23/2/25
Your weekly update from the Benwell & Scotswood Team.
Click below for the latest news from the parish and texts for worship.
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Dates for your Diary
24 Feb
12pm Our Adelaide Terrace Exhibition opens at St James
(Continues for 2 weeks)
5 March
1.15pm - Ash Wednesday service at St James
Time TBC - Lent bible study with Kathy at St John's
9 March
Exploring Faith group begins (continues throughout Lent - details TBC)
29 March
Centenary of Montagu Pit Disaster Commemoration at St Margaret's
30 March
11am - Mothering Sunday Team Service
Services this week
Sunday
9.30am - St John's Holy Communion
9.45am - St Margaret's Holy Communion
11am - Hub service (Parish Eucharist) at Ven Bede
Tuesday
4.30pm - Farsi Bible Study at St James
Thursday
10.30 am - Holy Communion at Ven Bede
News
Our Adelaide Terrace: Community celebration and Exhibition
Monday 24 Feb 2025
11.30 am - 3.00 pm
12pm at St James, NE15 6RS
The exhibition will stay up at St James for 2 weeks.
Our Adelaide Terrace: Community celebration is a free creative community celebration on Adelaide Terrace. This event is open to everyone, of all ages.
Meet at 11:30am under the ‘Welcome to Our Adelaide Terrace’ Billboard for the opening of the event, with an opportunity for a group photo! From 12pm you can explore artwork, crafts and performances created by local residents. The event includes:
St. James Church: Photo exhibition, workshops, poetry & performances, hot drinks & cakes (remains up for 2 weeks,
Patchwork Youth Project: Window Portrait Exhibition, drop-in art workshop.
Search Pop-In Centre: Warm space for older people, ‘Community’ and ‘Nostalgia’ craft activities.
Healthworks: Make your own Flower Basket, collect your Family Portraits.
West End Customer Services Centre and Library: Heritage photo display, Potted History, upcycled objects, family art workshops.
Coffee, cake and craft - a group for all women
Wednesday 26th Feb
This is a small and friendly group for women and is held on the 4th Wednesday of every month. It is at the Venerable Bede Church, West Road, NE4 8AP. We meet from 10am until 11am and then we have a short service, using the Morning Prayer order of service.
Come and join us, spend time with other women, share a coffee & cake and try a Bible related craft.
Exploring Faith
A group to explore, ask questions, and learn about the Christian faith.
When?
Beginning Sunday 9th March
Continues every Sunday until 13th April.
Time TBC
Who is it for?
Exploring faith is a non-pressurised group for anyone who is simply curious, anyone who wants to refresh their faith, and anyone who might want to take the next step of baptism or confirmation (and those who are just unsure!).
All ages, abilities, and backgrounds are welcome.
What will happen?
Depending on who would like to come, we may split into smaller groups for young people and speakers of other languages.
Our clergy and other lay leaders will guide us through different resources and bible passages, and discuss together what they might mean.
Contact & RSVP
You’re welcome to just turn up on the day. But to help us prepare, let us know if you want to come and any dietary requirements or if we can make any adaptations to help you join in the discussion.
If you have any other questions feel free to get in contact:
Centenary of the Montagu Pit Disaster
On Saturday 29th March there will be a drop-in event at St Margaret’s Church in Scotswood starting at 10.30am, followed by a service of commemoration at 2pm.
2025 marks the hundredth anniversary of the Montagu Pit Disaster in Scotswood when the pit flooded on 30th March killing 38 men and boys. This was the worst mining disaster in the Great Northern Coalfield between the wars, and is still remembered locally today.
There will be a number of events and activities taking place around that date to commemorate the disaster.
Embrace - Gaza appeal
Conflict across the Middle East is unfolding with relentless intensity, devastating the lives of millions. Even as they live through these dark times, Embrace’s partners in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are working tirelessly to bring the light of Christ amidst the suffering.
You can click below to donate online. If you would rather donate by phone, please call 01494 897950.
