Parish News Archives - October 2006

Rector Writes | Readings & Services | From the Registers | Organisation Reports | Announcements | Other News

Rector Writes

Dear Friends,

Recently, some of us attended a conference entitled “Church 21” in St. Patrick’s College Drumcondra. There were two or three parishes there from each diocese in Ireland, each represented by 4 or 5 people. The contrast was huge – large suburban congregations from the north, small rural parishes with 6 or 7 churches, inner city churches from all corners of the island. The theme of the conference was parish development: how do we constantly adapt and change so that our parishes continue to grow and continue to meet the needs of the world around us. Our own parishes were represented by David Kelly from Clonsilla, James Anderson and Orla McKeever from Castleknock with Elaine and myself.

What did we learn , what did we do? A great deal. There were three very full days, led by Ian Coffey, Baptist minister from England now working in Geneva. In addition we heard from parishes across the country who had put new ideas into practice in many different ways. However, the point was made time and again that no one size fits all. Each parish group was encouraged to concentrate on one or two ideas which would work in their area and implement those.

Two of the presentations that were most thought provoking were “12 marks of growing churches” and “4 marks of ineffective churches”:

12 marks of growing churches

1. LEADERSHIP - A strong, high quality leadership
2. MISSION - A clear missiological shape to their work (They know why they are there)
3. LAY PEOPLE - A high level of involvement from skilled lay workers
4. COMMUNITY - The existence of effective community links
5. EVANGELISM - Centred on people and their needs
6. CHANGE - A willingness to embrace change and manage it skilfully
7. SERVICES - Well planned, attractive, accessible services
8. SMALL GROUPS - Good deployment of small groups in church
9. YOUTH WORK - Excellent standard of children and young peoples work
10. ATTITUDE - Lack of complacency among majority of members
11. ENJOYMENT - The members enjoy attending church
12. GOD’S WORK - Conviction that God has given the growth

4 marks of ineffective churches:
LIVING IN THE PAST - “it was always better when…I was a child/x was the Rector/we had the old...
SQUASHING THE DREAM - “it’ll never work”, “we tried that before”
ARGUING ABOUT MUSIC - A good way of distracting people from looking at any other issues
STARTING NEW IDEAS BUT NEVER SEEING THEM THROUGH

Food for thought for all of us as we look to the future of our parishes. Over the next few months, our parish planning group will be looking at the ideas that came out of the parish consultation day and seeing how we can implement some of them.

Remember it is better to do a few things well than many things badly, so we will have to prioritise. Watch this space!

Yours in Christ

From the Registers

Holy Baptism:
13th August in St. Brigid’s: Lauren Rose and Daniel Brown, daughter and son of Bernard and Fiona of Riverwood.

27th August: Heather Rose Sweeney of Ashington.

9th September: Samuel Morris, son of Denise and Graham of Riverwood.

May they shine as lights in the world to the glory of God the Father.

Christian Marriage:
18th August in St. Brigid’s: Marilyn Davis and Alan Vickers. 26th August in St. Mary’s: Venetia Dorman and Barry Kelly

May their homes be places of love, security, truth and welcome.

Funeral:
26th July in St. Brigid’s: John William (Billy) Goodwin of Rooske Road, Dunboyne.

May he rest in peace and rise in glory.

In Memorium:
Billy Goodwin. Billy Goodwin’s death shortly after surgery was a great shock, not just to Clonsilla parishioners, but to the wider community. The large number of people at both funeral and burial reflected his wide activities and interests. He became very well known through his time in Chadwick’s, which included founding the Kilkenny branch, and of course his own Goodwin’s building supplies chain. His diverse interests included his prize winning Charolais herd, caravanning, reading, gardening, cricket and theatre. We will all miss his good humour, wide knowledge, gentle enthusiasm, and deep Christian faith, but he was above all a family man and our sympathies are particularly with Abbie, Jennifer, Jonathan, Lynn and the entire family circle in the grief. May he rest in peace.

Sympathy: Our prayers and sympathy are with the Nkemena/O’Brien family on the death of Paula’s father.

