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Alison urges Emily to hit those high notes |
Limbering up for Christmas 2006
St Luke's choirs are getting their vocal chords into shape to celebrate the birth of Jesus next month.
The youth choir, which leads the singing in our weekly Sunday morning worship, is joining forces with the four-part choir, which appears three or four times a year after exhausting rehearsals, for three carol services this year.
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Sopranos and tenors struggle to keep up with the youth choir members at the back... |
The first fixture is on Sunday 26th November, at the 49th York Community Carol Concert at 2.30pm in York's Barbican Centre.
Then on the 14th December at 7.00pm there's the annual York City Football Club Carol Service at St Luke's, featuring a full programme of music by the choirs.
And they're back in action three days later on Sunday 17th December at 6.30pm for St Luke's own annual Carol Service.
Spare a prayer for our singers and musicians, and especially for musical director Alison Morse, that they and we will be in good heart and voice to greet that most amazing of all births.
25 November 2006
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Explorers with the map helping them find the missing goodies |
Yeti caught red-handed in Santa gift theft shocker
St Luke's Explorers enlisted the help of people attending the pre-Christmas Coffee morning in the Church Hall on Saturday 11 November to help find the presents mysteriously stolen from Santa Claus.
They made a map on Friday night, and helped to sell squares on Saturday morning to anyone prepared to have a look for the presents.
While all this frantic searching went on, the coffee morning took place as if nothing was wrong! Tombola and prize draw were sell-outs, and huge quantities of cakes, Christmas cards gifts and wrapping were bought and sold - and as for the amount of coffee and tea drunk... well!
As ever, a St Luke's coffee morning is a great way to get out of the house on a Saturday morning and get some socialising done - and to raise some of the money we need to help us fulfil God's calling for St Luke's.
Anyway, the Explorers contributed a very respectable* £20 to a total raised of £550 - well done to all who worked so hard.
And it took two-year-old Janey to find Santa's presents in the Yeti's cave. She probably scared them off.
- * ...and speaking of 'respectable', everyone was delighted to see Jim and Muriel Harland fresh from their recent - um - media exposure in the York Press. Click HERE to get the bare facts.
14 November 2006
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| Hairy Dom |
St Luke's barnstorming youth soccer teams have been known to look a bit of a ragbag in the York inter-church five-a-side competitions over the last few years.
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| 'Slasher' Usher at work |
But the players are so particular about their appearance that one of them - 'Dynamo Dom' Benford - had his head shaved (more or less) on the morning of the 15th after the 9.30am Parish Communion service, to raise sponsorship money for a complete St Luke's strip.
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| Work in hand |
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| Bald Dom |
Click 'Contact us' on the main menu if you'd like to make a donation to keep Dom bald, ensure the teams are properly clothed, keep the St Luke's flag flying and help to encourage this part of the Church's youth ministry!
20 October 2006
Grapevine for Autumn 2006 out now -
A community magazine for St Luke's Parish - on and around Burton Stone Lane
Grapevine is published and distributed around the parish by St Luke's four times a year.
You can click HERE or on the cover (left) to view the latest Grapevine if you have Adobe Reader on your PC*. It may be a lengthy download - but what price quality?
Alternatively, collect one from the church on Sunday or use the Contact Us button on the left to ask us to send you a copy, if there are any spares.
*You can download Adobe Reader and install it on your PC for free to view Grapevine and many other documents. Click the button:
2 October 2006
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| Leaving Staithes |
St Luke's Vicar Steve Benford is recovering after walking one hundred miles in thirty nine hours to help pay for the restoration of the church organ at St Luke's.
Steve set off from Helmsley at dawn on Thursday 14th September and followed a route northwards and then south along the coast based on the Cleveland Way, arriving in Scarborough on Saturday evening.
Other St Luke's members walked parts of the route with him and acted as support crew, meeting the walkers every few miles.
Steve's average speed of 2.56 miles per hour for 100 miles compares well with his 66 miles at 2.28 mph from Whitby to York in 29 hours last May.
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| Walkers and supporters at a pit stop in Robin Hood's Bay |
Sponsorship for Steve's epic walk has already topped £1,000, and 10% of this will be donated to Christian Aid. Contributions for the organ restoration will be gratefully received - or else Steve may disappear into the distance once and for all!
Click 'Contact us' on the main menu if you'd like to make a donation.
19 September 2006
St Luke's goes world-wide!
