Castle Hall

The Town Council organise a Charities Fair on the last Saturday in November each year. Local charitable organisations are given the opportunity to site a stall in the Castle Hall to sell various items of produce.

Ann Clarke and her team will be setting up their stall for the church, selling the remaining bric a brac and books from the harvest fayre, and home-made cakes which are always popular.

The Castle Hall was originally the Catholic Apostolic Church built in 1850 in the Gothic style, but in 1970 the original window was blocked and the façade was replaced with a flat-roofed block of machine-made brick.

Now, the Town Council own the Hall as a large community facility It's licensed for wedding ceremonies and there is a purpose-built wedding room for the occasion. Additionally, there is a large hall with a stage and dance floor, bar, large fully equipped kitchen available for the use of caterers and a coffee lounge which has a self-contained kitchen area. The first floor of this building has been converted for use as a nursery school with two classrooms and toilet facilities. The nursery has use of the main hall for activities when there are no alternative bookings.
The Senior Citizens’ Day Centre use this facility three days per week and other day-time activities include short mat bowling, children’s gymnastics and dancing classes.The hall is available for private and group functions and the bar is run on a franchise system.

www.bridgnorth-anglican.org

The Bible - and its alternatives

Type 'the bible' into Google and you'll get 38,800,000 links, and 397 sponsored (ie paid for) links. Google helpfully suggests other searches you can try, related to 'the bible', to narrow down the possibilities, such as 'facts about the bible', 'king james bible', 'the bible for children', 'history of the bible', 'bible quotes', and 'the new testament'.


Limit your search to pages from the UK, and you'll get 1,580,000 links, and, intriguingly, 402 sponsored (paid for) links. Also extra on the UK result are two further suggestions to narrow your search; 'who wrote the bible', and 'the old testament'.

If you want an image of 'the bible', you've got 162,000 to choose from, and Google also suggests you search for an image using 'the holy bible', to narrow things down.

But what hadn't occurred to me until I read a piece of the BBC News website today, by Stephen Tomkins, is that there are loads of 'alternative' bibles, aiming to serve all needs and inclinations. He described a new edition, 'The Illuminated Bible', thus:














"Most people think of the Bible as a densely printed book with no pictures, but a version of the scripture that resembles a glossy coffee table magazine aims to change that. It's part of a wave of radical presentations of the Bible, including a manga version and a Lego gospel. But how do Christians feel about these attempts to spread the word?
It's the kind of magazine you might find in a doctor's waiting room next to Cosmopolitan or Reader's Digest. On the front is a pale face heavy with mascara. A flick through throws up striking images: urban flooding, a Nigerian abattoir, a girl eating noodles, a pooch in a limo.
It's only when and if you get round to reading the text that the incongruity strikes you: "Go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven." What kind of problem page is this?

BIBLE VERSION HISTORY
382: Jerome commissioned to tackle Latin Vulgate translation
1382: Wyclif's Bible, translations of Vulgate scripture into Middle English start to appear
1455: Gutenberg prints Bible using movable type
1522: Martin Luther translates New Testament into German
1526: Tyndale's English New Testament printed

Bible Illuminated is the latest attempt to bring the Bible into the modern world. In the format of a 300-page glossy magazine, it contains the whole text of the New Testament in a popular translation, with no chapter or verse numbers.
The images are by turns beautiful, violent, oblique and provocative - much like the book itself.
The text "She will have a son, and you will name him Jesus" is illustrated with a veiled Muslim.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is intrigued by the Manga Bible.
What he sees in the Bible is a profitable chance for people to look again at their world. "We are all affected by it," he says. "Morals are based on it, rightly or wrongly, government, laws. I'm saying to people: this is your history, read it.
"It's the most sold book in the world, but the least known. I want to take it off the shelves and put it on the coffee table."
It's the kind of thing that might provoke tuts and headshaking in the pews, one imagines. "Some people will feel it's dumbing down," says David Ashford of the Bible Society, an organisation that exists to "make the Bible heard". "How can it be the Bible when it's got Angelina Jolie in it?"












The Brick Testament is not exactly reverent. He, however, welcomes it with open arms. "You have to understand that what we think of as the traditional serious-looking leather-bound Bible is actually a relatively new format. In the Middle Ages, picture books - with people in contemporary dress - were the way most people read the Bible.
"At first the Bible was a collection of scrolls, then illustrated handwritten volumes. When printing was invented they were produced in Latin with pictures. Later they were published in plain closely printed text, in the common language, to get them into as many people's hands as cheaply as possible."

