My CMS

Waking up on a Wednesday makes me smile; not because it’s ‘over the hump’ day; but because Wednesday means Bowdon Street Academy. For the last six years we have been blessed to have some visiting tutors from The Message, a local Christian charity. Currently these are a band called BrightLine, who are surrounded by a buzz of conversation punctuated by shrieks of laughter.

The band members each take small groups and teach them some of their skills, offering Drumming, Guitar, Pop Vocals, and Beatboxing Sessions. Other tutors include Al Swettenham, aka Geek Boy, who teaches Music Production, and Sola Ayodeji who teaches Street Dance.

All of the sessions can also be used towards the skill section of their Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) Award, and if they apply to be part of Bowdon’s oversubscribed DofE group they will be given priority, as are all regular attendees of church youth groups.

For more info please see the Parish Guide.
Jo Oughton, Parish Development

If you love being outdoors, fellowship with other Christians, contemporary live worship bands, inspiring teaching and vibrant ministries for children, you may enjoy a week camping to experience the New Wine summer Christian conference in Somerset.

This is the fourth year that we have attended this Christian festival as a family and we are already looking forward eagerly to next year. The children enjoyed themed ministries, where they, depending on their age, learnt more about their faith in the jungle (Christian identity), a formula 1 race track (Old Testament heroes) and as knights and princesses (St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians). The array of teaching for adults was mind blowing and I enjoyed some great teaching on wisdom and listening from the Book of Proverbs. Julia Dow, our part-time Parish Development worker for children, co-led a teaching stream on contemplation and life rhythms.

Stripping life back to basics and living in community with members of our congregation, is an uplifting experience (after a short low period of adjustment to English chilly evenings!)The lack of electricity and therefore mobile phone usage, screens and cars, encourages conversation, and card playing.. The children are safe to roam free on bikes and with independence comes confidence. Adults, with happy and occupied children, have more chance to relax, learn and chat, over wine, sometimes late into the night. Without modern day distractions, in our experience, comes a closer relationship with God and a spiritual top-up, which is well worth the effort required to camp for seven days. If you would like more information about New Wine and the summer conference 2017 do contact kirsten@bowdonchurch.org.

Kirsten and Simon Wood

2.3 billion people don’t have somewhere safe, clean and hygienic to go to the loo. That’s more than a third of the people on the planet. Toilet Twinning is an initiative that funds the work of the Christian charity Tearfund. By twinning a toilet you help those in desperate poverty to have access to a proper latrine, clean water and the information they need to be healthy. It’s therefore about much more than the toilet itself. It costs only £60 to twin one toilet. As a church we started supporting this amazing initiative some 12 months ago and since then we have inspired our young people to twin many toilets within the parish.

Loo number 1 was funded during the Christian summer conference New Wine 2015, when the children organised, on their own initiative, a stall to sell amongst other things Loom Bands. They raised £60 and were able to twin one of our Parish Centre toilets.

Altrincham Grammar School for Girls selected Toilet Twinning as one of their chosen charities. The school twinned not two toilets but two whole toilet blocks.

St Mary’s Choir Trebles organised a huge cake sale. With the proceeds they were able to twin two church toilets with toilets in Bangladesh, as part of Christian Aid Week.

Altrincham Grammar School for Boys Christian Union planned and organised a cake sale and raised enough money for one toilet and plan to do more. Thanks to Ben Moore for organising this.

Our most recent loo was twinned during New Wine 2016 by the children, who made a stall and teamed up with some other friends to sell painted stones, beads and to offer henna ‘tattoos’. They raised over £100 for Toilet Twinning and with their share were once again able to twin another toilet.

If you wish to support this amazing initiative please go to www.toilettwinning.org or alternatively email Simon Wood on simon@b8re.com. Let’s make Bowdon a Toilet-Twinned town!

Simon Wood

Ceremony and celebration can be uneasy bedfellows, the rigours of formality often inhibiting the expression of emotion that is the essence of a joyful occasion. When we gathered at St Mary’s on the evening of 21 June for the collation and induction of the new vicar of Bowdon, after the Revd Roger Preece’s departure last October, red and purple robes were complemented by the reds and purples of Cadbury’s chocolate bars in every pew. It was a useful reminder that the church is the people rather than a procedure, as well as a rather earthly blessing for those who had come straight from work.

The service is in fact a rich tapestry of worship, tradition, theology and law. In this instance, there were multiple bishops and Ians, as the Bishop of Stockport, the Rt Revd Libby Lane dovetailed neatly with the Archdeacon of Macclesfield, the Ven Ian Bishop to introduce the Revd Ian Rumsey to his flock, local dignitaries and neighbouring clergy, who attended in numbers to welcome him.

This was the culmination of months of prayerful thought and discernment that are a requirement of the transition of a parish from one vicar, or incumbent, to another. The church must draft a profile, or prospectus for publication to potential candidates, who apply and undergo a process of assessment prior to appointment. In the case of Bowdon two full days were given over to introducing Ian to the parish and interviewing him; the result, a unanimous vote to invite him to join us.

So it came to be that on midsummer’s eve churchwardens processed, choristers sang, bishops spoke and then Ian Ramsey ascended the belltower to ring the bell and confirm to the parish and beyond that he had arrived. One toll for every year the vicar will serve, so they say. I’m sure no one was counting.

The evening ended with a joyful gathering in the Parish Centre, where we celebrated in time-honoured fashion with a splendid cake.

William Tyler, Churchwarden

I wonder when you last received a card which started with those words?

It’s nice to be invited, isn’t it. Perhaps it’s a wedding invitation or for a birthday celebration. I remember Sir Ian Botham putting out a general invitation for members of the public to join him for a morning or an afternoon on his first charity walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats. That was back in 1985 and I think if I’d lived near to his route, I would have been tempted to take him up on his offer. But whether it’s a call from a friend asking if you’d like to go for a coffee or a neighbour popping round to see whether you’re up for a trip to the cinema or would like to go to a concert, it’s really nice to be on the receiving end of an invitation. And yet my suspicion is that, although we like being invited to something, we may not find it very easy to be the one who issues the invitation.

One way of reading the Bible is to see it as one long invitation from God to everyone to join him on the adventure of living life to the full. Some of Jesus’s earliest recorded words are deliberately invitational: ‘Come, follow me’. There was even an occasion when Jesus knew the fear factor was so high, because Zacchaeus was one of the widely disliked tax collectors, that he decided to invite himself: ‘Zacchaeus, I’m coming to your place for tea.’ It was a life-changing encounter (Luke, 19: 1-10).

The Church is still very much in the invitation business. On the inside of this edition of Bowdon Church News you’ll find a comprehensive catalogue of the huge variety of groups and activities which are run, partnered or sponsored by people in our church congregations here in Bowdon. If you are already part of one of the activities, please would you choose a friend you could invite to join you? If you haven’t joined us on our adventure of living life to the full, especially if you have recently moved to the area, we hope you will take a look through what’s on offer to see which of the groups you might enjoy.

And please consider yourself very warmly invited.

Ian Rumsey

Vicar of Bowdon