The Trinity-tide 2006 issue of 'Anglican Episcopal World', the magazine of the world-wide Anglican Communion, features an article and a photograph by St Luke's members:
Proclamation, mediaeval style
We pause for the quarter-chimes from nearby York Minster, and glance around. Several hundred people are variously stuffed into a mobile grandstand in front of us; sitting or lying on the grass of the Dean’s Park; leaning on trees or on each other; or feverishly adjusting their mediaeval-cum-biblical garb in readiness for their own minutes of fame. We are the extended family of St Luke’s Church, bringing forth “The Entry into Jerusalem” in the 2006 York Mystery Plays. St Luke’s, a parish church a mile north of York Minster, was an early recruit to the revived tradition of performing the 14th Century York Mystery Plays from a waggon, and has joined in each four-yearly cycle since 1994. In 2006, five churches and one church school were among the twelve groups performing at four points in the City on two July Sunday afternoons. What are we doing there? Showing off? – Yes, indeed! Revelling in a rich vein of cultural and community history? – Certainly! Proclaiming the Gospel? – Ah, now wait a minute… Amid the vagaries of the weather and the mobile staging, the adrenalin, companionship, laughter and tension, it’s a sobering moment to realise that several hundred people are watching you come face-to-face with Jesus Christ. Talk with him; joke with him; slap him on the back; maybe comfort him – maybe become whole in him. You’re with him in the street outside a City gate; with him when all sorts of misfits attract his attention; with him when he looks the blind man in the eye and tells him he is healed; with him when he heaves the lame man off his crutches and sends him dancing into the crowd. So you learn that Jesus is not always greeted by silence and sobriety, but sometimes with exhilaration, laughter and sheer exuberant happiness. You see his mood change as he sets his face towards Jerusalem and the welcome that will go horribly wrong. You are bewildered and distressed, but in trust you follow him. The City gate closes behind Jesus, and St Luke’s with its crew of about 65 (this year’s largest - including infants and pensioners, actors and waggon-pushers) prepares to move off to the next performance just down the road. Laughter and banter: somebody’s hat got stuck in the City gateway, and the donkey’s hindquarters nearly came adrift when it was picked up to be taken to Bethany. But as we process noisily away through the mediaeval streets, we pray we might have left behind a glimpse of those rather disturbing encounters with God-made-man, and indeed that we will not be unmoved by them ourselves. Martin Sheppard |
28 August 2006
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| Sunday night fever - building the stage in church after Evening Prayer |
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| Now - what have we made, seen, done, learned today? |
Potty and his crew of weird scientists, researchers, caretakers, tea-makers and other cranks were ruining - oops, sorry, running - a laboratory in which they had built a time-travelling machine to help them find God: TRANSPORTALOO!
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| Parachute games outside |
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| Walter Closet, Professor Potty, Hugo Furst and Lou Rolls decided to make a cake... |
The Roman Emperor Constantine, who made the Roman Empire Christian -
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| Walter Closet's not sure Professor Potty has the hang of it... |
Hannah, a woman in the Bible who knew how faithful God is to people who are faithful to him -
Eric Liddell, the Scottish Olympic runner of the 1920s who refused to run on a Sunday - 'the Lord's day' - and who then went on to win two more medals before giving up running to work for God in China -
Zacchaeus, the man in the Bible who gave up cheating people when he met Jesus.
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| A greasy cake tin can just get away from you... |
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| Walter Closet saves the day - it could have been a real mess... |
25 August 2006
Adults outnumber children in Sunday baptism - 3 to 1!
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| From left: June, Steve, Liam, Stacey and Kevin |
When Stacey and Kevin chose to have baby Liam baptised, they decided that they really meant the promises they were going to make on his behalf and so they too would be baptised. It's a real red-letter day to welcome a whole family at once.
And June, a friend of Vicar Steve Benford's from Northallerton had also reached the point in her own discovery of God when she decided it was time to be baptised, and it was St Luke's privilege to be there when she was received as a Christian.
We pray for June, Kevin, Liam and Stacey that God will continue to strengthen and guide them now and into the future.
16 August 2006
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| Waiting for the curtain to rise... |
St Luke's in the 2006 York Mystery Plays
It was all right on the night!
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| The Citizens of Jerusalem await the arrival of Jesus |
St Luke's cast and crew of around 65 was the largest of any participating group this year, and included infants and pensioners. Four churches were involved altogether, alongside the Guilds of York and other community groups.
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| Two Disciples accompany Jesus as he rides towards Jerusalem on a donkey |
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| Zacchaeus the (unpopular) Tax Collector wonders if he will be able to catch a word with Jesus |
So once again, as has happened on and off for centuries, the story of God's love for the world and the example and sacrifice of Jesus was acted out on the streets of York. Thanks be to God for the opportunity to be involved, and for the fun we had doing it.