Organisations Reports

Announcements

Parish Centre:
Many thanks to the Parish Centre Management Committee who have worked hard arranging the new paintwork and flooring in the Castleknock Parish Centre. We hope the new colour scheme meets everyone’s approval.

Mulhuddart news:
St. Thomas’ services return to their winter schedule with services on the 3rd Sunday of each month at 8pm. Negotiations are continuing with the builder about the land beside the church.

More barbeque news:
Thanks to the wonderful team of caterers and organisers who helped with the very enjoyable Barbeque in Clonsilla to mark the 1st anniversary of the parish centre opening. A great day was had by all!

Leaflet stand:
Those who come to Castleknock will have noticed the beautiful leaflet stand and storage area which is in the vestibule. It was very kindly donated by Katie Johnson in memory of her husband, Bob. Bob was an active member of the parish for many years, serving as Churchwarden on a number of occasions. The stand is already proving its worth, and hopefully, it will encourage people to browse the information available more easily.

Car Boot Sales:
Many thank to Liz Fleeton for all the time and effort she put into running the Car Boot Sales over the summer in aid of the Clonsilla Project

Coming up in October and beyond:
8th October:
Harvest festival services Clonsilla 10am and Castleknock 11.30am.

22nd October:
11.30am. service organised by the Youth Club

5th November:
annual blessing of the graves 3pm.

11th November:
Return of the very popular 50’s, 60’s and 70’s disco!!

Other News

C of E to lure lapsed worshippers with free chocolate -19/09/06

Churches are offering sweet temptation for returning worshippers, by giving out free chocolate in the hope it will lure them back into the pews.

The fairtrade chocolate will be given out as part of 'Back to Church Sunday”.

Hundreds of churches across the Dioceses of Derby, Ripon and Leeds, Manchester, Wakefield, Oxford, Guildford and individual churches around the country have already taken delivery of their 'Back to Church Box'.

Resources include invitations, posters and banners bearing the love-heart logo and the message ‘wish you were here’.

Churchgoers are asked to use the resources to advertise the day and invite family and friends who have lost touch with church.

Gifts for newcomers include a 'goody bag' with brochures featuring different aspects of church life – and a free bar of Traidcraft fair trade chocolate.

Researchers at the University of Staffordshire will measure the responses from people returning to churches and try to build up a picture of how and why people reconnect with church after a time away.

The Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the Rt Rev John Packer said: “People lose touch with church for all sorts of reasons. But we know some are looking for a way back to church and a personal invitation can make all the difference.”

Peter Collins, Traidcraft’s head of church relations said: “People in churches have been at the forefront of Traidcraft’s work around the world for years: helping people to help themselves. So it is with this gift of chocolate - it’s a gift that makes a difference for good.”

Back to Church Sunday was first trialled in the Diocese of Manchester in 2004, when more than 900 people came back to church. In 2005, the Diocese of Wakefield joined in with similar results.

Traidcraft was established in 1979 as a Christian response to poverty. It works with people of all faiths by trading with them directly, supporting them with training and information, and by influencing policy makers to pull down the barriers which stop the poor enjoying their fair share of world trade.

Spreading the Rumour of God

A sermon preached in the Parish Churches of St Mary, Clonsilla, and St Brigid, Castleknock, Sunday 10th September 2006

It is a pleasure to be with you, and to be back in Dublin. It was in Glenageary that I heard my calling to the ordained ministry of the Church of Ireland. I was curate in Ballymena, and have been at St Matthew’s since 1993.

St Matthew’s parish covers the old Upper Shankill district of Belfast, between the Springfield Road and Crumlin Road peacelines. Its parishioners once included people from doctors and teachers to labourers. Ours is now an area of high unemployment. Those in work tend to be labouring or cleaning. But, unlike much of inner Belfast, the area was never turned over by comprehensive redevelopment. Rather, the young and able left, so that we have many over-60’s. A third of parish households are on my elderly visiting list. We have very low educational attainment, and the usual social problems of inner cities. 49% of children baptized since 2001 have had unmarried parents. There is a significant presence of both major loyalist paramilitary organizations.

