Spring Newsletter 2015: Article

Dear Friends

Welcome to Spring! One of my favorite images in the Cape is the fresh green oak leaves that appear at this time of year, almost translucent. The clivias in their prolific orange are also a treat for the eye, as are the bursts of pink and purple, and the variety of blossom that greets us in the great outdoors. The days grow lighter earlier, and the sunset holds the dark at bay that little bit longer each day. Summer beckons, and Capetonians creep quietly from their winter hibernation, or fly home. The Church pews fill, and life begins again.

Not that winter has been lifeless; far from it! July saw Dawn and I celebrate our 50th Birthdays, and we much appreciated the many who joined us on Mandela Day to celebrate: a wonderful sense of belonging as friends old and new played tag at the front door. The accompanying pictures demonstrate the unexpected generosity of gifts; and thanks to all who brought a plate of food to share. The added gift of sunshine after a week of drenching rain added to the festive nature of the day. "Thing One" and "Thing Two" shared a glorious birthday!

August sawn Dawn and I, together with our daughter Cassie, heading to England for a family-filled three weeks. We were joined by our son, Nathan, and our granddaughter, Rebecca-Lee, for the final week. We spent the first week with my parents in Surrey and travelled daily into a London immersion of St Paul's Cathedral (where we "did the dome", climbing the five hundred plus steps to the top) with its amazingly beautiful mosaic ceilings depicting various aspects of creation; the Tate Modern where I enjoyed Picasso for the first time, and discovered from my daughter that Modern Art is all about cloud watching (images appear and disappear as you stare into the amorphous mess of paint on canvas); a tour of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace with their opulence and pomp of royalty (a really well put together tour); and time with my brothers, their wives and their children.
     We then headed to Cheshire, visiting the Michael's in Winchester on the way, a beautiful town with an amazing Cathedral. In Cheshire we visited the Moore side of my family, enjoying a family gathering on the Sunday, a visit to the family caravan on Anglesey and a final dinner together at the Stretton Fox; a visit to St Beuno's Retreat Centre in Wales, and a return visit to the beautiful Chester Cathedral. We then headed for our Long Family Gathering in Devon, near Exeter, via Oxford for an afternoon of exploration and to London to collect Nathan and Rebecca-Lee. Oxford was amazing in a short period of time, walking from Magdalene College up to the Carfax Tower, returning via Christ Church College (more recently of Harry Potter fame) and the Botanical Gardens, stopping in to visit the University Church of St Mary the Virgin (an intriguing space with not one cross visible, and a beautiful portrait of the Virgin and Child behind the altar) where Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer were condemned for their reformist ways and led to their deaths to be burnt at the stake.
     We had a wonderful Long Family Gathering in Aylesbeare - the main reason for our visit - filling a ten bedroom house with twenty three of us, four generations! We went swimming in the sea at Dawlish Warren, walking along the coastal path at Ladram Bay, and visited the seaside village of Beer (the source of Exeter Cathedral's stone), and Buckfast Abbey (a working Catholic Benedictine Monastry), and Exeter Cathedral, in between serious challenges at the pool table, much good food and family fellowship.

While visiting St Beuno's Retreat Centre in Wales, Dawn picked up a pamphlet that contained the following quote by Pope Benedict XVI:

Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.

One might be tempted, visiting various Cathedral's in England, to think that these buildings were inspired by lofty ideas. However, when one considers the commitment, often of more than one and sometimes many generations, to the building of these incredible symbols of a glorious God, one becomes aware of a generation's encounter with something of substance that led to projects that continued to inspire future generations, that continue to creat new horizons of awareness every time one enters these magnificent structures; projects that gave decisive direction over long periods of time to generation after generation, and even today to the curious tourist like myself. Chester and Exeter Cathedrals, despite their size and incredible soaring Gothic architecture still manage to create a sense of intimacy even in their larger spaces for worship, a sense of this great and glorious God being accessible and available.

And I am challenged to ask, "Are we building similarly, not necessarily in stone and mortar, for future generations? Or in this consumerist culture that we've embraced, are we building only for ourselves?" It's an important question.

Blessings
Mark

Family and Youth Services/Events

Dear Friends

One of our core spaces for faith development as Anglicans is our immersion in sacramental worship. We know this as adults, but often forget this when it comes to our children. And we are surprised when our children in the suburban context often wander off as teenagers and young adults, despite their lack of exposure to sacramental worship in their formative years. At St Andrew's we offer the following opportunities for our children and Teenagers immersion in worship:

Morning Family Services

Our next quarterly morning Family Service takes place this Sunday, 21 June 2015, at 09:00. We recognise that it is difficult to keep younger children engaged for an extended period of worship, but really do encourage parents to persevere! Our older children and Teenagers are encouraged to directly participate with the readings and prayers, and the younger children to have time out of the pews by coming forward to sit in front for the participative sermon, and later in the service to join us around the altar for the Eucharistic prayer where we consecrate the bread and wine. Parents are also welcome to come forward where younger children may be anxious to do so on their own.

