Colne Engaine Parish Magazine December & January 2014-15 for All the People Who Live Here COLNE ENGAINE PARISH MAGAZINE DEC & JAN 2014-15
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Colne Engaine Parish Magazine December & January 2014-15 For all the people who live here COLNE ENGAINE PARISH MAGAZINE DEC & JAN 2014-15 EDITORIAL THE PARISHES Editor: Michael Estcourt Earls Colne, White Colne and Colne 2 Brickhouse Road, CO6 2HL Engaine parishes are under the care of Tel/Fax: 01787 220049 our Team Vicar and arrangements for [email protected] Baptisms / Weddings / Funerals and All copy should be sent to Michael. other services or use of the Church Advertising: Terry Hawthorn should be made with; 6 High Croft, CO6 2HE. T: 01787 223140 Team Vicar: The Reverend Peter Allen [email protected] St Andrew’s Rectory, 5 Shut Lane, All advertising should be sent to Terry. Earls Colne Design: Juliet Townsend T: 01787 220347 14 Oddcroft, CO6 2ET. T: 01787 222459. [email protected] [email protected] Church Warden: Mr Desmond Shine 4 Brickhouse Road CO6 2HL PARISH COUNCIL T: 01787 223378 [email protected] Parish Clerk: Terry Rootsey Buntings Green Cottage, Halstead Road, PCC Secretary: Mrs Rita Prior Colne Engaine CO6 2JG. 21 Church Street, Colne Engaine CO6 2EX T: 01787 220200 T: 01787 223867 [email protected] [email protected] ADVERTISING Our monthly magazine (double issues 1/4 Page 62 x 88mm £10 / £50 pa in July/August and December/January) 1/2 Page 128 x 88mm £17 / £75 pa is delivered free of charge to all 400 Full Page 128 x 180mm £20 or £100 pa households in Colne Engaine Cheques payable to Colne Engaine PCC. and Countess Cross. TO OUR READERS Please remember to mention this magazine if you answer any of the advertisements. We welcome advertising in our magazine, the income from which helps to cover production costs. This does not imply any endorsement or approval of the products and services mentioned in the advertising. FOR THE FEBRUARY ISSUE PLEASE PROVIDE SUBMISSIONS TH BY 4 JANUARY 2015 Please provide Editorial in Word and Advertising as .jpg file Colne Engaine Parish Magazine Dec & Jan 2014-15 / 3 WELCOME FROM THE EDITOR Last month I outlined who puts the magazine together and how it is done, thanking all those people in the village who contribute towards its publication. This month I would like to thank the advertisers without whose financial support there would not be a magazine at all. The magazine is, as I mentioned last month, free to all households. Printing costs are met from advertising revenue. There are no other expenses as everyone else contributes their time free of charge. The magazine breaks even each year. We are in a unique situation which other towns and villages cannot match. For instance Earls Colne’s Parish Magazine is only distributed to those who pay for it as the town is too large for advertising revenue to match the costs of a magazine per household. So please use the services of our advertisers where you can and, just as importantly, tell them that you saw their advert in this magazine. From time to time I encourage people to send in articles for publication. I am pleased to tell you that the response has been most encouraging. The magazine is now a good read, so please keep your articles coming. I say this often but this is your magazine and if you know of anything good in the village or you want to make a comment about village life, you should use the forum of this publication to air your views. I receive precious few letters or emails and I think this is a pity as I know from talking to many of you that you have something of interest to say. So come on – let’s hear from you. Finally may I wish you all a very Happy Christmas and the hope that the New Year will be a good one for you. Michael Estcourt, Editor T/F: 01787 220049 E: [email protected] NSPCC BOOK FAIR Thank you to all those who supported this event at Holmwood House. An amazing £23,634 was taken. How fantastic is that!! I hope all those who supported it had some wonderful bargains! Jane Lambert 4 www.colne-engaine.org.uk LETTER FROM THE REVEREND PETER ALLEN No doubt in December and January we will find ourselves giving and receiving greetings of ‘Happy Christmas’ and ‘Happy new year’. Such greetings are common place to us within our culture and carry within them a desire for hope, health, good cheer, blessing, and prosperity. There are a number of greetings involved in the Christmas story we find in the gospels. One is the greeting