initiative headed by Lorraine Webb, the URC’s Children's and Youth Work Programme Officer.
is designed to support families of all generations as they experience, explore and express faith together through the week. It is a ‘pick and mix’ of activities, games, prayers and challenges based around a story from the Bible and draws on materials from our non-uniformed children’s groups Pilots and FOFA. This will be published weekly and available on our website https://urc.org.uk/resources-for-children-and-youth and on the URCLE website https://moodle.urc.org.uk/course/view.php?id=208
Praying for a New Pentecost
Rev Matt Stone has e-mailed me with this message:
“As I was praying last week, I really felt God laying on my heart the need for us as a church family at Herringthorpe URC to be praying together for more of the Holy Spirit: for the Spirit to fill, transform and work through us. We rely so often on our resources, but ultimately we need to make space and time for God to move - to touch and transform lives (ours and others). I felt God reaffirm this last night as I watched the first Spring Harvest Celebration talk by Bishop Jill Duff. In this time of lock down, many of us do have more time than normal to pray, and so I've felt inspired to put together a prayer diary which starts on Monday 20th April and runs through to Pentecost on 31 May. I'm happy for the material to be edited as appropriate to different contexts and used so that we pray together for the Spirit to work in us and renew our hearts; for the Fruit of the Spirit to grow and flourish; for our church families; for the gifts of the Spirit; and for the Spirit to work through us on our Frontlines every day.”
This prayer diary is now on the website for your use, to tailor to your own churches’ use or to use as it is.
General Information and Resource Sharing
Toolkit 8 – COVID19 Funder List is an interesting list of COVID19 funders on the website of the Charity Excellence Framework. By all means make it known, if you think any of our churches could take advantage of it. It might well give some useful leads in a difficult time. Here is the link: https://www.charityexcellence.co.uk/Content/UserGuide/COVID19%20Funder%20Toolkit%208.pdf
Traumatic Effects of the Coronavirus My fellow Synod Clerk in Thames North Synod, Simon Fairnington, works as a chaplain for the London Fire Brigade. He has offered up some notes on the effects that are being seen and how the traumatic effects of dealing with the effects of Covid-19 can be mitigated. For those interested (and it is an extremely eye-opening read) it can be found here: http://urcthamesnorth.org.uk/__home__/coronavirus-collective-trauma.
Responding to Covid-19 – (Just a few!) Resources & Guides
Jim Coleman, our synod Development Officer has sent this across:
If your inbox is anything like mine the first weeks of the current lockdown will have seen you drown under a veritable flood of emails, some more helpful than others. I’ve sifted through lots of material that’s come my way and offer the following to you as possible resources which might be of some assistance. The items mentioned in the first four bullet points have been uploaded to the Yorkshire Synod Website whilst the others are to be found by following the links.
• A short (2pp) article by Christopher Southgate, Carla Grosch-Miller and Hilary Ison of the Tragedies and Christian Congregations Project: ‘Thoughts for ministers during the first phase of the coronavirus crisis.’
• Telephone pastoral care guidance notes, prepared by Rev Dr Adam Scott, tutor in ministerial formation at Northern College.
• A short guide to using ZOOM, (single page).
• A short (2pp) article, ‘Leading in Fragile Times’, prepared by Place for Hope (www,placeforhope.org.uk), a Scottish-based charity which works for peace and conflict transformation.
• A booklet prepared on behalf of Walking the Way: Living the Life of Jesus Today: ‘Continuing to support each other: being the people of God in the face of Covid-19’ – found at https://bit.ly/3awOLYX or https://urc.org.uk/images/WalkingtheWay/documents/Continuing_to_support_each_other.pdf
• Web article: ‘6 Tips for Avoiding Zoom Fatigue in the Age of COVID-19’ – found at https://www.patheos.com/blogs/ecopreacher/2020/04/tips-avoiding-zoom-fatigue-covid-19/
• A compilation of various theological resources; although shown on the York Diocesan website not everything is Anglican, nor necessarily directly related to Covid-19: ‘Some Theological Resources in Challenging Times’ – found at https://dioceseofyork.org.uk/uploads/attachment/4642/theological-resources-in-challenging-times.pdf
And if there is any way in which I can support you please get in touch by emailing do@urcyorkshire.org.uk.
Revd Dr James F Coleman
Synod Development Officer
15 April 2020
Churches Together in Britain and Ireland - Rod Morrison has brought it to my attention that we are not alone in having to deal with the current situation and that for those who are interested in the ecumenical response to Covid-19 and the “Lockdown” there is a great deal of information at https://ctbi.org.uk/.
IT Resources and Training - Dan Morrell, our Media for Ministry Consultant, has been putting together some training resources for those who are a little unsure as to how to set up the various programs which enable us to talk to each other remotely. On the website is a booklet called “So You Want To Start Using Social Media” and this is a link to him explaining how to set up Skype - https://vimeo.com/406553378 or https://youtu.be/2PCaR3NJhXA. If you need his expertise, please get in touch with Dan at dmorrell96@gmail.com, on facebook at /dmorrell96, via Linkedin at /dsmorrell or more conventionally perhaps by phone on 07773174909.
Digital Safety - As many of us are meeting in a virtual environment and as the number of e-mails has increased the amount of digital noise, can I please make you aware that there have been a few instances of spam and phishing e-mails being sent from accounts purporting to be Synod officials. Matt Knowles, our Safeguarding Adviser tells me it is not just a Yorkshire thing and that it is happening in other Synods. So if you do get an e-mail from a named individual, please check the actual e-mail address. If you are not satisfied that it tallies up please delete it.
Similarly from a Children and Young People’s perspective, Megan and Jon would like to draw your attention to the information found online on the URC website at https://urc.org.uk/our-work/children-and-youth.html where there are links to external online safety guides as well as the URC’s own guides at https://urc.org.uk/information-guides. More detailed information can be had of them by contacting them at megancyp@urcyorkshire.org.uk or joncyp@urcyorkshire.org.uk.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
If you know of anything which you may find useful for our churches, please get back to me at clerk@urcyorkshire.org.uk and I’ll circulate it here and on the website. Similarly if you need any further help, be it to do with IT, finance, property or the like we are here to help.
And finally a reminder of our key sites:
Yorkshire Synod: https://urcyorkshire.org.uk/,
National URC site: https://urc.org.uk/ including the excellent information guides at https://urc.org.uk/information-guides?fbclid=IwAR1NRcxUTu7kQn25ENmowlb9LROLKrNHJL4_BJ6ft6gVjpOUjCqM9CCmrQQ
Yorkshire Synod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/urcyorkshire,
Yorkshire Synod Twitter: https://twitter.com/urcyorkshire,
Yorkshire Young People’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wildernessyorkshireurc/.
Best wishes
Tim Crossley
Synod Clerk