Yorkshire Synod Synod Clerk Tim Crossley · 2020. 9. 3. · Yorkshire Synod Somerset House St Pauls...
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Yorkshire Synod Somerset House St Paul’s Street Morley Leeds LS27 9EP Synod Moderator Rev. Jamie Kissack Synod Clerk Tim Crossley Treasurer Rev Simon Copley Property Officer Jane Bunyan-Murray Trust Secretary Alastair Forsyth e-Mail: [email protected] Website: www.urcyorkshire.org.uk Telephone: 0113 289 8490 Rev. J Kissack, C/O Synod Office Mob 07436 119475 [email protected] Mr. T Crossley, C/O Synod Office Mob 07936 362673 [email protected] The Briefing – Number 20 3 rd September 2020 Dear Friends, September for me has always felt as though it is a time of new starts. This feeling may stem from being at school and university with this month being the beginning of a new academic year; it may be due to the fact that being a member of a URC/Methodist LEP, I see September as being the time to find out who the new minister will be, or it may be that after having a couple of weeks holiday I’m relatively refreshed and ready to meet the challenges set for me. I think it is all three and this September there are plenty of new starts in the Synod. We need to start thinking of how we can best serve our communities as we slowly emerge from lockdown. We often use this time of the year to start up our church activities and this year Synod finds ourselves with our new Moderator, Jamie, ready to start a new chapter in his ministry and to be part of a new chapter in the life of the Synod. Last week I outlined some of the activities that will be happening in the next couple of months and this week I can expand on them further. On September 5th at 2.00pm will be the induction of Rev Jamie Kissack as Yorkshire Synod Moderator. If you haven’t received the link and you want to be part of the service, please let me know and I’ll sent it across. On September 12th Synod will be hosting a “Yorkshire Synod Café”. This is a new initiative where we will be inviting you to join us to discuss issues that affect you and these issues will then be fed into the October Synod. The full details of how to join are below. On September 26 th Synod is joining with the Leading Your Church into Growth team to present a Taster Day which will be a time of prayer, discussion and practical tips on how to encourage your church to flourish amidst the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions. Other wider events include Intergenerational Worship for World Education Day on Sunday 13 September. This is a joint project by the Children & Youth Development Team and Church Related Community Workers. Details on how to join in with the worship are below. In a similar vein Frontlines in the New Normal is being hosted by the Mersey Synod on Wednesday 23 September. Led by Mark Green of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity it will look at how we can be authentic Christians in this strange new world. Follow the instruction on the poster below to obtain the Zoom code. Finally on October 10th the Autumn Synod will take place. Sadly we won’t be heading to St Andrew’s, Skipton to mark the 250 th anniversary of the first Independent meeting in the town, but we will still be gathering online to meet in fellowship, to do the business of Synod and most importantly to worship together. Again details will follow nearer the time, but I do urge churches to ensure that they are represented. If anyone does have trouble accessing Zoom please get in touch through the usual channels and we’ll try to help you out.
Transcript of Yorkshire Synod Synod Clerk Tim Crossley · 2020. 9. 3. · Yorkshire Synod Somerset House St Pauls...