the angel Gabriel gives to Mary when visiting to give her the news that she is to be the mother of the promised Messiah. Gabriel greets Mary with the words, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ We may also know this greeting as ‘Hail’ as different Bible translations seek to capture the spirit and meaning of the word. The original Greek word translated ‘hail’ is ‘chario’ and basically it contains a sense of cheerfulness, happiness, gladness, and joy. This same word is used of the feelings the men from the east felt when they saw the star they had been following re-appear over the place where Jesus could be found. They greeted the star with the same sense of cheerfulness, happiness, gladness, and joy that Gabriel appeared to Mary with (Matt 2:10). We also find this word being abused and misused by Judas (Matt 26:49) when he greets Jesus in the garden when he betrays him to the authorities. In turn Romans soldiers use it as a term of mockery when they dress him up and beat him and spit on him before he is lead out to be crucified (Matt 27:29). You may feel that Christmas is not the time to be thinking about Jesus’ suffering. In one way that may be the case as the Christmas story, the birth of the long awaited Messiah and Saviour of humankind, and creation is definitely news that should be greeted with the kind of greeting Gabriel gives to Mary, and the men from the east gave to the star. However we do a disservice to the gospel writers if we miss out the shadow of the cross hanging over this event. Matthew wishes us to recognise the place of Jesus’ passion even in the midst of the celebration of his birth when he points to the reason of Jesus is here is to save people from their sins (Matt 1:21). He also directs us towards the danger that surrounded Jesus from the beginning as we are left in no doubt as to the intentions of Herod who falsely greeted the men from the east with words of good intent (Matt 2:8). And finally in case we missed these two allusions to danger and suffering Luke picks up this theme when just a few days after his birth we are told that this tiny helpless baby will cause a great stir in the world, have to suffer and that his mother will know great pain on account of this (Luke 2:34-5). In our modern commercial and predominantly post Christian culture we find it so much easier to gravitate towards the cuddly, cherub like, baby we Colne Engaine Parish Magazine Dec & Jan 2014-15 / 5 have come to see on so many Christmas cards, nativity scenes, and pictures. That’s quite understandable and not something we should be ashamed of or don’t allow ourselves to be uplifted and encouraged by, Christmas is a time of great celebration. But neither should we shy away from the real reason that Jesus’ birth is the be greeted with such joy, which is because he has come to save us from the darkness that lurks within us and hovers around many just as it did him at his birth. It is when we truly allow ourselves to experience the Christmas story in all its light and shade that we will find our joy at celebrating the birth of Jesus deepens. That is because it is only as we recognise our need for a Saviour to deliver from darkness that threatens us within and without that we can fully celebrate and rejoice in the birth of the one who was born to do that. May your Christmas a new year be full of the joy of knowing how wonderful and glorious is the birth of Christ for the whole world. Rev Pete PRAYERS FOR THE PARISHES Weekly on Thursdays at 9-9.30am. Dec 4th The Rectory, Shut Lane, Earls Colne Dec 11th Church Hall, Brook St, Colne Engaine Dec 18th The Rectory, Shut Lane, Earls Colne Break over Christmas and New Year Jan 8th Church Hall, Brook St, Colne Engaine Jan 15th The Rectory, Shut Lane, Earls Colne Jan 22nd Church Hall, Brook St, Colne Engaine Jan 29th The Rectory, Shut Lane, Earls Colne All Welcome BIBLE READING FELLOWSHIP GROUP WITH BIBLE STUDY December 18th at 10am at The Rectory, Shut Lane, Earls Colne We would be delighted to welcome new faces. Do give this friendly discussion group a try! Discussion is often triggered by the readings from our Bible Reading Notes but it is not necessary to read these to join in and enjoy the discussions. We find these meetings help us to clarify what we believe (or don’t!), to discover that others have the same doubts, problems etc. as we do and to grow in our faith, as we see what the Bible has to say on a wide variety of subjects and how that affects our daily lives.