Evening Family-focused Services

We offer a monthly evening Family-focused Service for families with Teenagers or young adults who wish to worship together. Church Council has agreed that these now take place on the 4th Sunday of each month, and our next Family-focused Service will take place on Sunday 28 June 2015 at 18:30. School holidays, exams and long-weekends do prove a challenge to these events, and again some perseverance is required! Again, opportunity for our young people to be directly involved in readings, prayers and sidepersons duties, is offered. We seek to keep this service more informal in nature. Refreshments (Pizza!) are offered on the lawn after the service.

Archdeaconry Youth Services

At Archdeaconry level (we belong to the Archdeaconry of Rondebosch, which includes Rondebosch, Claremont, Newlands, and Protea) the involvement of our youth is a concern for all our Churches. We at St Andrew's will host the next Archdeaconry Youth Service on Sunday 26 July 2015 at 18:30. This will combine with our July Family-focused Service, and it will be great to have our youth and families participating, please.

Youth Event

Raymond Quinlan is organising a hike for our Teenagers up Plattekloof Gorge to the top of Table Mountain on Saturday 27 June 2015, 09:00 for 09:30. He would be keen for parents or other members of the Parish to join him for this. Raymond can be contacted on 0824277174 or raymondquinlan@hotmail.com if you are interested in participating.

Blessings
Mark

Family-focused Service in May

Dear Friends

Our next family-focused service takes place on Sunday 10 May 2015 at 18:30. A reminder that the idea behind this service is to give families with Teenagers and Young Adults an opportunity to worship together on occasion. This service remains open to all who would like to attend, but we do specifically ask those families with Teenagers/Young Adults to make the effort to join us for these occasional services. We will serve refreshments (Pizza!) afterwards on the lawn.

It has been our plan to hold these services regularily on the 2nd Sunday of the month to create some continuity and expectation. We are, however, struggling this year as this particular Sunday keeps falling either in the holidays or on a long weekend (not to mention exams, etc) so our apologies for the present lack of continuity!

See you on Sunday 10 May!!

Blessings
Mark

Feedback: Family-focused Evening Service

Hi, Everyone

We had a wonderful turn-out at our first Family-focused Evening Service on Sunday 8 June 2014. I received a number of very positive comments from people at the door, and some warm smiles from some of the younger people present.

We did some reflection at our Church Council meeting last week, with various thoughts being expressed. One comment was that it was not that different from Sunday Mornings and it may be difficult to sustain our teenagers interest in the medium to long-term. Another comment reflected that our initial stated aim was to provide an opportunity for families with teenagers and young adults to have an opportunity on occasion to worship together, rather than a full-on Youth-focused event.

The initial thought had been to develop this event aware that there is an established group of people who enjoy the present less-formal format of our evening services, and that the informality may be a more conducive environment for drawing younger members of our community into worship. I am also aware that what we put in place needs to be sustainable in terms of our resources and worship skills, and congruent with who we are. 

Feed-back from the wider St Andrew's community will be appreciated. If you are a family that attended, or perhaps have had a conversation with someone who was there, please let me have your thoughts and input towards our next service. Perhaps you were not able to be present, but have some insight? Please share!Due to School holidays in July our next Family-focused Evening Service will take place on Sunday 10 August 2014 at 18:30 - see you there!

Blessings
Mark

Family Focus: An Invitation

Dear Friends

What defines family? A traditional image is often "Mum, Dad, and the Kids". But family is more than this, and less. A single person is a family of one; some families are child-headed; others are single-parented; same-sex couples adopt children; death and divorce bring pain and chaos; new relationships bring renewed joy and hope.Tradition and new ways of being family all need to inform our picture and definition of family life. Family is less about the individuals that make up family and more about the relationships that build family. And so when we speak of "family-focus" we need to encourage each other to be as broad and embracing as possible of family life in all its variety.

Having said the above, we are aware at St Andrew's that we do not cater well for teenagers and young adults, and that there are families who feel somewhat torn as their teenagers in particular are drawn away to Churches that are more youth-focused, perhaps offering more trendy and exciting options for worship and fellowship; or who no longer enjoy our more traditional form of worship, and would rather just stay at home.

One option that we are exploring is to invite families with teenagers and young adults to join us on the second Sunday of each month in the evening at our service at 18:30. This service is generally an informal form of Evening Prayer with guitars and music from Songs of Fellowship. Of course, though, while we seek to be intentional about offering families with young people an opportunity for worshiping together, the service remains open to all who already participate on a Sunday evening, and to all forms of family!

In light of the above I write to invite you to join us on Pentecost Sunday, 8 June 2014 at 18:30, for a Family-focused Service of Evening Prayer.

Blessings
Mark