Sunday Worship
2 before Lent
Green
Intercessions
Prayers for others:
John Nicholson
Malcolm Smith
John Peterson
Maria Hawthorn
Herbert Agbeko
Pauline Nelson
Michelle & Peter Wilson
Alan & Maureen Taylor
Irene Foskett
Pat Law
Moe and Mary
Christina Wilson
Diane Humphrey
Rest in peace:
Joyce Foley
Carol Ann Briggs
If you would like to add someone to the prayer list please email church@benwellscotswood.com
The name will stay on the list for 1 month unless requested to be long-term.
Genesis 2.4b–9, 15–end
4 In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; 6but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— 7then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. 8And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. 16And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’
18 Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ 19So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. 21So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23Then the man said,‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.’24Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
Luke 8.22–25
22 One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake.’ So they put out, 23and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A gale swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. 24They went to him and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. 25He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’
Sermon
Marc Voase, Ordinand
Sermon: 23rd February 2025 – Benwell, St. Margaret and the Venerable Bede: The Second Sunday before Lent.
“The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” (Gen 4:7).
May I speak in the name of God +Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN
The scripture readings we hear today speak to us of God’s creation and God’s creativity. The same God whom we hear breathes life into the face of the earth at the beginning of the beginning, now breathes life into dust particles which become a living being.
In Hebrew, the words for ‘man’ and ‘earth’ - or ground as it’s translated in Genesis - are closely linked. adam and adamah. From the start of it all, the relationship between humanity and the natural environment has been intimate. At the beginning of Lent, Ash Wednesday in a couple of weeks’ time, we will hear the memorable phrase, “Remember you are dust and to dust (adamah) you shall return.” It is a line also recalled in the funeral service as a person’s body is committed back to the earth from whence it came, “earth to earth ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” This can be sad for those who mourn, but the reality of it can be helpful and comforting.
It comforts us because this is our faith – the thing we hope for even though we can’t actually see it. We believe and trust day by day, week on week, in a God who creates, delivers and restores to us the life that he brought to be in the beginning, when, “the earth was a formless void,” as Genesis tells us, “and darkness covered the face of the deep.” (Gen 1:2).
In the boat, on the stormy Sea of Galilee today, Jesus, the man of God does not remain sleeping as the disciples according to Luke’s gospel fear, but is alert, present and active to the unpredictable, chaotic situation of the weather pattern in which they find themselves. Jesus stops it; he turns the tide; he transforms and recreates the situation, and brings forth a different event; a new outcome. Terrifying for the disciples, but in the calm that follows, transformational. “Who then is this,” they ask as they are surprised, overwhelmed by the restoration of the peace, rest and joy that he gives as gift to them.
Do we wonder the same, perhaps, within our own storms or unpredictable, chaotic weather events: the things of ordinary life that frustrate, annoy, deceive or undermine us? Or if not us, then those we know – people who can never seem to get a break – situations in the church and in the world that never appear to change no matter how much we pray and try. Jesus got into the boat with his disciples.
As climate change alters the normative patterns of weather for us in these days, many people are experiencing and trying to live with unpredictability and to respond to the chaos presented to them.
The Church too, with our overwhelming faults and failings may only look to Jesus, who remembers we are dust, to transform and recreate us. We may be tempted to walk away; those who lead us have often got it so badly wrong but where else can we go? Who else has the words that breathe eternal life? Who else will remember and remake us out of the dust?
The climate change, the unpredictable weather chaos, whether literal or metaphorical, brings pain and confusion, certainly. But the Master cares if and when we are drowning. Jesus got into a boat with his disciples. That is why we can and should shout, “Hosanna in the highest”, for when we do so together in church, on our own and especially when we are or may be afraid or in danger, we are asking Jesus – the new adam - to save us, to restore us and to recreate us; to breathe back into us the life that was ours from the beginning and will be into eternity: we are asking to be born again to the life of faith that literally inspired us from before we were made. That life, as the apostle John reminds us, is the life of all people.
The human life that God knows in Jesus Christ is remembered to us every week in the wheat and grapes that become the bread and wine of the Eucharist. And as we eat and drink in remembrance that Christ died and lives for us today, so we can know ourselves remembered in him by these living signs of our faith and so be strengthened to share in the life of the very God who meets us in our humanity and gives us the gift of his divinity.
May that gift so overwhelm us again with its peace and calm that we may be a people who breathe its breath of love and joy into the world, and so give the kiss of life for which it so desperately longs.
+In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
AMEN