Thanks to Jenny Gwynne for the use of the photos in this story.
Click HERE for more photos of St Luke's - and the rest!
26 July 2006
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| Mark Comer rehearsing as Zacchaeus |
St Luke's in the 2006 York Mystery Plays
St Luke's is taking part in the 2006 York Mystery Plays - performing The Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem four times on each of two Sunday afternoons, from a waggon disguised as one of York's ancient bar gateways.
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| Tom Frere as Jesus encounters James Tyler as the Lame Man |
This year, twelve of those plays are being staged by different groups in York - each one performed at four different places in the City on the afternoons of Sunday 9th and Sunday 16th July.
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| Alison Morse bangs the drum for St Luke's mediaeval choir |
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| Tom Frere (left, in red) as Jesus is welcomed by the citizens of Jerusalem |
Particular thanks are due to those who worked so hard and for so many late hours to prepare the waggon itself, which represents the gateway to Jerusalem as one of York's own mediaeval gateways.
Oh yes, and they built a handcart and a donkey too!
12 July 2006
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| The Revd Gareth Wardell |
The Revd Gareth Wardell, a long-standing member of St Luke's before he was ordained Deacon last year and became Curate at Selby Abbey, was ordained Priest in the Abbey on Saturday 1st July by the Bishop of Selby, the Rt Revd Martin Wallace.
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| Gareth is presented to the congregation by the Bishop |
They included other former St Luke's members; the Revd Bill Ankers (now Vicar of Norton), and the Revd David Woollard (now Vicar of Selby St James). Many current St Luke's members went to support Gareth too, and were treated to a magnificent Selby Abbey buffet supper afterwards.
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| St Luke's music group in Selby Abbey |
St Luke's joins the family of Selby Abbey in thanking God for Gareth and his response to God's call, and we pray for him in his future ministry.
4 July 2006
With a Hey Nonny-No: a mediaeval day at Murton Park
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| A picnic fit for a peasant |
Once again, St Luke's is responsible for one of this year's York Mystery Plays, performing The Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem four times on two Sundays in July, in the open air from a set built on a wagon.
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| A mad rampage to a madrigal |
The plays are performed on Sundays 9th and 16th July and can be seen as part of the cycle of fifteen plays in Dean's Park, outside St William's College, in St Sampson's Square and in the Museum Gardens.
See www.yorkmysteryplays.org for more about the Mystery Plays.
14 June 2006
Golden Jubilee: fifty years a priest
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| L to R: Lynn Comer; the Archbishop of York; George Austin; Steve Benford. Click picture to open a larger version which you are welcome to save. |
George emerged from St David's College, Lampeter, and Chichester Theological College to be ordained Deacon in 1955 and Priest in 1956.
He was a Curate in Chorley (Lancashire), Notting Hill (London) and Dunstable (Bedfordshire) before becoming Vicar of Eaton Bray, and then Bushey Heath, both in the Diocese of St Albans.
From 1988 to 1999 he was Archdeacon of York, and no stranger to publicity for his staunchly traditional views within a Church of England which may have seemed disinclined to hear them.
For the last seven years, George and Bobby have been part of the St Luke's family, and George's ministry has continued with occasional priestly duties here and elsewhere.
The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, accepted George's invitation to preach at his Golden Jubilee service, and described 'Father George' as being like a mighty oak tree that had grown from 'a tiny little nut that stood its ground'!
11 June 2006
Primatial Sponge: Bethan supplies Archbishop Sentamu's birthday cake
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| Bethan, the cake and the Archbishop |
How should a local church celebrate our Archbishop's birthday when he's actually turned up here?
Well, fortunately for Archbishop Sentamu and for St Luke's, Bethan had made a sponge cake which was rapidly promoted to become a birthday cake for an Archbishop.
And someone even found a candle!
Happy Birthday was sung, and thanks to Bethan and her cake, Dr Sentamu left with something to remember us by. And St Luke's will certainly remember this fleeting visit by the man who is doing so much to re-light the flame of the Gospel in his Diocese this year.
11 June 2006
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| The Archers. Kerchanggg! |
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| St Luke's Escape Committee in training |
St Luke's Pathfinders set off for their annual away day in pouring rain, and that was pretty much how it went on.
Archery, sinking in boats, climbing walls, swinging through the trees, sampling a hundred varieties of mud, and trying to get dry by sitting and steaming were the order of the day.
What a great, 'hands-on', 'total immersion' way to make the most of God's world!
Our thanks to all those who worked so hard to make the day a (soggy) success. Been there; done that; washed the tee-shirt.
1 June 2006