So, ironically, Soederberg's attempt to popularise the Bible by getting away from its traditional format is exactly what the people who created that format were doing.

If you're looking for an alternative way into the Bible, there's no shortage of versions to choose from.











In The Manga Bible, the British Christian Ajin-bayo Akinsiku, known as Siku, tells the whole story in the form of a graphic novel. Cain says to Abel, "Whassup, bro?" Noah loads animals onto the ark, saying, "That's 11,344 animals? Arggh! I've lost count again. I'm going to have to start from scratch!" Christ strides out of the desert like a Marvel superhero.
It skimps on some of the less bloodthirsty episodes like the sermon on the mount, but Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is a fan, liking the way it conveys "the shock and freshness of the Bible".

Former archbishop George Carey gave a thumbs up to the Cockney Bible
The rhyming slang version of the Bible was written by Mike Coles, an RE teacher in Stepney, and started life as stories he told to his classes. In it, Jesus feeds "five thousand geezers" with "five loaves of Uncle Fred and two Lillian Gish". The Lord's Prayer morphs from "For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory" to "You're the Boss, God, and will be for ever, innit?"

The Brick Testament online version by Brendan Powell Smith tells stories from the Bible using Lego. It started life in 2001 with stories from Genesis and today contains 391 stories with 4,214 illustrations. Though it is sometimes satirical or tongue-in-cheek, it is often used by churches and Sunday schools, and it's one of the versions that the Bible Society has welcomed as connecting people with the Bible in a new way.

And for the iPod generation, you can get the whole thing on your MP3 player, read and performed by a Hollywood cast, including Forest Whitaker as Moses, Cuba Gooding Jr as Jonah, and a possibly typecast Samuel L Jackson as God.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this new wave of Bibles is how sympathetic the church is to people messing about with its sacred scriptures, whether in wording or binding, no doubt reasoning that there can be some good in anything that gets people hearing its stories.

Read the whole article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7750842.stm

www.bridgnorth-anglican.org

Verger

Set up the church for funerals. Set it up for weddings. Prepare the church for services. Is it a Communion service? If so have we supplied enough bread. Has the p.a. system been switched on? Is there a battery in the mike? Are the toilets clean? Have all doors, including fire doors, been opened? Is there water in the pulpit for the clergy , etc, etc.

Verger (Virger): A lay official who carries a symbol of office before church dignitaries; also one who is responsible for cleanliness and good order in the church.

The office of verger has its roots in the earliest days of Anglican history. In earlier years vergers were responsible for the order of the house of worship, including preparations for the liturgy, the conduct of the laity, the care of the church building, and often grave-digging. They led processions holding their verge (a device akin to the battle mace) to discourage animals and unruly folk from interfering with the processions.

The Verger Today. Although modern vergers no longer dig graves or have to deal with animals and unruly folk, the office has evolved into a ministry that clergy throughout the Episcopal Church have come to appreciate within their congregations. Vergers often relieve the clergy of the burden of liturgical detail so that they can concentrate on their priestly duties to preach the Word and administer the Sacraments. No longer found primarily in cathedrals and large parishes, vergers are assets to small churches as well.

The Verge. The verge is a staff that a verger carries in procession. The name comes from the Latin virga, which simply means a rod or staff; hence, a verger is one who carries a staff. The verge has a history originating in the ceremonial maces carried before civic and ecclesiastical dignitaries. The Maces of State used in the House of Lords and the House of Commons of the British Parliament as well as the maces carried in academic processions in colleges and universities both in Great Britain and in the United States are examples of other modern uses of the medieval symbols. Originally a weapon used to clear the way for processions, the verge's use is now principally honorific.

The Verger’s Vestments. The basic vestment of a verger is a black cassock or a white alb. In some places, especially cathedrals, the cassock or alb may be of another color. Over the cassock or alb, when performing a ceremonial function, the verger wears a sleeveless gown somewhat resembling a bishop’s chimere.
Verging is a strictly Anglican form of lay ministry. One seldom finds it practiced in other branches of the Church.

confirmation

Welcome to the church family! It was wonderful to have the team confirmation service with so many new members being welcomed to our church family.

The church was full of family and friends to support our candidates - including some of our choir. Well done everyone - a beautiful service wonderfully led by our bishop, Anthony, and assisted by the Reverends Angela, Denise and Helen. We were so blessed, and hope our newly confirmed members enjoyed their special time.