Yorkshire Synod Somerset House St Paul’s Street Morley Leeds LS27 9EP
Synod Moderator
Rev. Jamie Kissack Synod Clerk Tim Crossley Treasurer Rev Simon Copley Property Officer Jane Bunyan-Murray Trust Secretary Alastair Forsyth
e-Mail: [email protected] Website: www.urcyorkshire.org.uk
Telephone: 0113 289 8490
Rev. J Kissack, C/O Synod Office Mob 07436 119475 [email protected] Mr. T Crossley, C/O Synod Office Mob 07936 362673 [email protected]
The Briefing – Number 20 3rd September 2020
Dear Friends, September for me has always felt as though it is a time of new starts. This feeling may stem from being at school and university with this month being the beginning of a new academic year; it may be due to the fact that being a member of a URC/Methodist LEP, I see September as being the time to find out who the new minister will be, or it may be that after having a couple of weeks holiday I’m relatively refreshed and ready to meet the challenges set for me. I think it is all three and this September there are plenty of new starts in the Synod. We need to start thinking of how we can best serve our communities as we slowly emerge from lockdown. We often use this time of the year to start up our church activities and this year Synod finds ourselves with our new Moderator, Jamie, ready to start a new chapter in his ministry and to be part of a new chapter in the life of the Synod. Last week I outlined some of the activities that will be happening in the next couple of months and this week I can expand on them further. On September 5th at 2.00pm will be the induction of Rev Jamie Kissack as Yorkshire Synod Moderator. If you haven’t received the link and you want to be part of the service, please let me know and I’ll sent it across. On September 12th Synod will be hosting a “Yorkshire Synod Café”. This is a new initiative where we will be inviting you to join us to discuss issues that affect you and these issues will then be fed into the October Synod. The full details of how to join are below. On September 26th Synod is joining with the Leading Your Church into Growth team to present a Taster Day which will be a time of prayer, discussion and practical tips on how to encourage your church to flourish amidst the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions. Other wider events include Intergenerational Worship for World Education Day on Sunday 13 September. This is a joint project by the Children & Youth Development Team and Church Related Community Workers. Details on how to join in with the worship are below. In a similar vein Frontlines in the New Normal is being hosted by the Mersey Synod on Wednesday 23 September. Led by Mark Green of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity it will look at how we can be authentic Christians in this strange new world. Follow the instruction on the poster below to obtain the Zoom code. Finally on October 10th the Autumn Synod will take place. Sadly we won’t be heading to St Andrew’s,
Skipton to mark the 250th anniversary of the first Independent meeting in the town, but we will still be gathering online to meet in fellowship, to do the business of Synod and most importantly to worship together. Again details will follow nearer the time, but I do urge churches to ensure that they are represented. If anyone does have trouble accessing Zoom please get in touch through the usual channels and we’ll try to help you out.
Church Links and Mission Activities
Welcome to The Yorkshire Synod Café.
This is a brand new event and will be a new experience for all. Everyone, of all ages and stages of faith associated with a URC Church is encouraged to attend to bring together diverse voices and ideas to find our common future together. We will all be led to share our thoughts on the questions opposite; everyone will be listened to, valued and appreciated for their story and their contributions. Please note that this is an online event. Register with the synod office at [email protected]
Synod’s Christian Comment https://urcyorkshire.org.uk/christian-comment/ is part of the website that I am now regularly highlighting as a resource, but it is becoming the place where we are uploading articles exploring what it is to be a Christian. Please look out this page on the website to read this and the other contributions which are being regularly uploaded there.
For those with a more local taste I know that the Sheffield team have their services on their own website at http://sheffieldurc.org.uk/ and on the Yorkshire site you can find help in preparing and participating in Online Worship at https://urcyorkshire.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Top_Tips_for_worshipping-online-together.pdf.
A little while back I mentioned Rev Nick Percival’s new book “On Autopilot” being available to buy on Kindle. Nick has been in touch to let us know that as he realised many readers won’t have Kindle it is now available from AMAZON as a paperback book https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=On+Autopilot&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
Yorkshire Synod now has a dedicated YouTube channel. YouTube is a great way of consolidating all the videos we release about Leading Your Church Into Growth (LYCIG), Children's and Youth, Mission and more! The link is here: https://bit.ly/urcyorkshireyoutube and have a look at what has already been uploaded such as our new Moderator’s reflections and comments. If you have a google account, you will receive emails when a new video is posted. In addition there is a great deal of information on the LYCIG page on the Synod website. Now is a good time to have a look at https://urcyorkshire.org.uk/lycig/.