The parish list numbers 475 families, 60% of whom live within the parish boundary. Most of the rest live within a mile of it. We’re still quite a compact community. Overall numbers have been steady in the last five years, but attendance at worship is falling. 74% of our households are not represented in church (*1). Of 123 marriages since 1993, only nine have involved a member of the worshipping congregation. Of 319 baptisms, 89% were of children whose parents had no worshipping connection with us. Of 512 people buried, over 80% had no worshipping connection. There is a generations-old tradition of non-attending, non-worshipping protestantism. You sent your children to Sunday School. They, in their turn, did the same. So now we have a community that has lost its faith, and expresses its identity in purely cultural and political terms.

What would you find if you came to visit? In many ways, we are a traditional Church of Ireland parish. We have a Mothers Union branch; Guides – all sections – and a small BB company; two house groups and a mid-week meeting, all lay-led; men’s and women’s bowls, most of whose members are not parishioners; and, on Wednesday mornings, a thriving mother and toddlers group. On Sunday you might find 70 at our main morning service, and 15 in the evening; the new hymnal and Prayer Book; all but one of our main services in contemporary language; Holy Communion (One and Two) as the main service twice a month; something “family-friendly” once a month. We have no choir, so we all sing. I hope you would feel comfortable, whether you came from another Church of Ireland parish, North or South, from our Catholic friends in Clonard Monastery or St Oliver Plunkett’s, Lenadoon, or from another Christian tradition.
Our first challenge is to renew the community of faith. Most of the present congregation are my age and older. Our children have moved away. Our worship, while not stuffy, uses the forms of the Church of Ireland. There is a seemingly unbridgeable gap, of age, faith, culture and outlook between us and the younger families around us. So, five years ago, we appointed our Parish Evangelist, Captain Richard Beadle, Church Army, to try to build a new congregation for those whom we have married, or whose children we have baptized. This was too ambitious. Most have no faith, no sense of belonging or habit of Christian practice. They have lost the Christian story, and the Christian year. So Richard began “Praise & Play”, an hour-or-so on Sunday morning of informal meeting, play, activities, and a short service of worship for our youngest families, trying to build on the baptism contact. Two years on, this is still a very tender plant. Numbers are small. A few attend faithfully, but these tend to be people already connected in some way with the church. Two young men were confirmed last year, which was good, but, for most, their children’s baptism seems to fulfil their agenda.

Our second challenge concerns our links with the wider community. These are not strong. Co-operation with community interests on their agenda seems to take enormous time, with little result. We welcome the Orange lodges on the Sunday before “The Twelfth”. We have a representative on the Woodvale Community Initiative. Our mother and toddlers group is open to all. Rather, our community links are through personal service. One couple, early-retired, and living in the suburbs, are fully involved in community regeneration. Two parishioners serve as governors of primary and secondary schools, one as chair. One family, seldom in church, is key to community development and cross-community contact along one of the peacelines. Other parishioners belong to a residents’ group with community contact across the Ardoyne interface. Six parishioners are Scout leaders. A doctors’ receptionist delivers prescriptions to their patients on her own way home up the Shankill.

Why, then, do we exist? To spread “the rumour of God” (*2). St Matthew’s church, with its white brick, ‘shamrock’ shape and round tower is still a community symbol. Its restoration attracted substantial goodwill. Many years ago I learnt that, at the lowest level of belonging, people identify with a church building – “that’s my church”. They may attend baptisms, weddings and funerals. At a second level, people identify with the ordained minister – “that’s my minister” – perhaps after a pastoral encounter. At some point between these two they may take that universal symbol of Church of Ireland belonging, envelopes. The third level of belonging, as I received it, is “we help the rector to be the church”. This is the position of the core of many a Church of Ireland parish. It still falls short of the theologically more correct, “we are the Church”, or, better still, “we are part of God’s Church”. But between levels two and three must come membership of the worshipping congregation. It is this step, surely, which so troubles us, and which drives, anxiously, so many projects of renewal.