What we now call confirmation was originally part of a wider ceremony of Christian initiation and only became a separate rite when bishops were no longer able to preside at all baptisms.
As a separate rite, confirmation marks the point in the Christian journey at which the participation in the life of God’s people inaugurated at baptism is confirmed by the bishop by the laying on of hands, and in which those who have been baptised affirm for themselves the faith into which they have been baptised and their intention to live a life of responsible and committed discipleship. Through prayer and the laying on of hands by the confirming bishop, the Church also asks God to give them power through the Holy Spirit to enable them to live in this way.

The Book of Common Prayer confirmation rite is brief. It consists of:
A declaration by the candidates that they renew the ‘solemn promise and vow’ made on their behalf at their baptisms. A prayer by the people led by the bishop asking that God will strengthen those who are confirmed with the Holy Spirit and that they will be given the sevenfold gifts of God’s grace mentioned in Isaiah 11:2.
The laying on of hands by the bishop with the words: ‘Defend. O Lord this thy child [or this thy servant] with thy heavenly grace, that he may continue thine for ever; and daily increase in thy Holy Spirit, more and more, until he come unto thy everlasting kingdom.’
Prayers led by the bishop in which it is asked that God’s Fatherly hand will be over the candidates, that His Holy Spirit will ever be with them and that they will be led by God to attain everlasting life.
Although the basic elements of the rite remain the same, The Common Worship Confirmation rite is longer and contains a number of additional elements:
It begins with the bishop asking the candidates to state whether they are ready to be baptised or have been baptised already and whether they are willing to affirm their faith in Jesus Christ. At this point candidates may be invited to give their testimony – a brief statement about how God has brought them to this point in their lives.
The bishop then asks the candidates to repeat the renunciation of the devil and all that is evil and the declaration of turning to Christ from the baptism service.
If there are any candidates who have not been baptised they are next baptised by the bishop. After this has taken place all the candidates join with the bishop and the rest of the congregation in reciting the Apostles’ Creed as an expression of the Christian faith into which they were baptised and which they are now affirming for themselves. They may then be signed or sprinkled with water as a reminder of their baptism and of their need to remain faithful to the commitment to God that their baptism involved.
Using words based on Isaiah 11:2, the bishop leads the people in praying for the Holy Spirit to rest upon those being confirmed and following this confirmation prayer the bishop addresses each candidate by name and says:
‘[Name] God has called you by name and made you his own.’
The bishop then lays his hand on the head of each candidate, saying
‘Confirm, O Lord, your servant [Name] with your Holy Spirit.’
Each candidate replies Amen..
When all have been confirmed in this way, the bishop invites the congregation to join with him in praying:
‘Defend, O Lord, these your servants with your heavenly grace,
that they may continue yours for ever,
and daily increase in your Holy Spirit more and more
until they come to your everlasting kingdom. Amen.’
The bishop may then use words of commissioning in which the candidates are able to express their determination, with the help of God, to live a life of Christian discipleship and the candidates may also be anointed with oil as an additional sign of their anointing by the Holy Spirit.

Quatford - our mother church

Margaret Bradley is one of the church wardens at St Mary Magdalene at Quatford. She wrote this introduction piece for the welcoming service for our new curate.

Quatford is a village three miles south-east of Bridgnorth on the Kidderminster Road. The church is the oldest in the team, founded in 1086 and enlarged over the centuries. It has a wonderful atmosphere which is always remarked upon by visitors.

When I moved into Bridgnorth 19 years ago from a nearby village, I hadn't been to church for three years, my first lapse, but was asked by a friend to go to Quatford, and found such warmth and friendship there that I felt at home right away.

We are a small congregation week by week, but no visitor comes without receiving a warm welcome, even at Christmas carol service when the church is packed - no stranger goes unnoticed.

Our services are varied and aim to meet the spiritual needs of all. Come on the first Sunday of the month and you will find tambourines, maraccas and all sort of instruments in use. But the following week, there is a quieter atmosphere with communion from the Book of Common Prayer.

Our small, faithful congregation accept all services equally, and we have amazed ourselves, especially I think, at our vigorous playing of the tambourines!

We look forward to welcoming Helen when she comes to visit us at Quatford, and all wish her well. I would add that with our unique lift, there is no longer the necessity to climb the thirty-four steps to our door, which has been the lot of worshippers for centuries. The lift is proof of our intention to keep our church alive in the twenty-first century, as it was in the twelfth, to continue to share the warmth and friendship which welcomed me.

Messy Church

Surely it's what anyone creative would want church to be like.

‘Messy Church’ is a mixture of games, art and craft, food, worship – and quite a lot of mess.

