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| Extracts from Sept 09
Moving Stories Moving house is stressful and relocating can bring further challenges. Heather Erridge and her husband Tim moved from Chorley to Nottingham so he could train as an ordinand at St John’s Theological College. She tells C Magazine their ‘moving’ story; the challenges they faced and the changes it has brought... Moving. Bad enough after 18 years, but this 110 miles made me angry, incandescent with God. July 2008 changed our lifestyle, bringing dependency on others, more especially God, and led me to feel surplus, on a scrap heap at God’s direction. "Tim and I married 22 years ago after God brought us together. It was a short romance; why wait when you have found the right person? We put God at our life’s heart and he had been there through everything: intense parental hostility; infertility; close family deaths; workplace bullying; unemployment; health problems and Tim facing redundancy. Then God had called Tim for ordination. And I felt redundant, without purpose..."
Key Women Prison Chaplaincy is a particular calling, increasingly answered by women. What does the work involve and what is it like to be a female chaplain in a male prison? C Magazine talks to three women who are very happy to be behind bars! Formerly Chaplain at HMP Manchester, the Revd Louise Cooper is the new Chaplain at HMP Nottingham. “My first experience of prison was a visit from theological college. I sometimes felt as if we were being shown round a zoo rather than a place containing human beings. The Chaplain locked us ordinands up in a cell for a few minutes which the two men I was with found hilarious, shouting: ‘We’re OK, we’ve got a woman in here…’ but my mind was racing,” said Louise. “Imagine a room with no handle on your side of the door. I immediately felt a strong sense of powerlessness - my life was in the hands of others. When could I contact my family? Could I be vegetarian? How would I cope in a very small place with little privacy with a total stranger? These things galvanized quickly into a sense that this was where I was meant to be – before I’d left the building...”
Back in the eighties, wearing black leather and strutting his stuff on stage Alvin Stardust was a successful pop star. Singing ‘Be my coo-ca-choo’ he would throw a glove into the audience after every show. No wonder he had to buy them by the gross! And if you go back a bit further you may remember him as Shane Fenton, singing ‘Five foot two, eyes of blue.’ But did you know he was a local lad? It was as the legendary Alvin, and looking much younger than his 68 years, that he came to Bluecoat School this summer to do a fundraising ‘gig’ in aid of their Care and Compassion Trip to South Africa. Ex-Minster pupil Alvin also took time out to speak to the group of Year 12 students who were shortly leaving on a three week mission to our link Diocese of Natal. Youth Worker, David Keetley and 6th Former Emma Harness) were heading up the trip. Her uncle is Alvin’s tour manager and the connection for the fundraising concert. I joined them to find out why the star wanted to be involved, writes Jane Wyles.
A Parish Partnership For many churches up and down the country the threat of closure is all too real. However, two very different churches in our Diocese are discovering that ‘twinning’ can be a way of encouraging growth and developing community. There has been a church on the site of St John the Baptist at Stanford on Soar, on the southern most tip of Southwell & Nottingham Diocese, since the middle of the 13 century. It is very much a country church set in rolling countryside of farming communities close to Loughborough. Over the centuries its fortunes have waxed and waned, and with the changes in agriculture the church's identity has become less clear. “The parish of Stanford-on-Soar doesn't really have a centre,” explained Churchwarden Gillian Clarke. “There is no pub, shop, post office, or village hall; the only public/community building is the Church, so it is vitally important to do everything in our power to prevent its closure ..."
Healing on the Streets Last year we featured a story about BBC Radio Nottingham presenter, Frances Finn, who experienced a miraculous healing when her leg grew at a Christian conference. It was filmed on a mobile phone, posted on Youtube – and verified by her chiropracter. Fast forward to 2009 and Fran and a team from St Mark’s Woodthorpe, where she is a worship leader, have taken healing out on the streets of Mapperley. ‘H.O.T.S’ as it is known, started life one bitterly cold Saturday morning last December, and from slow beginnings has become a bit of a focal point in the precinct between 10am and 12.30. With the Healing banner fluttering and welcome chairs beckoning weary shoppers, the team of between four and six people hand out leaflets and chat to passers by. ‘Kermit’ green knee pads add a slightly bizarre touch, but they are put to good use, and are a ‘must-have’ for pavement prayer!
Twin Set and Girls There seems to be something special in the air at Selston. One set of identical twins in a congregation would not be unusual, two less likely, but four ... Let me introduce you to the oldest pair : Mrs Marion Warner and Miss Nora Langton. They are 96 years young and as different as pork and pomegranates, writes Jane Wyles. I spent a delightful afternoon with the nonagenarians at St Helen’s, Selston at the invitation of their vicar, the Revd Fiona Shouler, who told me that ‘the girls’ were very excited about the interview: “Marion sees it as a new dress opportunity. They talk for England and fight like six year olds and I love them as you may have gathered!” she said. They have been coming to this church since they were baptised as babies, and both still attend regularly. Nora was born half an hour before Marion and has been the bossy one ever since: “I love Marion to bits, we’re very different in temperament but love each other very much. I’m a realist and Marion’s an idealist,” and Nora agrees. Wisely, perhaps, they live separately; Marion in Selston and Nora in Pinxton...
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