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Lent Course
Lent Course
Advent Carol Service
A reflective start to the Advent season will be provided at our Advent Carol Service on Sunday, December 3rd at 5.00pm.
We will be joined by St Andrew’s, Milngavie, for this Advent Sunday evening service, which includes readings to help us think about the season ahead, hymns and carols for all the congregation, and choir items to enhance the mood.
It is the perfect start to Advent and all are welcome.
Advent Course
J
oin us for our Advent Course this year at All Saints – we are sharing in this with our friends at St Andrew’s, Milngavie.
The course will be held on Thursday afternoons November 23rd and 30th and December 7th and 14th in All Saints church choir vestry at 3.00pm.
We are using Paula Gooder’s Advent book The Meaning is in the Waiting as the basis of our course.
Paula Gooder provides a profoundly biblical guide to the season of Advent and we explore its central theme of waiting in the company of the biblical characters who feature prominently in the lectionary readings for the season: Abraham and Sarah who waited for a child, Isaiah and the prophets who waited for judgement and redemption, John the Baptist whose role was to wait in the wilderness until the prophecies he foretold were realised, Mary whose waiting began in pregnancy and continued as she stood at the foot of the cross.
This offers an exquisite meditation on the spirituality of waiting – the active doing of nothing – as a way of enhancing our lives and bringing us closer to God.
All Saints Sunday
AGM 29 October
The AGM of the church will be held on Sunday 29th October after the 10.30am service.
Bishop’s Lent Appeal
For details of the Bishop’s 2023 Lent Appeal and information on giving visit here
Relaxing Covid Restrictions
At All Saints, we have restarted coffee after the morning service.
The Wednesday Lunches are now able to welcome congregation and friends.
With our new organist, the choir will be starting again in March. Anyone interested will be very welcome.
COP26- The Primus
“Listen to the quiet voices” – The Primus, Bishop Mark Strange, looks at the hopes and expectations around COP26 as we seek to care for God’s creation As I write this, I’m sitting watching the leaves changing colour outside my office window. There’s a tree which is just at the corner of the churchyard at Arpafeelie which always begins to turn first, its leaves slowly, then quickly, becoming golden before plunging to a striking mix of reds then browns. As I have watched the autumn begin, the plants begin to bed down for the winter in this changing of the season; I remember that once the bare winter is over then the cycle will come round again. We will have the cool, clear spring and then the joyful warmth of summer. So it has been for much of my life. Yet as we have stayed at home over these past months because of the pandemic, I have appreciated the slow but ever-moving changing of the seasons in a new way. But just as I can anticipate the leaves coming back on that tree, it is becoming clear that in other places around the world many others no longer know what their seasons will hold. People can’t be confident that the rains will come, or know if their land will flood. People can no longer be confident that their crops will grow, or know if they will have the time and energy to harvest. People and places are struggling and dying now because of the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. People are increasingly anxious and increasingly fearful, and there is growing anger and concern for the future. In Scotland we have a stable climate. As is so often the case, the worst affects of climate crisis will be felt that much more strongly in places where their climate is not so stable. So the changes that I can see, and the emotions which flow through me as I know they flow through many in our Church, are much more pressing in other parts of our world.  I’ve been thinking about those emotions and reactions as we all prepare for COP26 in Glasgow. The hopes and expectations of so many people are that political leaders will listen to the voices of people around the world who are simply frightened for the very ground they stand on and the lives around them. The Scottish Episcopal Church has put in place and will continue to develop processes which enable us to have a much lighter footprint on the ground, and will enable us to make a better use of the resource we have so that we don’t contribute to stripping the environment of those things which produce the very air that we breathe.There will be moments of tears, moments of anger, and moments of laughter in Glasgow, but I hope there will be moments of prayer. Why are we going? Why is our Anglican Communion delegation gathering? It is because as a church, and as people of faith, that’s what we do: we pray. Our prayers are to God who created this beautiful little planet we all live on. Our prayers are that God will help us to do everything in our power to protect the environment we live in. With prayer, with conversation and simply by being visibly present, we can use the time to push home the point to political leaders that this crisis is real and that people of the world, especially those with the least ability to affect change, are being impacted by our continual drive for greater consumption, greater profits, and greater power. We will try and insist that they listen to the quiet voices, voices that might not be physically present, and we will pray again that world leaders make the right decisions for our planet. The Scottish Episcopal Church will be there along with old friends and hopefully new friends. We will spend our time carefully encouraging, noisily supporting and – I suspect – sometimes loudly reacting to what is happening because to honour God means caring for God’s creation, not simply for what it gives us but so that we can pass it on, healing and restoring, to those who will come after us. Please pray for all who will gather in Glasgow, for the leaders of the nations and those of us who will bring hope and prayer. |
Action plan on Climate Change to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2030
Following a motion at last year’s Synod for a programme of actions to be brought to General Synod 2021 to resource the SEC in working towards the 2030 goal, the Church in Society Committee’s Technical Group on Climate Change presented a programme along with useful resources “aimed to equip the whole church for the urgent response that is needed towards achieving net zero carbon emissions”.
The Group has set out actions for different levels of the SEC to pursue, as congregations, dioceses, provincial level and as individuals; suggested more detailed action on buildings; listed useful resources; and indicated further work to be carried out. A Toolkit is currently in preparation, designed to provide practical recommendations for the implementation of action plans and including for instance a means of working out a church’s carbon footprint.
“The changes we need to make encompass almost all aspects of our life as a church; not only our buildings, but in every area where we burn coal, oil or gas,” reported the Group. “We need to transition to renewable alternatives as far as we possibly can, and where this is not reasonably practical, we need to reduce, save and offset. We do not underestimate the challenge. But there are many steps we can already take which will make a difference and we need to plan now for how and when the bigger challenges could be met.”
The Rev Dr Jenny Wright, Convener of the Church in Society Committee, spoke to the report, telling Synod members: “Achieving net zero by 2030 is no small feat. Neither are the obstacles insurmountable. I hope that the programme of actions, today’s presentation and the group discussions will be the first of many such conversations. This is merely a starting point – we recognise that support and resources on both provincial and diocesan level are necessary. Rest assured, you will not be left alone to reduce your carbon footprint and engage with climate action.”
Professor Donald Bruce, chair of the Technical Group on Climate Action, reminded Synod of the urgency of the need to take action, and the responsibility of everyone to contribute.
“We are not alone in this task,” said Prof Bruce. “There’s a movement right across the chorus in the UK and some excellent experience to draw upon from Eco-Congregation Scotland, it’s English equivalent: Eco-Church, the Church of England and Church of Scotland both have excellent expert energy advice which we can call upon. And this is real world rooted advice, based on what you can really do, on the ground in a real church.”
All four climate change motions were carried virtually unopposed, and the guidance and action documents were endorsed and commended. Within the motions, Synod also called on Standing Committee to put in place appropriate structures to enable action at provincial level, with Dioceses called on to do the same at congregational level. The SEC action plan document can be found on both the Provincial and our own web site.