The monthly after-school event draws together children and adults for a new way of finding out about faith. They learn not by listening to someone telling them what to think, but by choosing which activities to do and discovering for themselves. It starts at the end of the school day. Children dash in to have a go at games and colouring laid out for them. Adults chat with them and with each other over Connect 4, Hungry Hippos and much-needed coffee.

When everyone is there, Messy Church starts properly. Around the room are tables, each of which features a different art or craft activity related to the theme, and each with a leader to help all-comers. Everyone chooses which activities they want to do, sometimes with the people they’ve come with, sometimes with friends or on their own and learn through cutting, pasting, creating and cooking. By the time they’ve finished, everyone - old and young - may be covered in paint, glue or dirt as they show off their exquisite items of craft.

Then there’s a short act of worship including songs, prayers and a short epilogue.

Finally there’s tea. A hot meal is an important part of Messy Church as it expresses the church’s hospitality and means parents don’t have to go home and cook. Pasta, potatoes with fillings, sausages, curries … everyone tries to guess what it’s going to be this time as the cooking smells fill the room. Many children and adults just love being messy, so that’s a real attraction for them! We take a lot of care thinking about activities that will be fun, but that will also have a point to them. And they learn so much more by actually doing these things rather than being told about them.

The Once-a-month Not-on-a-Sunday Messy Church!

Have you thought about going to church but Sundays just seem to be too busy?
Do you feel like you're a taxi service for your children as you take them from one activity to another?
Would you like to spend some quality time as a family while learning more about God?
Would you like to meet other families in your area?
Then Messy Church is just for you....

A relaxed and informal church with a warm welcome for the whole family with crafts, songs, drama, food - and plenty of opportunity to have fun and make a mess!
*Children - a place to meet new friends, learn new things
Mums, dads, grandads, grandmas - a place to spend quality time with your children and grandchildren and make links with other families
*Young people - with a pool table, music, table tennis and a chance to help younger brothers and sisters
The format
3.30pm - 4.30pm
Messy Craft - An hour of craft and other activities in the church hall
4.30pm - 4.45pm
Messy Worship - A short time of celebration in the church as we draw together everything we've been looking at today
4.45pm - 5.30pm
Messy Meal - No need to rush home to feed the family - relax and have a meal with us

There is no charge for Messy Church which is supported and run by local Christians from various churches in the neighbourhood, although donations are always gratefully received.

Will Messy Church come to Bridgnorth?

Bell Ringing

Bell ringing is the ultimate team activity. By becoming a bell ringer, you join a tradition dating back 400 years.

Why learn to ring?

It's a great mental workout

You'll maintain a traditional skil

It's a service to the church

It's a team activity and you'll join a global group of friends

It's a lifelong learning experience

You could have the opportunity to visit amazing places

Once you've got the bug, it's hard to give up: 'I learnt to ring over forty years ago and I still get the same buzz that I did when I first started'.

What's Bell Ringing all about?

Bell ringing is a team activity that stimulates the brain and helps keep you fit.. it also makes a glorious sound! Many consider ringing to be thir contribution to church life; others do it for the pure pleasure it brings.

Ringers come from all walks of life and range in age from ten to those in their eighties.

'When I'm ringing I forget all the tensions and frustrations of the day. Even better, you couldn't wish for a nicer group of friends!'

Change Ringing

The origins of change ringing lie in the sixteenth century when church bells began to be hung with a full wheel. This gave ringers control of their bell, which allowed sets of bells (rings) to be rung in a continuously changing pattern.

Music is created by moving bells up and down the ringing order to a defined sequence of changes known as a method. Learning a few simple methods allows ringers to join in with other bands in towers around the world.

'One of the delights of change ringing is the endless opportunity to learn new things'.

Could you become a ringer?

'If you can ride a bicycle, you can ring!'

Ringing is well within the capabilities of most people. The initial teaching takes several weeks, after which a learner can begin to ring with the rest of the band. Most ringers practise once or twice a week and ring before or after church on Sundays.

'Being able to count is all the maths needed and you can become a very good ringer knowing nothing about music.'

At St Mary Magdalene in Bridgnorth, we have eight bells, the tenor being 8cwt. We regularly ring such methods as plain hunt and bob doubles; we practice Wednesday evenings, ring Sunday mornings, and are available for weddings! New ringers or trainees are welcome - we're a friendly bunch and you don't have to be a churchgoer.

If you'd like to visit the bell tower at St Mary Magdalene, or find out more about joining or learning, email mailbox@bridgnorth-anglican.org