St Matthew’s exists to spread the rumour of God. This is the significance of the building as a Christian symbol. We have to use it creatively. This is the significance of all those baptisms, weddings and funerals; each a pastoral encounter; each an occasion of spiritual preparation; each meaningful in people’s lives, and each something that they ask of us, even if they will never understand the theology. This is the significance of worshipping parishioners distributing magazines, visiting older members, and collecting envelopes; and of the rector doing his rounds. In our secular community, we are spreading the rumour of God.

We spread the rumour of God in Christ, perhaps for little evident return. But in those limestone fields of Galilee, after the trampled bit along the path, the weedy bits around the edge, and the rocky hump in the corner, there may not have been much good ground left. But from that remnant, the Word made flesh can reap a disproportionate harvest (*3). The sower may not see it in his lifetime. Again, Jesus’ parables of the salt of the earth, the light of the world (*4), and of the Kingdom as leaven (*5) all imply that his people will be few – a tiny minority. Too much salt kills the dish. Too much yeast produces froth. You need only a little light to break through the darkness, until the dawn of everlasting day. In our western, secular, twenty-first century culture, the parish, the Christian community, is to be the active ingredient bringing the life, taste and energy of the Holy Spirit to the whole. Is that how God is calling his Church to be, in our place, and in our time? If it is, and if we are faithful, he will sustain us.

Gregory Dunstan

1. 32% of households of “accustomed” parishioners are represented in church, compared with 23% of resident households. Three areas, one within the parish boundary and two outside it, have 40% plus of households represented in church. At the other end of the spectrum, two areas within the parish boundary which account for 30% of all households have only 12 -13% of them represented in church, and account for only 15% of households in the worshipping congregation.
2. This phrase is probably not original, but I cannot remember who coined it!
3. Mark 4: 3-8
4. Matthew 5: 13-14
5. Matthew 13: 33

Exploring the Phoenix Park

Usually this is the time of the year when parish activities came to life again but there is one Parish activity, which has ended recently until next summer.

We have had a Parish walking group, which met throughout the summer Mondays at the Castleknock Gate of Phoenix Park, and while we were a small and select group it was a very enjoyable time. As we became a little more adventurous, instead of just racing down Chesterfield Avenue and back again, we turned off into the forest along Park wall, seeing on the way the Farmleigh Windmill, identifying small clumps of wild flowers (perhaps incorrectly!) seeing the occasional deer with her young beside her hiding behind a tree trunk, not to mention the grey squirrels who have now replaced our red squirrels in so many places.

We turned away from the Park wall and down into the Furry Glen to the pond, with its water lilies, mallard and the swallows chasing flies across its mirror-like surface. As we came up again on the steps at the opposite side someone suggested we continue down over the fifteen acres to the Cross. It was a very warm clear evening and the view across to the Dublin mountains was stunning, with Three Rock, and Butter Mountain visible beyond the Liffey. The herd of deer was grazing to our left by the American Ambassador’s residence, and regrettably another party had their small terrier off the lead and he took off in hot pursuit as terriers do. There were several very young fawns in the herd and one of our party was brave enough to comment that he should be on his lead, but the response was just sarcastic and the lead not produced.

We were fortunate to meet one of the Model Airplane enthusiasts who fly their planes in the area just above the Furry Glen and for the first time ever several of us got to see one on the ground. The owner explained that it was capable of flying up to two km. above ground but of course would be invisible at that height.

As we headed back towards Chesterfield Avenue and the Phoenix Monument the party split as some had walked and some had cars parked at the Park gates, but I think I can safely say that everyone is very grateful to Gladys whose idea these walks were and look forward to the next time when perhaps those who missed out may feel like joining us so that the group is not quite so small and select!

Alice Best

A Prayer for Harvest

Ever-creating God, Take all that we are
And all that we offer today.
Nourish our gifts like tiny seeds:
Cultivate our potential
Sustain our faith
Nurture our efforts at building your kingdom,
That we may grow together
And produce an abundant harvest
Which brings life and hope to the world.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Rector Writes | Readings & Services | From the Registers | Organisation Reports | Announcements | Other News

Parishes of Castleknock and Mulhuddart with Clonsilla
Parish Office
Main Street
Castleknock
Dublin 15
Tel: 01-820 0040
Fax: 01-820 0040
E-mail: castleknock@dublin.anglican.org