Posts by Trevor Sirrell

Choral Evensong Sermon for All Saints


Joy and alright in the end
Isaiah 65.17-end, Hebrews 11.32-12.2
Revd. Matthew Peat

One of my jobs before ordination was working in the Parts Department for a firm of Agricultural Engineers.    Aside from getting to know the inner workings of tractors and diggers I spent a good deal of time with farmers.

Now farmers are in my experience pessimists.   And they’re seldom happy.   If it’s wet they want it to be dry.   If it’s dry they want it to be wet.   If it’s cold they want it to be warm.   And always, always they’ve no money.

I understood a bit why they’re like this for making a living from the land is precarious.   Indeed since then things seem to have got more difficult for farmers.

Yet there was a bit of me that thought their experience, especially those farmers who had tilled the same land for generations, might have a bit more confidence.

Confidence that the harvest would be safely gathered in.     Confidence that they would make a living.    In other words that, even if the tractor did conk out, it would be alright in the end.

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All Saints Sunday


Best Impressions
Ephesians 1.11-23 Luke 6.20-31
Revd. Matthew Peat

When you take funerals as I do, you soon discover that though it might sometimes seem otherwise we are surrounded by Saints.    I have buried hundreds of them!

Often when I go and see families they will speak of their loved one describing all that was good about them.   Sometimes though gaps will appear in the story, or I can sense that something has been left unsaid, and so will gently probe a bit deeper.    They might then tell me but then add “But we don’t want that mentioning at the funeral.”

What they’re doing is I think wanting to present the person who has died in the best light.   Telling me what was good in their life rather than dwell too long on what wasn’t.

Of course that’s important.    Funerals are not so much for the one who has died as for those who are left behind.    And so remembering all that was good in someone’s life helps punctuate the inevitable sadness with thanksgiving.

However I’m also there to help them be honest and remind them that these edited highlights are certainly not for God’s benefit, the one ‘from whom no secrets are hidden.’     Perhaps that’s where All Souls Day comes in later this week.

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October 2016 Update

Proposed Design and Costs

The information on our previous update note in August no doubt caused many people a sharp intake of breath. Nearly £1m to redevelop the church hall does seem to be a large amount of money!

Our approach has been to look at developing a total solution to make the hall more multifunctional, bring it up to date and continue to be a focal point for the community in this area. At this stage it does not mean that we will definitely spend £1m on the scheme. What we have is an optimum scheme that we have worked hard to develop but we now need to look at the reality of being able to raise this amount of money. The estimate of costs provided to us by the Quantity Surveyor are, he tells us, on the generous side. However, they are based on August 2016 rates, so if the reconstruction work doesn’t start until 2018, costs are likely to rise further.  The true costs of the chosen scheme will not be known until the work is put out to tender.

The design plan and supporting information is on the hall notice board and also elsewhere on this website.

Fundraising

In the last few weeks we have contacted a number of professional fundraisers to enquire about the services they offer and the rates that they charge. After discussing the options with the Parochial Church Council (PCC), the council instructed the Hall Redevelopment Team that at this stage only a viability study should be undertaken and costs should be kept to a minimum. The fundraiser that we have chosen has come with excellent references, one being from Canon Michael Hunter who worked with him when he was at Grimsby Minster.

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Read All About It!


Giving Sermon
Revd. Matthew Peat

“Read all about it! Read all about it! Whitkirk Church in danger of paying their Parish Share” so goes the headline of the ‘The Whitkirk Weekly Pound’, a new tabloid you will get a copy of as you leave this morning.

The Parish Share is our gift to the diocese. However it’s a gift that, in part at least, comes back to us. For the Parish Share pays my wages, my stipend, together with all the costs involved with having a stipendiary priest.

At the moment that costs is just over £50,000. Now I don’t get paid that but that figure includes housing (I pay for heat and light!), pension, training, council tax and water rates. I think I’m cheap. You may beg to differ.

St. Mary’s Whitkirk are at the moment invited by the Diocese to give £107,000 a year. It’s a lot of money. It’s more than my wages. But it’s an amount arrived at taking into account various factors, our regular Sunday attendance, a bit of on the socio-economic picture of this bit of Leeds and our income.

It is a lot of money but it is by no means beyond us, we are getting there.

In 2013 we paid £60,000.

This year we shall pay £90,000. That is truly good news and we have been able to achieve that increase for a number of reasons not least because many of you have increased your giving over the last couple of years however we are not quite there.

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August 2016 Update

The consultation period that was held during April and May this year, supported by 2 drop in sessions held in the Church Hall produced an excellent response from the congregation, hall users and members of the local community both on the 2 days and via the [email protected] email address. Some very interesting and innovative suggestions were made and a number of these have been taken on board. The Hall Redevelopment team have also continued to work with the architect in further refining the design which now shows some significant changes to the original design displayed during the consultation period. The new design will be on display in the Church Hall over the coming weeks and is also available on the Hall Redevelopment page on this website.

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Our Suffering is for Your Consolation


Sermon Year C – Trinity 11 Evensong
2 Corinthians 1:1-22.
Revd. Alison Battye

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord our strength and our redeemer.

I have to admit that I haven’t always got on too well with St Paul. There are the unfortunate comments about women… but mainly it is just he is so blooming sure of everything – particularly himself. As a lifelong Anglican I find this slightly alarming…

So when I first looked at tonight’s reading – I couldn’t get past Paul saying  “If we are being afflicted it is for your consolation” – it all seemed a bit self important of Paul – and didn’t make a lot of sense.

Then someone asked me if I would visit her neighbour – a lady whose husband of nearly 60 years is in St Gemma’s hospice and very poorly.

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Prayer is our Protest


Sermon Year C - Trinity 9
Hosea 1.2-10, Luke 11.1-13
Revd. Matthew Peat

Perhaps it’s something about being a reserved Englishman but I’m not a very good protestor.    I don’t really go in for marches or wearing lapel badges. Perhaps it’s something about a lack of passion in me or being kinder to myself a sense of being able to see many sides of an argument.

And so though I am privileged to have these few minutes in your week when you give your time to listen. l’m cautious about being too forthright about my opinions.

Preferring instead to open up ways for you to think about how this faith we share might impact the way in which you see the world around us. And that world is troubled, seldom can I recall in my own lifetime so much tragedy around us.

Tragic attacks in Germany, coups and purges, police officers killed are just some of the headlines from the last week. These ‘headlines’ are held alongside the ongoing tragedies unfolding around our world.

The problems of Syria and mass migration have not disappeared, the camp of Calais has not gone anywhere, and suicide bombers continue to take innocent lives. Faced with these things it is hard to know what to do.

We want to shout out. We want to protest that this is not right. That there is another way to live. A way rooted in the life and teaching, the death and resurrection of the Jesus who draws us here this morning.

That protest is expressed in some way through our prayers. For prayer, whether they be said here or offered quietly as you think of another with a cup of tea in hand is, in part at least, about resetting our focus. About lifting up our hearts, so often weighed down by our burdens to the God who renews our hope and restores our vision.

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Church Lighting Scheme Update

As you read this article the new lights in church have been operating for a number of weeks and we hope that you are all pleased with the results.

The final outlay for the lights including architects fees and VAT came to £36,928.44. Taking into account the refund of VAT that is due, our net outlay for the lights will be £30,773.70.

We received a £4,000 grant from the Leeds Church Extension Society and £20,610.11 was raised from the appeal that was launched last year, with the deficit of £6,163.59 being be met out of Legacy Funds. Our thanks go to everybody who contributed in any way towards the completion of this project.