I have regularly highlighted the Wilderness project let by Megan and Jon. As a reminder please take time to look at and follow their Facebook site on which there is a growing store of resources for the younger end of our church community which you can find here https://www.facebook.com/wildernessyorkshireurc/ It’s worth mentioning this week that the Trialogue series of events is still on the go with the news that the Trialogue team are continuing until December. If you have not tuned into one of these discussions yet, why not join this week? Check out the Facebook site for more information
General Information and Resource Sharing
Just a quick note about this issue. Normally the Briefing would be in the Covid-19 section of the Synod website, but we are still having a few issues with the website. Please bear with us whilst we try and iron out these issues and I hope that normal service (whatever that may be) will resume soon.
Rev Dr Jim Coleman, our Development Officer, has been in touch as five members of the Training & Development Officers network have prepared a paper entitled Transitioning from Lockdown – Some Models. It is offered generally as a possible help to churches as they transition out of lockdown. It focuses upon worship during this transitional phase and gives different examples of actual practice. It isn’t about pastoral care or other aspects of church life, but may be of some use as congregations begin to deal with emerging issues. The document also sits comfortably alongside the ‘new normal’ papers from the national church. Normally I would point you in the direction of where we have uploaded it to our website, but as we are currently experiencing a few issues with it, if you want a copy let me know and I’ll forward it to you.
Throughout the lockdown the Northerly Synods have continued to meet and to share ideas. One thing that has been at the forefront of these discussions has been the provision of resources remotely through digital platforms. The Northerlies have now got to the position where they are looking for folk who have an interest in techy stuff to form a network or group of such like-minded people. The plan is that members of this group could work together to provide technical assistance in the Northerly Synods to allow Synod sponsored meetings to take place. An initial meeting on Zoom is to be organised in either w/c 14th or 21st September to share knowledge, support one another, discuss what is involved in the forthcoming Synod sessions and to find out what skills are on offer in our neck of the woods. If anyone is interested they can contact either me at the usual [email protected] address or Rita Griffiths who is the Mersey Synod Clerk at [email protected].
As I mentioned regularly in previous Briefings, there has been some activity when it comes to changes in the level of lockdown and instructions regarding the opening up of our premises. For those of us who live and worship in the Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees Council areas please keep to the added regulations currently in operation. As well as these differences compared with the rest of our area there has been a slight change in the advice regarding churches and music, published on 14th August. This new advice can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-for-the-safe-use-of-places-of-worship-during-the-pandemic-from-4-july/covid-19-guidance-for-the-safe-use-of-places-of-worship-during-the-pandemic-from-4-july. This is useful for those who need to get to grips with how our preparations sit with Government advice. We do advise that you also visit the URC main website as the information pertaining to churches, church opening and government advice is quickly uploaded there https://urc.org.uk/coronavirus.html. From this page you can access all the resources that you need to prepare for reopening including the key documents Ready for the new “normal” and Emerging into the “new normal”. As a reminder this is where the downloadable blank Covid-19 Risk Assessment in both PDF https://urc.org.uk/images/images/URC_Risk_Assessment_Template_Updated.pdf and editable Excel https://urc.org.uk/images/images/URC_Risk_Assessment_Template_Updated.pdf formats. Many other resources including all the recently published guides and display items can be found here https://urc.org.uk/information-guides.html and here https://urc.org.uk/coronavirus-resources. Much of the information that Synod strongly advises that you read can be found on our own website here: https://urcyorkshire.org.uk/covid19/. In this link you will also find other vital files which will help you prepare for reopening including the latest YCU advice: https://urcyorkshire.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/YCU-Covid-19-Statement-External-Lettings8.7.20.pdf. If there are any of you still struggling with the situation, grappling with the regulations or need advice the Synod team are here for you. We are here to serve you so please don’t hesitate to get in touch at any of the e-mails or numbers at the head or foot of this Briefing.
If you know of anything which you may find useful for our churches, please contact me at [email protected] 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. National URC site: https://urc.org.uk/ Yorkshire Synod: https://urcyorkshire.org.uk/ Yorkshire Synod Twitter:
https://twitter.com/urcyorkshire Yorkshire Synod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/urcyorkshire Yorkshire Young People’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wildernessyorkshireurc/
Best wishes
Tim Crossley
Synod Clerk
